DENNIS MYERS Against the Grain Advertisement

On Aug. 30 a Washington, D.C., lobby group that operates under the name "Americans for Tax Reform" (ATR) sent out a news release headed, "Jill Derby (D-NV) Fails to Sign Taxpayer Protection Pledge." Jill Derby is the Democratic nominee for the U.S. House seat that represents about a third of Nevada's population and most of its territory.

This news release was preceded by one in which ATR listed all the Nevada candidates who had signed its pledge. I decided to look up this pledge. Here it is: "I, [name of candidate] pledge to the taxpayers of the [name or number of district] of the State of [name of state] and to all the people of this state, that I will oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes."

Note that this is categorical and unconditional. It makes no exception for natural disasters or national or state emergencies. The effects of the Great Depression, a world war, or September 11 would not provide a reason to raise taxes.

These kinds of tax pledges have often gotten the public into trouble. For instance, on Oct. 25, 1950, in Boulder City, candidate for governor Charles Russell pledged no tax increase if he was elected. The problem was that after he was elected, the baby boom hit Nevada schools like a sledgehammer.

Servicemembers started coming home from the war in 1946 and the Nevada birth rate jumped 57 percent in the first five months of 1947 over the same period of 1946. Those toddlers were of school age by the time Russell was governor. It rapidly became clear that the state's school system could collapse under the weight of the boomers. School construction and the costs of educating students strained the resources produced by the state's tax system.

Parents got organized to demand higher taxes, but Russell's veto threat kept anything from happening. The state lost four long years because it was held hostage to his pledge. Not until he got reelected without making an anti-tax pledge in 1954 was the state able to raise taxes and start building a school system capable of handling the boomers, some of whom were by then in third grade.

Russell's pledge was at least made to the public. What kind of a candidate makes a pledge at the demand of a special interest lobby group in the District of Columbia?

ATR has a Web site. I went looking for information on it. Forty-three Nevada candidates have signed the ATR pledge. (Some of them were defeated in the primary election.) Then I noticed something interesting at the bottom of this list. It read, "Please note that a Pledge signer who breaks his commitment to taxpayers continues to be bound by the Pledge and stays on the list of signers." In other words, if candidates change their minds about the wisdom of the pledge, ATR still counts them as supporters of the pledge. It's like being a member of the Communist Party--once you're a member you can't get out. Why would such a sentence be needed on the Web site? Does it mean that candidates are getting off ATR's merry go round?

I looked under a couple of pages on the Web site. One was titled "Heroes and Enemies List." Apparently it is not possible to merely be mistaken or wrong -- an officeholder who votes against ATR's agenda is an "enemy."

Another page was labeled the "Hall of Shame," and here I found an explanation of that sentence. Three members of the Nevada Assembly were listed as breaking their ATR pledge by voting for Senate Bill 507 of the 2003 Nevada Legislature. (It noted that no members of the Republican Senate had signed the pledge, which is telling.) Apparently the three are still considered signers.

Strangely, S. B. 507 was mentioned but not Governor Guinn's 2003 tax program, which ATR's president Grover Norquist lobbied against in Carson City. I looked up 507. It's a capital construction bond issue that added two cents to the state tax rate. I dug up the list of items that were funded by this breach of the ATR pledge. It included fire sprinklers for the Nevada Youth Training Center ($72,956), repair of 21 housing unit gates at Southern Desert prison ($123,000), fencing and gates at Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services ($33,467), a 150-bed psychiatric hospital at Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services ($32,168,576), expansion of a shop at the Pioche prison conservation camp ($149,282).

Call me crazy, but those sound like the kinds of things that should be decided by the good judgment of elected officials, not by an arbitrary pledge signed as a campaign ploy at the behest of a group of Washington lobbyists.