Lawmakers approve tentative deal on tax hikes, employee retirement

CARSON CITY -- After a bizarre and frantic day that began with a 3 a.m. session of the state Senate, legislators were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel Thursday night.

A fragile deal between Democrats and Republicans appeared to be in the works late in the day on a package of tax hikes and public employee pension reforms.

The lawmakers were preparing for another long night of hearings and votes in hopes of getting the tax and spending bills on the desk of Gov. Jim Gibbons before the end of business today.

About 7 p.m. Thursday, senators approved major parts of the spending plan: education funding and public employee salaries, both on 20-1 votes. Sen. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, voted against both, saying he felt education was getting preferential treatment compared to other, equally important state functions.

The education funding previously passed the Assembly unanimously and now goes to Gibbons. The salary bill, which will require most state workers to take 12 unpaid days off per year for a 4.6 percent cut in annual pay, goes to the Assembly.

Legislators are aiming to get the taxes and spending bills passed before 5 p.m. today to ensure that Gibbons receives them before the three-day weekend begins. It's not clear whether the bills still could be delivered to the governor during the weekend.

Once he gets them, Gibbons then has five days to make good on his veto threat and allow the Legislature to override the veto before the June 1 end of the session.

As for the deal being brokered on taxes and pensions, lawmakers involved in the negotiations said not all the details were in place, but the broad strokes of an agreement were coming into focus.

"We have an approach," Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, said late Thursday.

Changes to an existing bill on the pension reforms were being drafted Thursday evening, and a vote on the taxes was possible late Thursday night or early this morning. At 11 p.m. Thursday, the Senate prepared to reconvene.

"There has been a lot of progress," Horsford said, holding his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "We're that close."

Sources said Republicans who had been demanding concessions on the pensions bill had given some ground, while the basics of the tax plan remained undisputed.

The $781 million in increases to sales, payroll, motor vehicle and business license taxes should be enough to bridge the gap between projected revenues for the next two years and about $6.8 billion in planned spending.

Other details still needed to be resolved, however, including labor-management reforms and the issue of whether to put an expiration date on the tax hikes.

The day began on a surreal note.

At 2:30 a.m., Horsford called the upper house out of recess and invoked a procedural rule that trapped members in the chamber and allowed absent senators to be rounded up and taken into custody.

No one was actually shackled and dragged in -- two senators drifted in before long, while another remained AWOL -- but the move infuriated the Republican minority, who believed they were being held hostage in an attempt to wear them down and get them to vote for the tax package.

In the ensuing floor session, long-simmering tensions came to light, with Democrats accusing Republicans of putting education funding in peril and Republicans accusing Democrats of hostile tactics.

Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, called Horsford's action a "threat."

"I think it is very inappropriate and imprudent if it's to hold us hostage here until we cave in," he said. He pointedly referred to Horsford as "the young majority leader" and accused the majority of lacking "respect."

Raggio, 82, was the longtime majority leader until Democrats took over following the 2008 elections. Horsford, 36, is the youngest majority leader in state history.

Horsford responded by saying no senators had requested excused absences and therefore all were required to be present.

"This is not an attempt to force people to vote in any manner on any bill," he said. "But we are here in 120 days to complete the work of the people who elected us, and if that has to be done at 3 o'clock in the morning or 3 o'clock in the afternoon, that is the oath that we've taken."

Horsford and Sen. Warren Hardy, R-Las Vegas, detailed their positions on the pension reforms, each accusing the other side of reneging on previous commitments.

The reform issues received a further hearing at a Senate committee hearing just a few hours later.

After Republicans voted against a bill containing education funding reforms to protest the conditions, Horsford cited it as evidence that they were putting political posturing ahead of education.

The wee-hours floor session ended at 4 a.m. The Senate resumed at 7 p.m.

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.