Senate convenes to discuss budget, tax hikes

Nevada Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, left, and Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, debate in the Senate Chambers at the Nevada Legislature in Carson City late Wednesday evening. Photo by Brad Horn.

The state Senate has convened as a committee of the whole and is discussing the bill that contains tax hikes to fund the budget.

Legislators hope to get the bill, Senate Bill 429, through the Senate and Assembly today and onto Gov. Jim Gibbons’ desk by 5 p.m. Gibbons has promised to veto tax increases.

Timing is important because Gibbons has five days to veto the bill and the legislative session ends June 1. According to the state constitution, Sundays aren’t counted.

If Gibbons receives the bill today, the five days would be Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, May 28, leaving ample time for the lawmakers to vote to override the veto.

If today’s deadline is missed, however, there’s a fear that the governor’s office could shut down for the three-day weekend, leaving no way for the bill to be received until Tuesday and pushing the five days up against the end-of-session deadline. No one knows for sure whether Gibbons could or would delay the acceptance of the bill in this manner.

Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said his support for the tax package, as he has previously said, is conditioned on the addition of an expiration date for the sales and business taxes and the creation of an interim study on the state’s tax structure.

Raggio is proposing amendments to the current bill to add those provisions to it.

The Republicans’ votes also are conditioned on the package of public employee pension reforms legislators have worked out in negotiations, Raggio noted.