Lawyers spar in Nevada high court over representation in tax case

Bill Dentzer
Las Vegas Review-Journal
February 11, 2020

Attorneys debated Tuesday before the Nevada Supreme Court whether lawyers for the Legislature can defend Democratic lawmakers in a lawsuit filed by their Republican colleagues, a preliminary skirmish in what will likely be a precedent-setting case.

Amid extensive questioning from all seven justices, the court Tuesday allowed arguments to run nearly double the originally allotted 30 minutes, with Chief Justice Kristina Pickering promising at the conclusion that the court would rule “as expeditiously as possible.”

The underlying case is a lawsuit filed by all eight Senate Republicans in July challenging the legality of two tax bills passed with Democratic majority support last session. Republicans contend the bills required two-thirds majority support in both houses to pass; they fell one vote short of that margin in the Senate.

While arguing the tax case in Carson City District Court, however, lawyers for the Republican senators objected to attorneys for the Legislative Counsel Bureau representing defendants such as Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, D-Las Vegas; Senate Secretary Claire Clift and Lt. Gov. Kate Marshall, who presides over the state Senate. District Court Judge James Todd Russell sided with the Republicans, and ruled the defendants needed to hire their own outside lawyers so the Legislative Counsel Bureau could maintain its bipartisan neutrality.

On Tuesday, Justice James Hardesty was critical of Russell’s suggestion that legislative lawyers “picked sides” in the dispute, and lawyers for both sides affirmed that there was nothing in the court record to suggest such a scenario.

“As far as taking direction, on behalf of the organization, it’s the majority rule concept,” said Kevin Powers, chief litigation counsel for the bureau. “So if the Legislature as the majority decides to direct us to do something, we would have to do that.”

Powers also argued the GOP plaintiffs gratuitously named Cannizzaro and the other legislative defendants in the lawsuit in a strategic move to get legislative lawyers removed from the case.

“The plaintiffs chose to put them in this case,” Powers said. “They made a tactical and calculated litigation decision.”

Later, under questioning by Hardesty, GOP lawyer Karen Peterson at first demurred on why those defendants were included. She later said the plaintiff’s lawsuit “didn’t need the Legislature at all” but quickly pivoted.

“We did need those parties, we absolutely needed those parties, because they were the ones that violated the Constitution when they approved” the tax bills, she said.

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“(LCB) did pick and choose sides, they absolutely did. What I have a problem with is they’re admitting they don’t even do an analysis if there’s a conflict of interest.”

Karen Peterson,
the lawyer representing Senate Minority Leader James Settelmeyer, R-Minden, and 10 other co-plaintiffs signed on to the suit

Was Nevada’s 2019 tax extension legal? Supreme court hears arguments in partisan fight

James DeHaven, Reno Gazette Journal
February 11, 2020

The Nevada Supreme Court could soon decide a bitter partisan legal fight over a statewide tax extension legislative Republicans say is unconstitutional. 

The state’s highest court on Tuesday heard an hour of passionate arguments about whether the Legislative Counsel Bureau — the attorneys who represent all elected members of the Nevada Legislature — improperly sided with Democratic state lawmakers who pushed through the controversial revenue-raising maneuver. 

A district court judge in November ruled Democrats would have to hire new, non-LCB Attorney’s to defend the move, explaining that failing to do so would pose a potentially serious conflict of interest.

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The teacher union is pushing for a $1.4 billion tax hike!

John Tsarpalas
Nevada Policy Research Institute
January 28, 2020

The Clark County Education Association (CCEA) has launched details regarding their plan to take more out of the pockets of working Nevadans. Two tax hikes have been proposed: an increase on gaming taxes and an increase on the state sales tax.

The grand total this go-around would be $1.4 billion in new levies — with more than $1 billion of that coming from a hike in the state’s sales tax.

While the gaming tax will hurt business and thus Nevadans by reducing job creation, the sales tax increase is simply devastating. The proposal would raise the average sales tax rate to nearly 10 percent – the highest nationwide!

Here at Nevada Policy, we’re not sure who the voters are that are asking to pay more in taxes, but the teacher’s union must know. Will they ever have enough of your money to funnel to education bureaucrats?  

Under their tax taking initiative the measure would go to the 2021 Legislature, which could pass it into law. If lawmakers decline, the measure would then go to voters via the ballot in 2022 and, if passed, would take effect the following year.

If unions get their way on this billion-dollar sales tax increase, it would be a big blow to low and middle-income working families.

This whole effort is sponsored by Nevadans for Fair Gaming Taxes, a new political action committee under the auspices of the Clark County Education Association.

Nevada Policy Research Institute is on the ground in Nevada to say enough is enough. Do we want and need more of our tax dollars going to form political action committees for the benefit of CCEA’s political arm? The added tax revenue will be used to keep a broken bureaucracy afloat, not towards improving student learning.

The fact is, the education bureaucracy — specifically the CCEA — and whatever new entities they create to strong-arm more of your tax dollars, can’t wait to grow their reach and influence in Nevada at your expense.

But we’re here to push back and make the case that pouring more money into a broken system will not improve Nevada’s education outcomes and will make ordinary working Nevadans worse off.

READ MORE HERE

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“Nevada Policy Research Institute is on the ground in Nevada to say enough is enough. Do we want and need more of our tax dollars going to form political action committees for the benefit of CCEA’s political arm? The added tax revenue will be used to keep a broken bureaucracy afloat, not towards improving student learning.”

John Tsarpalas, NPRI

Teachers union hopes voters will approve billion dollar tax increase for schools

Michael McGrady
The Center Square
January 30, 2020

The Clark County Education Association (CCEA) hopes voters will approve a new tax hike that it says will address concerns of underfunded schools across the state of Nevada. 

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“The added tax revenue will be used to keep a broken bureaucracy afloat, not towards improving student learning,” John Tsarpalas, president of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a free market think tank, said in an email sent to supporters. 

“The case that pouring more money into a broken system will not improve Nevada’s education outcomes and will make ordinary working Nevadans worse off,” he added.

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