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By 2:00 pm, about half the group of visitors—led by CSN Professor Kenya Pierce and CSN Student Michael Flores—opted to stay at the State Legislature Building while the rest got in a quick sightseeing tour of Carson City.
Twenty or so students, mostly from Las Vegas high schools, looked for a place to park themselves for 20 minutes before meeting with Debbie Smith (D-Sparks), Vice Chair of the Assembly Education Committee.
The stairwell was the perfect place to rest. Seconds after butts touched stairs, three state senators approached: Valerie Weiner (D-Las Vegas), Joyce Woodhouse (D-Las Vegas) and Shirley Breeden (D-Las Vegas). They were on their way to yet another committee meeting, but gave in to the gravitational pull of earnest young faces and spent about 15 minutes answering questions about Nevada’s education policy.
The upshot was that the state is in big trouble. Even the draconian budget proposed by Governor Gibbons would be difficult to fund. Add in the requirements for receiving federal funding—Nevada would need to fund education at the 2006 level in order to receive federal education dollars—and many a legislative mind was contorting in pain.
Furthermore, Woodhouse explained that Nevada’s legislators.” Which is a patrioticsounding way of saying that the state legislative body meets for only one 120-day regular session every two years. The idea is that legislators spend more time out among ordinary Nevadans than they do within the State Legislature Building.
But less time at the Legislative Building means less time to plan, to come up with a vision for the state, and to discuss policy for education, business, or health care. If the state legislators fail to pass a budget by June 1 they probably will go into a special session. If that happens, the governor will control the agenda for the special session.
A May 5 interview with State Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford (D-Las Vegas) on Nevada Public Radio KNPR 88.9-FM provides a clue to how legislators may work around the constraints of the 120-day regular session. Horsford has advocated
a broad-based tax on gross business receipts that would take effect in 2011, the year in which the next regular session would take place.
Whatever happens, it seems “business as usual” will no longer meet our needs. Now is the time for vision, and for more stairwell conversations. |END
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