DENNIS MYERS Against the Grain Advertisement

On June 5, 2007, the Nevada Republican Party put out a news release on the outcome of the 2007 Nevada Legislature: "Under the leadership of Governor Gibbons...We increased teacher pay, and most importantly, provided merit pay to reward our best teachers."

One year and one day later, Gibbons' office offered assurances that the increased teacher pay was sacrosanct: "A spokesman for Gov. Jim Gibbons has a message for state workers and school teachers concerned that some or all of their 4 percent cost-of-living pay increase could be on the chopping block: It's not going to happen. 'We're not going to cut the COLAs,' said Ben Kieckhefer, press secretary to Gibbons. 'The COLAs are off the table. We're not going to delay them or touch them.' [Las Vegas Review Journal] "

Seven days later, in a joint news release with Sen. William Raggio, Gibbons said, "No solutions are off the table," and in the same news release Raggio proposed revoking the public employee pay increases. With Raggio throwing himself on the sword, Gibbons was able to technically avoid putting out any quotes changing his position on the pay raises.

Raggio, sometimes accused by extreme conservatives of being a "Republican in name only," may be getting vertigo from spinning around to loyally support Gibbons' ever-changing stances.

Last week the governor called an "emergency" meeting to decide what to do about the budget. "I believe we are in the midst of the worst fiscal crisis in the state's history," Gibbons said. "It's important that all state leaders are on the same page about where we stand and together we consider our options moving forward."

So the meeting was held, and it ended with Republicans and Democrats on the same page about one thing--no special session of the legislature. Raggio (then): "I don't think that's going to be necessary."

The next day, Gibbons called a special session. Raggio (now: "On reflection...") stood by him, providing about the only political cover the governor received.

There is something to be said for having legislators handle budget cuts, but chief executives are normally loath to surrender any vestige of their authority. Gibbons is throwing his authority overboard by the ton. The budget crises that have plagued Nevada four times since 1981 are a product of the state's shift that year from property tax reliance to sales tax reliance. In the first three crises governors chose to do the cutting themselves. Gibbons is the first one to turn the job over to the lawmakers.

"After conferring with legislative leadership and members of the executive branch yesterday, I decided that a budget crisis of this magnitude should not be addressed by only a few selected leaders," the governor said. It should be noted that this sensitivity to legislative sensibilities is somewhat tardy - by the time he called the legislators into session to cut perhaps $100 million in pay raises, he had already cut many times that amount on his own authority from other areas.

Gibbons is going to send the lawmakers into the special session but says he won't make any recommendations on how they should do their job, which if it happens will be a first in state history and a benchmark in surrender of the prerogatives of the state's executive branch. In Nevada, the governor controls the agenda of a special session. The agenda for this special session is apparently going to be written in the vaguest and most general terms. The governor says he's going to limit the session to five days, which he may not be able to do (there are legal opinions saying he can but the courts have never spoken).

These forfeits of a governor's powers are not a first for this governor. Gibbons has always seemed reluctant to be governor. For several weeks, he avoided doing anything about the Las Vegas clinic scandal. During part of the budget crisis he left the state for Iraq, turning his powers over to Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki (causing the executive branch to break out in an unaccustomed burst of leadership). He even moved out of the governor's mansion. Now he has dropped a previously executive function into the legislative lap.

There is a wild card in all this. In 1991 Gov. Robert Miller tried to solve a state budget crisis by cutting state worker pay and the courts overruled him. The teachers are almost certain to challenge a revocation of their raises in court, and if they succeed it will send the whole issue back to Gibbons. That might force him to be governor, unless he can find a new way to avoid it. Sen. Raggio may have more dizziness in store for him.