It’s a Nastygram from Bill Raggio

In the high-stakes poker game that is the 2009 Legislature, Republican Bill Raggio has laid down his cards. No raise. No call.

Not that anyone's surprised. The easiest mark of the session has been showing his tax-hiking tells since Election Day. With state revenues falling alongside the fortunes of this state's tourism industry, the sympathies of the state Senate minority leader indisputably lie with those of big-spending majority Democrats.

They're counting on Raggio's vote and his ability to convert at least one other member of his caucus to provide Democrats with the two-thirds majority needed to raise taxes, inflate Gov. Jim Gibbons' scaled-back budget and override an expected Gibbons veto.

What is surprising, however, is the Reno lawmaker's hypersensitivity to the fact that he's living down to conservatives' dreadfully low expectations of him. Nevada's longest-serving senator, an 82-year-old legend who's fiercely protective of his image as a statesman above partisanship, blew a gasket last week over a relatively innocuous blog entry signed by a powerless rural assemblyman.

Raggio's defensive overreaction was another discouraging sign for Republicans trying to hold the line on tax increases. That Raggio would effectively throw his party under the bus a little more than a week into this pivotal session bodes even worse for Republican election prospects in 2010 and beyond.

Mount Raggio's eruption was triggered by Assemblyman Ed Goedhart, R-Amargosa Valley, who early last week posted and distributed to legislative colleagues a well-explained list of four conditions for tax increases: sunsetting any hikes; making any tax reforms revenue-neutral; the imposition of a state spending cap; and limiting federal stimulus money to existing programs and one-shot expenses.

Goedhart got an unsigned assist on the list from conservative activist and Nevada media barnstormer Chuck Muth, a relentless critic of Raggio's.

Goedhart is serving in his second regular session as part of a Republican minority that holds only one-third of the Assembly's 42 seats. Unlike Raggio, they have no leverage.

The best they can do is advocate conservative positions, call out majority Democrats for being secretive about their big-government, tax-hiking plans and agitate upper-house Republicans to support them and their under-represented constituents.

The blog entry was so civil it was squishy -- kind of like a Las Vegas Sun editorial. It didn't mention Raggio or any other lawmaker by name. Whatever Muth's contributions to the policy positions, they were remarkably restrained. Had Muth fired off his normal handiwork, flames would have streaked down the margins and the whole thing would have been, well ... a whole lot funnier.

But Raggio smelled Muth's involvement, so the senator went off on Goedhart.

"Since you indicate that 'you have no intention of voting for any tax increase of any kind,' you really have removed yourself from being any part of a potential solution to solving our serious budget crisis," Raggio said.

"I have some long-term experience in this legislative process, and I really don't think I benefit from the 'advice' that you are offering. ...

"In the future, if you want to give me a message or talk with me, be a man and come and see me in person."

It was pretty brash stuff from a guy who only last summer took the same hard line he now ridicules Goedhart for following. Recall that Raggio narrowly defeated former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle in August's primary election by assuring voters that yes, he was a bona fide fiscal conservative. During that campaign, he unequivocally stated: "This is not the time to start talking about raising taxes. It is something that we can't even consider."

Yet Goedhart suggests possible compromises to accompany tax increases, and he's cast aside as an inexperienced know-nothing? If Raggio stuck to this kind of rhetoric last year, Angle would have crushed him.

What was most amusing about the exchange, however, is the fact that Raggio challenged Goedhart to "be a man and come see me in person" not by walking the walk and knocking on the assemblyman's door, but by sending an e-mail. Nastygram from Sen. Raggio! Talk about passive-aggressive behavior.

And if he's upset that Muth served as a ghost writer for at least portions of Goedhart's proposals, how does he think Goedhart feels about Raggio's missive to "ensure delivery of 'essential services' "? Good lord, the man is practically stealing Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley's talking points.

Goedhart is doing what legislative Republicans should be doing -- taking the positions GOP voters elected them to take, putting forward their ideas and principles in the absence of specific proposals from majority Democrats.

If they make Raggio uncomfortable, good. He took the expedient path to his final term in office. He told voters one thing to get re-elected and appears ready to do another.

For Raggio, it has always been about "being any part of a potential solution." It's been about the process of making deals, of being in the room when the agreement is reached. So what if the "potential solution" doesn't mesh with your party's philosophy? It was bad enough when Raggio warmly embraced the record tax increases of 2003. This year, he has proved beyond a doubt that he stands for nothing.

The great irony of Raggio's e-mail blowup is that he's convinced he's the real Republican in all this. Everyone else in the GOP is an anarchist and an ideologue.

Democrats, who to this day are scared to death of mentioning the possibility of tax increases, are feasting on this divide -- and showering Raggio with the love and admiration he craves.

Can you imagine if a longtime Democrat broke ranks, trashed the party's screaming-socialist wing and began talking like a Republican? The state's pundit class and public employee unions would launch a recall petition.

If Raggio cares a whit about his party, he'll end the suspense, slap a "D" next to his name and allow Senate Republicans to be led by someone who offers a competing vision of how state government should function -- someone who won't fold just seven days into the session.

Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is a Review-Journal editorial writer.