Thursday, October 24, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

GOVERNOR

The only outstanding issue in the governor's race is whether incumbent Kenny Guinn can beat Richard Bryan's record.

Democrat Bryan defeated Republican Patty Cafferata by almost a 3-to-1 margin in the 1986 governor's race. Several polls have shown Republican Guinn will beat his Democratic challenger, state Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, by better than a 3-1 margin in the Nov. 5 election.

He hasn't said it publicly, but Guinn thought the race was over in May when he saw he had raised $3 million and learned Neal would be his Democratic opponent. He shut down his fund-raising apparatus. Guinn's billboards finally are up and his TV advertisements are running, but he won't come close to spending all the money he has raised.

Neal, a 30-year state senator and the first black to win a major party nomination for Nevada governor, has grown increasingly discouraged about his chances. He admits he has no money for any television advertisements and only a little for radio.

Also bidding for the governorship are four little-known candidates: Independent American David Holmgren, independent Jerry Norton, Libertarian Richard Geyer and Green Party candidate Charles Laws. None of them has the money to mount a serious campaign. Norton grew so disgusted about his inability to raise funds that he has stopped running and thrown his support to Guinn.

"Guinn is running as the gaming candidate," said Neal, who has a bachelor's degree in political science from Southern University in Baton Rouge, La. "He plays their game very well. I am running against gaming."

For years, Neal has campaigned unsuccessfully in the Legislature for a 4 percentage point increase in the state's 6.25 percent gross gaming tax, the lowest in the nation. The increase would bring an additional $400 million a year to state coffers.

He contends the more than 40 million visitors to Nevada each year are temporary residents who use the services of full-time Nevadans. The gaming industry brings the visitors to the state and must pay more to cover the services they use, Neal said.

Guinn hasn't decided how much of a tax increase he will support at the 2003 Legislature or what taxes should be raised, but he says Neal is wrong in his drive to tax only gaming.

"All he wants to do is tax gaming," the governor said. "That won't work anymore."

The Governor's Task Force on Tax Policy doesn't have to complete its recommendations for tax increases until Nov. 15. But task force members are shooting for almost $500 million a year in new taxes, with money tentatively coming from a gross receipts tax, taxes on amusements like movies and video rentals and increases in cigarette, liquor and property taxes.

"I am going to be a realist," Guinn said about his coming decisions on taxes. "I know people are hurting. But we have cut the fat out of state government. Now we are down to the muscle, and it is difficult to cut any more. We are beginning to struggle mightily, but I know people also are struggling with their businesses."

He said 350,000 additional people moved into Nevada during his first term in office, and state government has a budget that has been flat for four years.

"We didn't know about 9-11 when we did the budget" early last year, said Guinn, a former Clark County School District superintendent who holds a doctorate in education from Utah State University. "Before then, we were in pretty good shape. It is going to be very bleak."

Despite the state's financial woes, Guinn looks back at the successes of his term. About 15,000 students are attending Nevada colleges under his Millennium Scholarship program, which gives them up to $2,500 a year in tuition assistance. About 7,500 senior citizens receive low-cost prescription drugs through his SeniorRx program.

He said he is gratified by the support he has received from residents and will work hard for them during the next four years. Guinn said he missed only five days of work after he underwent prostate cancer surgery in September.

During recuperation at his Las Vegas home, Guinn presided over state meetings by telephone and continued performing the duties of his office.

While he will support Guinn, Norton said the governor is "too much in the back pocket of special interest groups." Norton, a cabdriver who has attended two colleges, said he stopped campaigning because too many people told him they won't contribute in a race that Guinn has locked up.

Holmgren also has limited funds and is using only his personal resources in the campaign. Holmgren is a Hawthorne area rancher who has been traveling around the state to support fellow ranchers like the Dann sisters in their disputes against the Bureau of Land Management.

The BLM has warned Holmgren it may confiscate his 500 cattle over a water rights dispute. He is disturbed because the federal government owns 87 percent of the land in Nevada, an inequity that he maintains keeps the state from prosperity.

"It boils downs to economics," said Holmgren, a high school graduate. "No wonder the rural counties are broke. If you cannot control your land, you can't control your destiny. The federal government has encroached on our ability to prosper."

Libertarian Geyer entered the race to make a point that, if Guinn is re-elected, then residents will be burdened with taxes.

"This is my way of saying to the governor, `No More Taxes,' " said Geyer, who has a degree in economics from Princeton University. "Taxes will hurt job growth and investment and be against the best interests of citizens."

Laws has concentrated on the need to protect the environment and fight the transportation of high-level nuclear waste to the state.

"We need to focus our energy on making our communities inhabitable for our children and grandchildren," said Laws, who has a master's degree in environmental engineering from Harvard University.