Horsford, Democrats resorting to Jedi mind tricks on taxes
When I heard that Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford had changed the name of the Senate Taxation Committee to the "Revenue Committee," this immediately came to mind.
Assembly Speaker-to-be John Oceguera wants to pull off an even bigger Jedi mind trick, though:
Speaker John Oceguera wouldn't reveal the name of the lower house panel previously known as the Taxation Committee. All he would say is that it won't be called "tax" or "revenue."While Nevadans aren't as clueless as the faceless Stormtroopers in "Star Wars," semantics and words do matter.
If believers in limited government are interested in combating this kind of doublespeak, they should not only continue to refer to the committees as "Taxation Committees," but should also point how the Democratic leadership is trying to fool the public.
Something like the "Revenue committee to increase your taxes and hope you aren't paying attention" might work.
Read moreSandoval, Oceguera agree: End teacher tenure
As teacher quality is "the most important school-related factor influencing student achievement," ending teacher tenure is a no-brainer for anyone looking to improve student achievement in Nevada.
Currently, teachers in Nevada can get tenure in as little as one year of teaching. And once a bad teacher has tenure, it's much more difficult to fire him or her for poor performance - even if the teacher does a poor job of educating hundreds of children.
The good news is that two of the three most powerful men in state government this year - Governor-elect Brian Sandoval and Assembly Speaker-to-be John Oceguera - have come out in favor of eliminating teacher tenure.
From Sandoval's education plan:
Bring Private Sector Thinking to School StaffingFrom Oceguera's campaign page on education:
End Teacher Tenure, Set Aside Funds to Reward Good Teachers
The current performance evaluation system for teachers and principals is out-of-date and rewards endurance over performance. With recent changes to Nevada law requiring the use of student achievement data in evaluations, we have an opportunity to modernize the entire system in ways that reward the best, inspire the average to improve, and dismiss those who are failing.
Under Brian's plan, a majority of teacher and principal evaluations will be based on student achievement. Salary schedules based on time served and longevity stipends will no longer be allowed - by statutory change, we will bring an end to teacher tenure; these funds will instead be used to fund a pay-for-performance system.
Eliminate tenure. School districts must recruit and retain the best teachers possible, and those teachers should be rewarded for success. School districts need to weed out ineffective teachers.Oceguera gave more details to the Las Vegas Sun in September after he announced his support for this position.
Oceguera, in a statement, said, "We have great teachers in our state, but we hear from parents and principals that there are those who are not measuring up and should not be in the classroom."And why is this necessary? Because the Clark County School District fires less than .12 percent of its teachers each year for poor performance.
He called for a "fair but expedient process for getting inadequate teachers out of the classroom."
But the Clark County Education Association, which represents teachers in the Clark County School District, said 20 teachers did not have their contracts renewed two years ago for reasons that would include poor performance. Last year 19 teachers did not have their contracts renewed.From putting Nevada's checkbook online to eliminating teacher tenure, there are many issues that appear to have bi-partisan support in the next session.
There are roughly 17,000 teachers in Clark County.
Citizens should hope that in these cases, our elected officials' campaign promises match up with their actions.
Speaker-to-be Oceguera makes the liberal case for government transparency
As a proponent of open and transparent government, the Nevada Policy Research Institute has often said that transparency should have broad, bi-partisan support. Why?
While both sides should embrace transparency, because citizens have a right to know how the government is spending their money, each side of the political spectrum has its own reasons to promote transparency.
For conservatives, it's a way to expose and eliminate wasteful government spending.
For liberals, it's a way to show that government is spending money efficiently and deserves more money.
While conservatives in Nevada have been working on transparency issues for years (albeit not as quickly as citizens deserve), it's great to finally see a liberal Democrat, Nevada's next Assembly Speaker John Oceguera, making the case for putting Nevada's checkbook online. (At the two-minute mark)
Now while Oceguera is making the liberal case for transparency and I don't agree with many of his reasons, his conclusion is correct - Nevada's citizens deserve to have Nevada's checkbook online. The point is that liberals and conservatives can and should support transparency reforms - even if their reasons for supporting it differ.
Given that 13 Republican legislators have already supported putting Nevada's checkbook online, this should be a bipartisan effort.
Las Vegas police union: Oh, those secret benefits
Remember how leftist politicians say again and again that government has cut to the bone?
Here's just another example of how their rhetoric doesn't square with reality.
Police work can be difficult, dangerous, and seriously inconvenient, so the Metropolitan Police Department pays extra for jobs that are especially so. Some officers draw extra pay for the danger or expertise their jobs require; many get paid extra for working nights or graveyard shifts.Oh it gets better. Taxpayers are paying the salaries of these executives to lobby the government for salary and benefit increases.
However, seven executives of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, who work nights and weekends only when necessary and who are not essential in protecting the public, for years have received both assignment pay and shift pay. Although they are paid at public expense, the arrangement was never publicly disclosed until written into the last police employee contract, and then only partially.
Even though the union officials are the department's adversary in contract talks, disciplinary and policy matters and in lobbying elected officials for better pay and benefits, their regular wages are paid by the department, and in¬directly by taxpayers, rather than from union dues. Many large police departments pay union officials directly as Las Vegas does, but not all.Be sure to read the whole thing.
