Photo/Dennis Myers
Theatrical production people brandished protest signs at passing cars while they demonstrated in front of the governor’s office. They objected to corporate welfare being taken from their industry and given to the electric car industry.
And across town The Nevada Legislature wasn’t the only place in Carson City where public moneys found their way into private pockets. The Nevada Commission on Mineral Resources gave $2,500 to the mining industry political organization, Nevada Mineral Exploration Coalition, to go to a trade show. In an email message, a Commission spokesperson said, “NMEC staffs the booth at these trade shows and hands out geologic maps and publications done by the Division of Minerals. The intent is to attract companies to invest in mineral exploration and development in Nevada, which is consistent with the statutes for the Division of Minerals. The donation is made directly to the trade show for the booth, not NMEC. The funds used come from mining claim fees collected annually by the Division of Minerals.” The Coalition came to notice in 2012 as one of seven mining industry organizations that poured money into a state senate district in Nevada to elect Republican Greg Brower over Democrat Sheila Leslie. As a state legislator, Leslie, now an RN&R columnist, sponsored a measure to repeal a mining industry tax loophole from the Nevada Constitution. Leslie’s measure will appear on the ballot in November.
Constitutional amendment fails A proposed U.S. constitutional amendment failed in the Senate Aug. 11, and Nevada’s senators split on the issue. The measure, sponsored by Sen. Tom Udall, would have carved out an exception in the First Amendment in order to negate the effect of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that in campaign finance, money is speech, that corporations are persons entitled to First Amendment protection, and that aggregate limits on campaign contributions violate the first amendment. Those rulings have turned a flood of money loose. Democratic Sen. Harry Reid supported the amendment and Republican Sen. Dean Heller voted against it. The measure had no chance of winning approval because constitutional amendments require a supermajority, but Reid brought it up for a vote to force Republicans to cast an unpopular vote during an election campaign. The measure is opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which issued a statement after the vote: “But history has taught us to be wary of proposals that would empower the government to monitor, regulate, and ultimately criminalize political speech. For instance, with the McCainFeingold bill in 2002, Congress made it a criminal offense for groups like the ACLU or Sierra Club to even mention a candidate in certain communications paid for by general treasury funds in the crucial run-up period to elections and primaries. The constitutional amendment under consideration in the Senate is even broader in some ways. It would allow the federal and state governments to limit spending, including spending by private citizens, that lawmakers say could ‘influence elections.’”
Time warp The campaign of Kate Marshall, who is trying to move from state treasurer to secretary of state, sent out a fund-raising message that read in part: “[S]tarting at midnight tonight, lawmakers cannot accept campaign contributions during the special session or for 15 days after it ends. With the midnight deadline looming, Kate’s opponent [state legislator Barbara Cegavske] has kicked her fundraising efforts into overdrive to raise money by the end of the day. We need to keep up the pace to make sure Kate has the funds necessary to win this election in November. We have a goal of $1,000 before midnight tonight. Can you contribute $5 right now to help reach our $1,000 goal?” The message was dated Sept. 9 but apparently didn’t get mailed on time. It arrived on Sept. 12, the day after the special session ended.
—Dennis Myers
8 | RN&R |
SEPTEMBER 18, 2014
Tesla triumphs Sandoval signs off on $1.3 billion untax package Carole Vilardo stalked the legislative halls during the special session of the Nevada Legislature. She represents by the Nevada Taxpayers Association, Dennis Myers a business group. Except possibly—and only possibly—for state budget directors, she knows more about state taxation than anyone. One of her concerns with the Tesla deal was that green energy abatements have a history in Nevada, and they were not always successful. She recalled one abatement that was created in the early days of energy alternatives when the state was trying to encourage their use. An abatement was provided on the assumption that businesses would use it for their buildings. One casino used it for its entire footprint—parking lots and all—and ate up most of the abatement provided. Drafting legislation can be tricky.
Speed and secrecy prevailed So can the makeup of the legislature. Term limits have seldom had an impact because there is such heavy turnover. Few legislators stay long enough to be termed out. This means that there are few legislators who have much knowledge of how past legislation was handled. That casino eating up most of an abatement is institutional knowledge that
few people—least of all legislators—have. So Vilardo was putting it in their ears. “A lot of these legislators have been spoken to about it.” she said. “I know because I have done some of it.” That was her principal concern with the Tesla deal. If that was handled, she was satisfied. That was true of most players at the special session. Their main interest was to tinker with the deal, not to stop it or alter it significantly. With northern journalists serving as cheerleaders, little scrutiny had been done and so the public had only a rosy projection of what the Tesla deal meant. In the handful of hours after the deal was announced and before the legislators went into special session, the two Las Vegas dailies quickly turned out some rigorous analysis of the Tesla deal, but by then the juggernaut was rolling. Gov. Brian Sandoval worked hard to keep the public from being involved and a debate from getting started. The negotiations with Tesla were secret. Once the governor announced the deal, he raced to get the lawmakers into special session as fast as possible so critics would not get traction and debate would not get underway. The actual language of the legislation was not available for the public to examine until
the last possible moment. Indeed, the governor didn’t get around to actually calling the legislators into session until the night before they met, when many of them had already arrived. Since the governor’s call to the legislators contains the legislative agenda, the agenda, too, was withheld from the public. Information was held closely, preventing anyone from raising questions or slowing things down. Once the legislative session was underway, a good deal of work was done in political party caucuses barred to the public. The governor suggested there was nothing to debate, a notion seconded by supporters of the Sandoval deal like Washoe County Commissioner Marsha Berkbigler, who said, “I can’t see a downside to it” on Nevada Newsmakers. When there was rare scrutiny by journalists, Tesla backers complained. Assemblymember James Hardy of Clark County, a Democrat, complained that the press was misrepresenting the legislation as Tesla-specific, and columnist Steve Sebelius answered him that Tesla was the only corporation that would be affected by two provisions in the then-existing bill drafts, and Tesla was getting its own $103 million highway built for it by the state. Tesla itself had five lobbyists registered, though there may have been others behind beards like public relations firms. They kept their heads down to avoid giving anyone a target. There were plenty of lobbyists representing other entities. Water districts and private water corporations, chambers of commerce, the Burning Man festival, teachers, real estate salespeople, contractors, the state’s courts, hospitals, vineyards, law enforcement and casinos all had their lobbyists on hand. So did the automotive world, including General Motors and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. And so did insurance companies and theatrical production people, who were directly affected, their existing corporate welfare reduced to help pay off Tesla. Democrats, who early on had talked tough and skeptical about corporate welfare, ended up fighting to protect a slightly larger portion of welfare for the film industry that was supposed to go to Tesla.
