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Despite an implictly critical statement from the gaming industry lobbying arm, the Las Vegas Sands is backing the six GOP senators who want to take mining taxation out of the state Constitution and create a new levy on the industry.
"We told (Senate Minority Leader Michael Roberson) we support the idea," Sands lobbyist Robert Uithoven told me this morning. "Obviously no one is supportive of singling out a major industry. But we also know and understand that mining is never singled out because...
Republicans wanting to raise taxes on a previously untouchable industry. Republicans attacking Republicans. Republicans pretending they are not criticizing the governor, but actually…criticizing the governor.
Oh, joy.
If there’s one thing that the Senate GOP proposal to tax mining means, it is this: The 2013 session just got very interesting.
Interesting enough, as one wag wondered, to be like 2003, which devolved into two special sessions, a governor suing the Legislature and a high court...
Or words to that effect.
In an opinion i have obtained, the Legislative Cousnel Bureau rebuts a long-running mining lobbying corps' argument that passing SJR15 would lower the industry's tax burden. Not so, says the LCB.
And it only takes a majority vote to put it on the ballot.
Read all about it, posted here.
UPDATE2 -- GOVERNOR OPPOSES -- Here is his statement, via his spox:
In his balanced budget, the Governor's commitment to K-12 education has increased spending for our schools, including an additional $135 million general fund investment. What's more, because the economy is growing and local revenues are up, overall spending on K-12 education is up over $400 million from last biennium.
The Governor's budget included increased spending for education without increased taxes. The Governor...
This was inevitable, I suppose.
Embattled Assemblyman Steven Brooks has filed a brief, though his attorney Mitchell Posin, with the state Supreme Court, arguing he cannot be banned from doing his job. This was always a danger when lawmakers moved so swiftly to create a select committee, give ChairmanWilliam Horne absolute power and then immediately banish an elected official from the place where he is supposed to do his elected business.
Posin's argument distilled: Lawmakers imposed an "extra-...
Back in 1999, the undersecretary of energy swatted away concerns about geologic disposal at Yucca Mountain.
''There is certainly science left to do and being done,'' Dr. Ernest Moniz told The New York Times in a piece headlined: "New questions plague nuclear waste storage plan."
But, Moniz added, ''One way or another we've got to advance toward geological disposal. We're pushing it hard. The science case is building up nicely. If we have to delay in the end we'll delay. But I see no reason not...
UPDATE: Legal eagles now providing unsolicited but potentially sound...legal opinions. Could lawmakers have an out with Article 15, Sec. 3?
Sec. 3. Eligibility for public office.
1. No person shall be eligible to any office who is not a qualified elector under this Constitution.
If Brooks were convicted of a felony, he is no longer a "qualified elector," so doesn't that mean he can't serve?
Of course none of this would matter if Brooks were to resign or were to be expelled before...
Lawmakers will hear the teachers' union's margins tax proposal on Tuesday in a hearing that is sure to be full of sound and fury and signify punting.
To the ballot, that is.
But if it's not enough that Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick has poured cold water on the idea, during an appearance on "Ralston Reports", the Republicans are primed to rip the idea apart at the joint hearing. For the first time, the Assembly GOP has hired a policy adviser, Omar de la Rosa, who has helped the GOP form some...