Legislature Gunning For Media Now

After I blogged about how the Legislature could find $800,000+ by eliminating its government handout to the likes of small government advocate and publisher Sherman Frederick and free counties from having to print the property tax rolls each year, I heard from State Sen. David Parks.

He wrote me to say he's going to toss the idea into the mix. He tried twice as an assemblyman to eliminate this corporate welfare deal and it made it through both houses in 2009 before Frederick called Gov. Gibbons for a favor, as documented by Jon Ralston last year. Wroth Parks:

"We should put the repeal of property rolls on if we can find a bill that has a nexus. That will be more difficult and it has to be with something that the governor won’t veto."

But wait! There's more! Parks also noted that newspapers in Nevada enjoy a sales tax exemption on ink and newsprint. He'd like to see that undone as well this week as legislators try to scare up $887 million to fill a monster budget gap in the special session.

Now, I'm not so sure I like that. Printing the tax rolls is a completely unnecessary exercise. Ink and paper are important and the media is already in a tough spot financially. One is a gen-u-ine guvment payoff, the other is an effort to help a critical industry do its job and stay solvent. Such sales tax deductions are common; an effort to kill it in Colorado, where it amounted to about $10 million in savings, failed earlier this month. So it's not that much money anyway, seeing how Colorado is double the population and the circulation of its leading paper, the Denver Post, is probably larger than the circulation of all Nevada daily newspapers combined. Our sales tax rate, however, is a lot higher.

That said, it looks like Sherm Frederick is going to have to hire back on his expensive lobbyists, ask toady Nevada Press Association Executive Director Barry Smith to trot out fresh pile of steaming bullshit and get his pal Gibbons on speed-dial. And when the R-J Editorial Board endorses our Love Guv in the GOP primary, you'll know why! Read between the lines of their blather about how he did his best to "shrink government" and you'll see the invisible words "except when it came to our gravy train, which he graciously kept intact."

Speaking of which, David Parks is running this year for Clark County Commission, so taking on the R-J's government payoff is pretty brave. The R-J editorial board has praised his fiscal discipline many times over the years, but they only meant it when it was cutting somebody else's perks.

$800,000 For The NV Legislature

Hey Nevada Legislators!

The Review-Journal heartily advocates spending reductions to solve the $887 million budget hole that forced all of you to Carson City for a special session. Why not take them at their word, then, and cut off Sherman Frederick's totally unnecessary nanny-state guvmint handout? It's only worth about $800,000, but that's good for five or six school-district administrators, right?

How? Gosh, it's so easy! Stop requiring the counties to publish the property tax rolls that are already easily available for free on the Internet. Voila! It can even be cast as a "green" initiative, too! In Clark County, that was 576 pages per home subscriber in December and Clark County by law had to pay the Review-Journal $555,000 for the honor. Here's what it looked like:


Now, now, Tom Mitchell and Sherman Frederick. Don't get all dewy-eyed about the unwired and underprivileged now! You sure as hell don't give a damn when they have to take a few extra steps on their own, and I thought you were champions of people's can-do spirit? Anybody can go to the Clark County Public Library and have a librarian help them look it up if they don't have a pooter or can't figure out a website that's a lot easier to navigate than, uh, ReviewJournal.Com!

Not to mention, the Internet version is so much more user-friendly. You can easily pivot to your neighbors' parcels to compare and contrast if you wish! In the dead-tree version, you have to know the names of your neighbors and who the hell knows that anymore?

Last year, the Legislature actually passed a bill to do away with this but the high-minded, libertarian and super-duper ethical Sherman Frederick himself called Gov. Jim Gibbons to plead for the veto that killed it according to a report by Jon Ralston. Y'see, Frederick doesn't believe in government handouts unless it's his.

During that session, Nevada Press Association Executive Director Barry Smith told lawmakers that printing the rolls provides "third-party accountability." Smith, in this instance, is a liar and knows it. The R-J doesn't expend an ounce of journalistic effort fact-checking or reviewing the tax rolls they print. It's advertising and is treated as such.

So there's some $800,000 across the state that can be returned to county coffers and, in turn, could be kept by the state. It's easy. It's completely unnecessary. And how awesome will it be to watch Sherman Frederick betray everything he writes to keep his own welfare check coming in?

Every 76 Seconds, Lovin' Happens In Nevada!

As I expected from my reporting in The New York Times in January, State Sen. Bob Coffin has introduced a bill this week to tax legal prostitution in Nevada. The state has inserted itself in a massive budget hole and Coffin hopes Nevada can lick up some bits and pieces from a business that hasn't had to come up with any dough for all these years. The lovelies shown here are just some of the wares at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, by the by.

