Governor sets them up, Senate knocks them down

Nevada senators stuck to their guns Thursday night, voting to override the first three major budget bills vetoed by Gov. Jim Gibbons just five hours earlier.

Gibbons vetoed not only the bill raising taxes but the major bills that implement the budget, saying, "Liberal leadership in the Legislature took the easy way out."

After the vetoed measures were returned to the Senate, it took just 15 minutes for the overrides. The vote on the tax package was 17-4. The Authorizations Act, SB431, was 19-2 and the state worker pay bill, SB433, was 18-3.

In all three votes, Carson City Republican Mark Amodei voted no along with Churchill County Republican Mike McGinness. Republicans Barbara Cegavske of Las Vegas and Maurice Washington of Sparks voted no on the tax package. Cegavske also voted no on SB433.

Other bills in the long list of 20 bills vetoed Thursday will be taken up today and during the weekend.

The Senate overrides now go to the Assembly, which is expected to confirm the decision to reject Gibbons' attempt to veto the budget and tax package developed to pay for it.

The Assembly is expected to follow suit with its own override votes starting today.

The total state budget is just more than $12 billion for the coming two years. Of that total, $6.745 billion is General Fund money. The rest is federal funding, highway funds, grants, fees and other revenues.

"In the end, I find this a job killing, economy crushing insult to the hard working families of Nevada," Gibbons told reporters and a small group of anti-tax activists who gathered on the steps of the Capitol as he vetoed the measures.

"The Legislature has chosen to waste their time and your money creating a budget that is filled with a billion dollars in new taxes that will hurt every single person in this state."

In presenting the first vetoed bill for a vote, Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, pointed out that the budget and the tax plan were developed by both parties and both houses of the Legislature. He also said the budget cut a billion dollars from the current biennium's spending.