Does the first week of the Legislature mean anything?

By Jon Ralston

Friday, Feb. 11, 2011 | 2:01 a.m.

Scenes from a Legislature in its infancy, with only 115 days until the first special session:

• Same as it ever was: Nothing significant happens in the opening weeks of the legislative session, and the 76th is no different. Put it this way: Not even the most seasoned observer of Nevada legislatures can name one biennial event that was substantively affected by the events of the first few days.

But what can often be found at the beginning are harbingers of the end — or, in many cases, false portents. We may have seen both this week.

• Good cop, bad cop? State Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford and Speaker John Oceguera demonstrated very different styles as the session began, a contrast that could either serve the Democrats well or fuel stories of leadership dissonance.

Beginning with their Opening Day speeches, the Democratic helmsmen showed they want to steer disparate paths to sine die. Oceguera sounded like a conciliator, not quite Chamberlainesque toward the enemy across the courtyard, but striking notes of cooperation and bipartisanship. Horsford took a more bellicose approach, sounding more like Bush 41 after the Kuwait invasion in saying the budget will not stand.

It’s possible their styles will mesh — and they do have the same goal, which is to find a way to pump more money back into education and save some social service programs. But it’s also possible that Horsford will want to go much further than Oceguera, which could cause friction, especially because both are widely suspected to be looking to higher office and perhaps even the same congressional seat in 2012. (My take: I don’t think either of them knows yet what will happen in 2012 or what that new fourth seat will look like.)

• The contours of a deal? Chatting with leaders and lobbyists, and even a freshman or two, leads me to believe that lawmakers have a pathway to a deal that could dramatically change the administration’s budget while also radically altering how education is delivered in this state.

I have not talked to a single legislator, including Ways and Means Chairwoman Debbie Smith, who is viscerally opposed to the education reform proposals advanced by Gov. Brian Sandoval. Ending teacher tenure. Changing probationary periods. Discontinuing social promotion. Enacting real merit pay. Many Democrats think those should be debated and perhaps passed.

But what nearly all of them say — echoing comments made by both urban schools superintendents — is that you can’t simply reform the system and not consider funding, too. The facile comparison to Florida, where Jeb Bush’s reforms have improved that state’s schools, only go so far. Bush invested heavily in the early education years and had well-funded targeted programs to help struggling kids. Money does matter. And if Republican lawmakers — those not fixated on a no-new-taxes mantra because they love their titles and so desperate to be in the governor’s good graces — will listen to the other side, I see a solution.

• The impediments to a deal? Counting to 28 and 14 to get two-thirds in each house will be difficult enough — I doubt Democrats can hold all their own members in either house, especially in that always goofy state Senate caucus where somehow conservatives such as John Lee are allowed to reside. (Has anyone ever wondered how Lee will win a Democratic primary for Congress if he votes with the Republicans this session? Just asking.)

But, as I told you Wednesday, this governor is a formidable adversary. Even if you don’t agree with his budget, you have to admire Sandoval’s skill in quelling dissent. First it was GOP freshman Assemblyman Ira Hansen. And then, as the Review-Journal’s Ben Spillman reported, Tuscarora veteran state Sen. Dean Rhoads changed his maybe-tax tune after Sandoval had a come-to-Jesus with him.

Sandoval is doing his job — and doing it well. But I also believe, from talking to Hansen and knowing Rhoads all these years, that if a reasonable solution in their minds that infuses revenue into the system is presented at session’s end, they will be willing to feel the governor’s gentle wrath.

• The budget unraveling: Thanks to Horsford’s relentlessness, the administration’s financial necromancy is being exposed. Horsford essentially has accused the governor of proposing a tax increase — lifting a sunset on mining prepaying taxes, which is technically not an increase but a frontloading stunt. And soon, the school districts, especially Clark, will raise serious questions about that transfer of $425 million, most of it from the South, from capital reserves to operations. That could potentially trigger a property tax increase and it might just be ruled illegal if the districts sue.

It’s early, and budget schemes have passed muster and been approved many times before. But early harbingers — or are they false portents — indicate this one might be very different.