Board of Education bill tests GOP unity

CARSON CITY -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio lost a rare floor battle Friday when a bill he supports to change the makeup of the state Board of Education and make the superintendant of public instruction an appointed position by the governor was rerouted to another committee.

Raggio wanted Senate Bill 540 amended and returned to the full Senate for a final vote so it could go to the Assembly.

But senators raised concerns that the measure contained major policy changes that were not heard by the Senate Human Resources and Education Committee. The bill instead was heard by the Finance Committee.

Sen. Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, said the amendment also would allow the governor to place items on the State Board of Education agenda. He asked for "some justification for why these provisions are being requested."

Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, asked that the bill be referred to the policy panel, the Human Resources Committee, for a hearing.

Raggio, R-Reno, objected, saying that such a move only would delay processing of the bill in the waning days of the session. The bill had full hearings in Senate Finance, and all those interested in the measure attended, he said.

The measure was referred properly to Finance because of a fiscal note, Raggio said.

"I view this as an attempt to just delay the processing of the bill and cause it to die," he said.

But Sen. Maurice Washington, R-Sparks, the chairman of the policy committee, opposed Raggio, saying he had to "reluctantly" disagree to the proposal to pass the bill out of the Senate.

"There are a lot of policy changes in here that need to be taken a look at," he said.

Titus' motion was supported by enough members of the Senate, including Washington and a few other Republican senators, to move the bill to the Human Resources Committee. Washington said the bill will be given a hearing today.

It was a rare case in which Republicans did not hold together on a vote on the Senate floor. All session long, when partisan issues have come up, Republicans have won out on consistent 11-10 votes.

Another unusual event occurred Friday on the same measure on the Senate floor.

Concerns were raised by several Democratic lawmakers about the amendment to the bill because of the major policy changes involved. All 11 members of the Board of Education are now elected, and the superintendant is appointed by the elected board, not the governor.

When a vote was taken on the amendment, all 10 Democrats objected. Because one Republican member of the Senate, Sen. Dennis Nolan, R-Las Vegas, was absent, the motion to adopt the changes was tied 10-10, which would have meant that it failed.

But Senate President Brian Krolicki, who is also the lieutenant governor and a Republican, voted with the Republicans to break the tie. A vote by the Senate president is authorized on procedural matters, but one occurs rarely.

A legal opinion found that the vote on the amendment was a procedural matter.