|
EDITORIAL: State Dems ask court to gut tax restraint initiative
Las Vegas Review-Journal
May 4, 2021
The Nevada Supreme Court on Monday heard arguments in a case involving an end-run around the state constitution, and the hearing was quite instructive.
In 2019, legislative Democrats passed bills nixing a scheduled decrease in a payroll tax and extending a “temporary” technology fee applied to DMV transactions. The moves increased state revenue by more than $50 million a year.
One problem: Nevada voters in the 1990s twice approved the Gibbons Tax Restraint Initiative, a constitutional amendment demanding that lawmakers pass any state tax hike by a supermajority. The language is so clear that even a Democratic legislator should be able to grasp it: A two-thirds vote in both houses is “necessary to pass a bill or joint resolution which creates, generates or increases any public revenue in any form.”
Neither of the 2019 bills in question passed the Senate with two-thirds support. Republican lawmakers sued and prevailed last year in District Court. Democrats appealed to the state Supreme Court.
Democrats argue that the higher threshold was unnecessary because the bills kept tax rates at the same level and thus didn’t actually increase revenue. The Legislature Counsel Bureau, which offers legal advice to lawmakers, provided cover for this dubious position with an opinion worthy of Lewis Carroll, maintaining that the Gibbons initiative doesn’t mean what it says.
|
