The Nevada Sagebrush

Nevada student Kestrel Schmidt, middle, and her mom Wendy Baylor, left, celebrate the presidential election results last week at the Grand Sierra Resort. Photo by Amy Beck.

With Democratic wins across Nevada, power has shifted within the state legislature. Given a mandate and a near supermajority, the Democrats have the opportunity to solve the state’s budget woes, but some worry ideology will keep them from finding a solution.

The new majority in the Nevada Legislature holds the possibility of finding new revenue sources, like increasing or creating new taxes.

Democrats picked up a supermajority in the state assembly with 28 seats to the Republicans’ 14. The Democrats were also two seats away from a supermajority in the senate with 12 seats to the Republicans’ nine. A supermajority is a two-thirds bloc that allows the legislature to overrule a veto from the governor.

“If the senate Democrats can find two Republicans, the legislature can pretty much render Gov. Jim Gibbons obsolete,”said David Damore, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

If the legislature decides to raise new revenue, it may have to rely on the possibility of a veto-proof supermajority to push tax plans past Gibbons, who has been against raising taxes since his election in 2006.

“This is definitely going to be a tough session,”Assemblyman David Bobzien (D-Reno) said. “We’ve heard numbers this week as high as 30 percent, which is very disconcerting.”

Bobzien said students’ voices would be an important factor in the legislature’s decision of how much to cut from NSHE’s budget.

“UNR students are responsible to speak-out for students, they can make the drive to Carson City and be a part of the legislative session,”he said, referring to UNR’s close proximity to the capital relative to the state’s other institutions.

Two new members were also elected to the NSHE Board of Regents, removing the experience of incumbent Bret Whipple for new member Robert Blakely. William Cobb was also elected to serve as a regent.

“There’s going to be a big change to the board,”said regent Jason Geddes, who won reelection last Tuesday. “The new members will have to bring themselves to speed real fast.”

This prospect did not worry Cobb.

Cobb said to overcome the challenge of learning how to be a regent, he has already met with campus presidents in the northern half of the state and planned to meet with NSHE Chancellor Jim Rogers’ staff and campus presidents in the south this week.

“You know, the new people will hopefully bring in some new ideas,”Cobb said. “I think that’s what we need right now.”

Howard Rosenberg, a regent who will finish his term in January and professor at UNR, said experience was hardly the most important issue facing regents.

“All of the Members of the Board of Regents, those who are presently seated and those taking seats in January, will face some of the most difficult decisions any Board Members have faced before,”Rosenberg wrote in an e-mail.

Cobb said he hopes the new Democratic power in the legislature will create new sources of revenue that may reduce the size of additional cuts facing NSHE. Recent reports show the latest round of budget cuts may encompass as much as 30 percent of the state budget.

“There may be new opportunities for revenue that may have been overlooked under the governor’s ‘no-new-taxes plan,’ “Cobb said.

Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, warned that if legislature Democrats tried to be too ideological while seeking those new opportunities for revenue, they will fail.

“If the Democrats can session a tax policy that isn’t so extreme, then they succeed,”he said.

Geddes said he was unsure the shift in power would bring substantial change to the funding of higher education in the state.

“Regardless of who’s in power, there’s still a lot of work to be done to the state’s budget,”he said. “The Nevada Legislature has always been 63 people working for a better Nevada. This isn’t going to change that.”

2008 Nevada Election

• Democrats now hold a veto-proof supermajority in the Nevada state assembly.
• Democrats are two votes away from a veto-proof supermajority in the Nevada state senate.
• This is the first time since Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons’s election in 2006 that he has had to face a Nevada Legislature with both houses under Democratic control.

Nevada Sagebrush reporter Jessica Estepa contributed to this story. Jay Balagna can be reached at jbalagna@nevadasagebrush.com.

Related Posts:

• Time has come to recall Gibbons
• Local elections important but often ignored
• Private property permits mosque construction
• Media constructs Ground Zero controversy
• Arizona bill could lead to legal, constitutional problems