What's interesting here are Coffin's numbers. He estimates that taxing each legally sold sex act $5, the state could raise $2 million a year. That's 400,000 legally sold sex acts sold per year, or about 1,096 a day. Also, 45 an hour! A legally sold sex act is occurring in this state every 76 seconds!

That does seem high, doesn't it? I mean, there are only 225 licensed legal prostitutes in the state. They'd have to be awful busy. But I suppose it also brings up what the definition of a sex act is. I mean -- hide the kiddies -- if fellatio and intercourse occur in the same encounter, is that two acts? Is the prostitute running a mental tally in her head to figure out how much tax to, uh, assess?

Gov. Jim Gibbons reacted to SB369 by telling the Associated Press' Brendan Riley, "I'm not a supporter of legalizing prostitution in Nevada. So by taxing it, there's a recognition of the legality of it. And that's all I want to say."

Um, but it IS legal. I'd like to not pay my speeding tickets and not recognize the legality of speeding limits, but that's not working out so well for me or my auto insurance bill.

The governor's missionary-inspired (he's a Mormon!) position isn't really that relevant anyway because any tax would have to be approved by a supermajority of the Legislature, which means that it's also a veto-proof majority. And Coffin's bill isn't likely to pass anyway; as I wrote in January, both the House speaker and state Senate majority leader oppose it.

Still, the hearings could be very colorful, particularly when lawmakers must answer some of the questions I've posed here.

Cuz lawmakers don't have real problems to address?

My colleague Steve Sebelius, editor of Las Vegas CityLife, is really excited today over something the Legislature is working on. I want to believe he's kidding, but he seems to be sincerely elated over Assembly Bill 257.

What, you ask, does AB257 do? Does it resolve the state's massive budget crisis? No! Does it address such rampant social challenges as teen pregnancy, mental illness, unemployment, workplace safety, school overcrowding, homeless children or gambling addiction? No, no, no, no, no, no and no! Does it make it so that Miles and I can be legally obligated to nag at one another for the rest of our earthly days? No again!

AB257 -- and I'm not making this up much as I wish I were -- makes it a misdemeanor to take more than 10 copies of a free publication if the intent is "(1) profit by recycling the newspaper; (2) sell or barter the newspaper; (3) deprive others of the opportunity to read the newspaper; or (4) harm a business competitor." It's a thought crime based on a California law! The punishment could be a $250 fine.

We at the crack staff of VegasHappensHere.Com have yet to investigate how much revenue the Golden State is pulling down from such stupidity, but I'll bet Mr. Sebelius a steak dinner it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $0.00.

This is a joke, you think. Me, too, but no, there are 13 got-nothing-better-to-do Assembly members co-sponsoring this bill, which is probably called the Pussy Legislators Sucking Up To The Alternative Press Act. (I have to make an airport run in a few minutes or I'd come up with a clever acronym.) One who isn't co-sponsoring it, I'm proud to say, is my own rep, Mark Manendo. No, Manendo is too busy trying to pass a law requiring grass, not desert landscaping, at veterans' cemeteries. We're all so proud.

So tell me, geniuses and Mr. Sebelius, are cops going to be on hand to count out the number of copies someone has taken and write tickets? And does it apply to the porn stuff pictured here?

Because, really, I want my police busy doing something so idiotic. Or will someone fixed on take lots of something allegedly "free" stop themselves by thinking, "Aww, shit, some moron in Carson City actually passed a law against this and I could be out 250 clams if I do this. Maybe I'll go take fistfuls of straws from Jack in the Crack instead."

Oh! Oh! Oh! Also, this proposed law NOW only applies to "free" publications, but it's a slippery slope! You know, like letting Miles and me marry will lead to men trying to marry their beloved flat-screen TVs and women wedding Manolos and 10-year-olds of both gender marrying Jonas Brothers posters and there goes the culture! After they ban taking 10+ copies of the Jewish Reporter or Q Vegas, will they start legislating how many of those candies I can have at my dry cleaner? Or how about napkins at Arby's? Or how long I can sit on that sofa at RC Willey?

OMG. This IS brilliant! There are whole new revenue streams just waiting to be tapped! Woo hoo! Budget deficit solved!

Or maybe we can put a sign on the boxes that says, "Please only take one." Then maybe our esteemed lawmakers can get back to dealing with actual problems.