Missed opportunity

Monday, April 13, 2009 | 2:06 a.m.

A bill requested by rural brothel owners that would have added a $5 state tax to each payment made by their clients should have sailed through the Legislature.

Instead Senate Bill 369 was killed in committee Friday after a drawn-out hearing on Tuesday that featured testimony by a psychologist, brothel owners, a lobbyist for the brothel industry and several prostitutes.

The hearing room was packed, according to Las Vegas Sun reporter Cy Ryan, who said the onlookers included “lobbyists who presumably had no financial interest in the issue.”

Legislative time is too precious for such a spectacle during a session in which the critical issue is how to preserve state services even as tax revenue is drying up because of the recession.

Our view is that the bill was a no-brainer, one that warranted quick passage every step of the way through the Legislature. A legal industry wants to be taxed? Fine. Tax it.

Owing to a law passed by the 1971 Legislature, brothels are legal in Nevada counties with populations less than 400,000.

Sen. Mike Schneider, a member of the Senate Taxation Committee, which killed the bill on a 4-3 vote, criticized what he saw as the faux morality behind the majority’s position.

Legislators are not inclined to repeal the 1971 law, but the four committee members did not want to further legitimize prostitution through taxation.

Such hypocritical reasoning does not serve the state. The tax would generate about $4 million during Nevada’s two-year budget cycle. That is tiny compared with the state’s $2 billion-plus deficit, but why turn it away?

The tax would not legally insulate the brothel industry if the Legislature in a future session wanted to override the 1971 law. And neither would it force the Legislature to extend prostitution to the populous counties of Clark and Washoe.

All a tax would do is put more money in the state’s general fund, money that is badly needed.