Repealing any tax isn’t going to be easy

It seemed so simple by comparison.

Instead of trying to repeal every single tax passed by the Nevada Legislature in 2015, a group of current and former elected officials decided they'd target only the new commerce tax.

State Controller Ron Knecht, Las Vegas Councilman Bob Beers and former Assemblyman Ed Goedhart — officers of the RIP Commerce Tax PAC — faithfully reprinted the appropriate portions of Senate Bill 483, which enacted the commerce tax.

It was much more succinct than the We Decide Coalition, which put the entire text of SB483 up for repeal. (That effort was denied by a state judge in Carson City, but is on appeal in federal court.)

But the pro-tax forces that have thus far successfully fought repeal are also objecting to the repeal of the commerce tax. The Coalition for Nevada's Future, represented by longtime initiative attorneys Matt Griffin and Kevin Benson, is not making things easy.

Their main arguments:

You can't dictate administrative details. Several Nevada cases say initiatives in Nevada (and, presumably, referenda) can't concern themselves with "administrative details." And since SB483 is lousy with them — how businesses calculate their commerce tax, what records need to be kept and for how long, accounting methods and procedures, and much more — any repeal necessarily concerns itself with "administrative details."

Knecht and Co. will certainly argue that the Legislature concerned itself with those details when it wrote the law, and they will seize upon Griffin's admission that the people have the exact same powers as the Legislature. But that's a dead-end road: The proper remedy in that case would be a lawsuit to enjoin enforcement of the commerce tax, not a petition that runs afoul of legal precedent.

You can't repeal a tax and leave the budget unbalanced. Griffin and Benson argue that the referendum would violate the state constitution's requirement that the Legislature raise enough revenue to cover its annual spending. If the initiative is approved, the state will lose a net $120 million out of its general fund budget per two-year budget cycle, according to the Legislative Counsel Bureau.

Knecht has been heard to argue — not incorrectly — that $120 million is not a large sum in the context of a general fund of more than $7 billion. But that doesn't change the fact that repeal could unbalance the budget. "If the Legislature was currently in session, could this measure be proposed on its own?" Griffin and Benson ask. "[The Constitution] says that it cannot because it would unbalance the budget. Thus, the Legislature must also propose companion legislation that would maintain a balanced budget. It is for this reason that the people cannot propose, by referenda, a measure that would create a budget deficit."

You can't repeal a bill. Targeting a bill passed by the Legislature — in whole or in part — doesn't work, because the Constitution says referendums can only be levied against "a statute or resolution" passed by the Legislature. Essentially, SB483 is the means the Legislature uses to change statutes, but isn't a statute itself. So Knecht & Co. are trying to repeal the wrong thing, Griffin and Benson argue.

You can't be misleading. Even if the petition's language was sufficient, the description of effect on each signature page fails to tell voters that repeal would either unbalance the budget and necessitate either a new tax or budget cuts. That's a key factor for people deciding whether to support or oppose the referendum, and its omission is a serious, but curable, defect.

As for the rest? Well, nobody ever said repealing a tax supported by the Establishment was going to be easy.

— Steve Sebelius is a Las Vegas Review-Journal political columnist and co-host of the show "PoliticsNOW" airing at 5:30 p.m. Sundays on 8NewsNow. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 702-387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.