Yet, although union executives have received the extra 12 percent since 2001, the union contract never mentioned it until last year when an assignment-pay provision was written in for the first time. The 4 percent shift pay for union executives has never yet been mentioned in the contract, even the current one.
Local government experts said it's inappropriate to exclude the extra pay from the contract where the public, media, and other police officers can see it.
Reporting on the budget: Vogel does it accurately, Damon doesn't
It's been nearly two months since the Nevada Policy Research Institute exposed the claim that Nevada faces a $3 billion projected budget deficit as a myth. The $3 billion claim assumes a 30 percent spending increase. Nevada really faces about a 20 percent budget deficit of $1.2 billion - $1.5 billion.
Since then, Andrew Clinger, the state budget director, has clearly stated the truth about Nevada's budget situation on Jon Ralston's "Face to Face" program. Clinger said, "What you're talking about and what NPRI is talking about is the current two-year budget when we look at general fund appropriations ... So when you look at just the general fund appropriations we're going from [$]6.4 [billion] to [$]8.2 [billion]. So we're increasing appropriations $1.8 billion."
The Agency Request Budgets, released on Oct. 15, show that the agencies want to spend $8.34 billion - even more than Clinger stated or NPRI originally reported. Write on Nevada has also continued to highlight the truth about Nevada's budget situation.
As a result of this information, many of Nevada's top journalists and reporters have reported accurately on Nevada's budget situation.
Unfortunately, there are still a few journalists who are reporting inaccurate information, including Anjeanette Damon in today's Las Vegas Sun.
Indeed, some speculate Raggio will hold sway over the budget as lawmakers grapple with a $3 billion gap between current spending and projected tax revenue.This is inaccurate. Current spending is $6.4 billion. Projected tax revenue is $5.2 billion. Only by government math does that equal a $3 billion gap.
It doesn't matter if you can cite a misleading article from six months ago, either. That statement is factually inaccurate. I don't know if Damon doesn't understand this, chooses to ignore it, is just unwilling to drop an old and discredited narrative or something else. In any event, the information she's putting forward is inaccurate. It's unfortunate, too, because, when she's not reporting inaccurate information, her stories and columns are quite enjoyable.
What makes this mistake all the more glaring, however, is how aptly and accurately Ed Vogel of the Las Vegas Review-Journal described the budget situation today.
The new governor is expected to try to balance the budget on existing revenues, about $5.2 billion over the next two years, which would be about a 20 percent cut from current spending.There it is - the truth. Recently, I credited Vogel with the best two-paragraph description yet of Nevada's budget situation, and I'd like to add to that - the above is the best one-sentence description of Nevada's budget situation, so far.
You'll note here that the truth doesn't end the debate; it just accurately describes the facts.
Fiscal conservatives now need to make the case that it's better to decrease spending by about 20 percent and live within our means than to increase spending by 30 percent and continue Nevada's pattern of unsustainable spending increases.
While it's been encouraging to see Governor-elect Brian Sandoval start to make this case, it'd also be nice to see the few remaining political reporters, like Damon, who haven't accurately reported on the state budget correctly begin to report the facts.
Hayek and Keynes: The Re-mixxxx!
The actors appearing in the now famous Hayek-Keynes battle rap made an appearance at The Economist magazine's recent Buttonwood Gathering and added a follow-on to their rap dialogue debating opposing economic theories. As Mario Rizzo of NYU puts it, "The Great Debate is still Keynes versus Hayek."
The original rap video is here.
The appearance at The Economist's conference is here.
How the TransparentNevada survey respondents fared
With the dust beginning to settle on the election, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at TransparentNevada's transparency survey and see how those who responded did.
Here's how it broke down:
Prior to this election, we sent surveys to all 159 candidates running for a legislative or constitutional office in Nevada.
Of those 159 surveys, we received 66 replies.
Of the 66 candidates who replied, 16 won and 51 lost.
The winners were John Hambrick, Scott Hammond, Cresent Hardy, Mark Sherwood, Melissa Woodbury, Pat Hickey, Ira Hansen, Tom Grady, Pete Livermore, Michael Roberson, Barbara Cegavske, Elizabeth Halseth, Don Gustavson, Kim Wallin, Kate Marshall and Brian Krolicki.
Of the 16 candidates who won, seven were incumbents, seven were running for open seats and two defeated incumbents.
Interestingly, in both cases where an incumbent was defeated in the Legislature (Mark Sherwood over Ellen Spiegel and Michael Roberson over Joyce Woodhouse), the winners replied to our survey while the losers didn't. While many factors affect the outcome of a race, both races were relatively close (the Sherwood-Spiegel race was decided by 407 votes) and every vote made a difference. Who knows what would have happened electorally if Woodhouse and Spiegel had chosen to reply?
Many thanks to every candidate who took the time to let the voters know their position on transparency issues.
Now voters will get to see if these elected officials stick to the positions they expressed on the survey.
