Dini leaves legislative legacy others should replicate

Hundreds of the late Assembly Speaker Joe Dini’s friends and politicians of both parties gathered in Yerington last Tuesday to remember a man who worked in Carson City when being a politician wasn’t a bad word.

One wonders how many will listen to the advice he gave in the last interview our newspaper conducted, in his home in Yerington last year?

Democrat Dini complained vociferously about how Nevada’s state Legislature is no longer a place where the two parties work together in relative harmony, finish their business and go home as friends. Politics is now war.

“They need to have a couple of highballs together,” he said. “They need to put aside their differences and work for the good of the state, take care of issues for average people. They need to come up with a plan for the future of the state.”

Dini was not just talking about politicians getting a buzz on together in the local bar. He was talking about politicians from one party finding benefits in legislation advanced by the other party. Becoming friendly opponents, maybe even friends.

Remember, he delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Assemblyman Lou Bergevin, R-Gardnerville. Bergevin had been his key adversary, the Republican leader of the Assembly.

Since Dini, the eight-time Assembly speaker, retired in 2002 after 36 years of legislative service, the Nevada Legislature has become like Congress. No one wants to compromise. In the Assembly, it has become the norm to ignore bills proposed by the minority party, which since 1985 has been the Republicans.

Carson City is not Washington, D.C. You must balance the budget. You must finish business in 120 days. You can act tough for the folks back home by asserting you will never compromise, but you don’t accomplish anything.

Mr. Speaker was a legislative Democrat from rural Nevada. Today, there are no such creatures. The rural Nevada legislative contingent is all Republican. When Dini entered the Legislature in 1967, rural Democrats frequently held leadership posts. Norm Glaser was the Democrat Senate taxation chairman from Halleck, near Elko. Grant Sawyer was a two-time Democrat governor from Elko.

Having Democrats worked for rural Nevada. The community college system in rural Nevada largely was built during those years. Is it any surprise the legislators gutted their budgets in the 2013 session? Who was there to champion their cause from the ruling Democratic Party?

Do you think community college budgets would have been cut if Joe Dini had been speaker? No. They likely would have been increased, and both Republicans and Democrats would have supported the expenditures.

This man was no saint. I distinctly remember the 1989 session, when Dini gleefully vowed to stick it to Gov. Bob Miller and shove a 300 percent pension increase for legislators into law. That was a major blunder. Because of the public outcry, legislators eventually begged Miller to call a special session so that they could repeal that increase.

In his retirement, Dini received a legislative pension of less than $900 a month. He should have received a lot more, but the 300 percent figure just sounded enormous. And after that error, no legislator would risk calling for even a modest legislative pension increase.

But the man knew politics in Nevada depends on compromise. It is no coincidence that the worst legislative session in state history occurred in 2003, the year after Dini retired. That was the session when taxes were increased by more than $800 million and work was not finished until July 22, following two special sessions and a questionable Supreme Court decision allowing tax increases by a simple majority, despite the constitution requiring a two-thirds majority.

We needed a Joe Dini then, and we need him again in the 2015 session. But Mr. Speaker has taken his seat at an even more important Legislature. The gavel has sounded. No one cares about party labels.

Ed Vogel is the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s capital bureau chief in Carson City.