(Cross-posted from TransparentNevada)
End of an era: Raggio out as Republican Senate minority leader
Twitter's been abuzz with rumors that Senate Republicans were going to replace Sen. William Raggio as minority leader. And now it's been confirmed. Via @NVNewsBureau:
Sen McGinness new minority leader. No vote by GOP caucus. Raggio withdraws name.It appears that Raggio's endorsement of Harry Reid and his past support for tax increases prompted the change.
No doubt there will be a lot of political implications in this, especially since Raggio has removed himself from the Senate Finance Committee and has stepped away from helping to create the state's budget.
If you're interested in following this story, I'd recommend following @RalstonFlash, @NVNewsBureau, @AnjeanetteDamon and @ElizCrum on Twitter.
Horsford, state Democrats' budget plan: We got nothing, you go first
Seriously.
Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, refrained from making recommendations for Sandoval's upcoming budget proposal, saying he wants to see the numbers first.And there's more.
"It is the governor's job to present the Legislature with a budget," Horsford said. "I will comment on it at that time."
"Our job is to react first to the budget presented us by the governor," Horsford said after speaking with Sandoval.So during the election season, Sen. Horsford said there should be $1.5 billion in budget cuts, but now he doesn't want to identify them? Hmmmmmm.
"I am encouraged. He is a governor who will show up to work every day. He has pledged cooperation with our caucus. It is incumbent on him to provide us with a budget and a plan and vision to move our state forward."
This is most likely a cynical political move. By waiting for Sandoval to produce a balanced budget - one Sandoval promises won't contain tax increases - Horsford and the Democrats can attack him for cutting education and wanting to kill children.
Of course, the majority of these "cuts" will actually be unapproved spending increases, but explaining how the budget the Democrats have in mind would increase state spending by 30 percent is more difficult than just asserting that conservatives/libertarians hate children, education, polar bears, etc. ...
There's also considerable irony in this strategy. Does everyone remember how liberals bashed Republicans on the federal level repeatedly over the past two years for not having a plan to govern and for just being "the party of no"? And they did this despite Republicans producing plans and introducing legislation on many major issues - including health care, the budget and energy.
So will Democrats in Nevada get anywhere near the same media roasting that Republicans did over this issue?
I'm not holding my breath.
About last night
As Victor noted yesterday, we at NPRI tend to steer clear of electoral politics. But we also know many of our readers and followers have a keen interest in what goes on in the political arena.
With this in mind, here's a rundown of what happened in last night's elections here in the Silver State. Obviously, I won't be able to touch on every single race, but I'll try to cover the most significant ones.
- In what was probably the most closely watched race in the entire country, Democrat Harry Reid defeated his Republican challenger, Sharron Angle, to hold onto his U.S. Senate seat. It's hard to call the re-election of the Senate majority leader a surprise, but most of the polling leading up to Election Day had Angle clinging to a small lead. Reid won by about 6 percentage points.
- Dr. Joe Heck, a Republican, pulled off a narrow win over incumbent Democrat Dina Titus to capture Nevada's third congressional district. Heck won by less than a percentage point.
- Heck's win produces the only change in Nevada's congressional delegation, as Democrat Shelley Berkley (CD-1) and Republican Dean Heller (CD-2) easily won re-election to their respective House seats. Nevada's representation in Washington, D.C., remains pretty evenly split: three Republicans and two Democrats.
- Nevada's statewide constitutional offices saw very little change. In fact, not one of them switched parties, and only one will even see a new face. That would be governor-elect Brian Sandoval, the Republican, who beat Democrat Rory Reid by about 12 percentage points. Sandoval will succeed the current Republican governor, Jim Gibbons, whom he beat in the primary.
- Incumbents won in the rest of the statewide constitutional-office races: Lieutenant Governor Brian Krolicki (R), Secretary of State Ross Miller (D), State Treasurer Kate Marshall (D), State Controller Kim Wallin (D) and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto (D).
- Republicans picked up one seat in the Nevada Senate, as Mike Roberson beat incumbent Democrat Joyce Woodhouse by about 4 percentage points in Clark County District 5. Republicans held onto all of their Senate seats, including two Clark County seats that Democrats had contested strongly: District 8, where Barbara Cegavske was re-elected, and District 9, where Elizabeth Halseth kept Dennis Nolan's seat in the GOP column. Democrats now have just a one-seat advantage (11 to 10) in the Senate.
- The Assembly races saw two Republican gains: Mark Sherwood topped incumbent Democrat Ellen Spiegel in District 21, and Pete Livermore beat Democrat Robin Williamson in an open-seat contest in District 40. The Republicans held all of their seats, closing the Democrats' advantage in the Assembly to 26-16.
- While Democrats still control both legislative chambers, they failed to secure a two-thirds super-majority in either. This is significant because any tax increases must be passed by two-thirds of both the Assembly and the Senate, and so Republicans have the numbers to block any tax hikes during the 2011 Legislative Session. Of course, that's not to say some Republicans won't break ranks and give the Democrats the votes they need to raise taxes. If that does happen, it won't be the first time.
- Supreme Court Justices James Hardesty and Ronald Parraguirre, both of whom ran unopposed, were re-elected.
For full results (including outcomes on the ballot questions), check out SilverState2010.com.
