Ensign causes uproar within Nevada delegation

Analysis

High-risk election year politics by Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., caused some anxious moments for Nevada's congressional delegation, as it sought to kill the casino meals tax on Capitol Hill this week.

Late Tuesday, Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., received word an amendment barring the IRS from taxing free meals casinos provide their employees would be attached to the historic IRS Restructuring Act that Congress hoped to pass by Thursday.

But it was touch and go there for a while.

Ensign left his Nevada colleagues in shock, when he issued a news release Monday announcing that he had single-handedly engineered the amendment deal with House and Senate leaders.

His announcement seemed designed to score points with the influential Culinary Union, which has been pushing hard to eliminate the tax.

The release was made public as a contingent of Culinary Union members in Las Vegas prepared to fly to Washington for a last-minute lobbying effort.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., were willing to go along with the amendment to make Ensign look good to Nevada voters. Republicans believe they have a chance of unseating Reid this year.

The backroom wheeling and dealing, however, created an uproar on Capitol Hill.

Reid, Bryan and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., who also had been working feverishly to derail the tax, all were caught off guard.

Ensign already was doing a satellite interview on a noon television news show in Las Vegas before Reid and Bryan were able to put out their own spin on the deal. A ruffled Gibbons never issued his own news release.

Ensign had never bothered to consult with Gibbons before claiming victory, even though Gibbons had co-sponsored the measure.

"I think we took some people by surprise by going with the release so soon," Ensign's press secretary, Jack Finn, acknowledged late Tuesday.

"But when we realized we had secured the commitment from the House leadership, we saw no reason not to let the folks back in Nevada know that we had done so, considering how important this issue is to them."

Earlier Tuesday, Ensign indicated Lott, himself, had encouraged him to go to the media.

Soon after the announcement, however, it began to look as though the agreement Ensign had worked out was anything but a done deal.

Someone, it seems, had forgotten to tell two key members of the conference committee looking to finalize the IRS overhaul bill -- Sens. William Roth, R-Del., and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y.

Even House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer, R-Texas, another key conferee, didn't see the meals tax measure until nearly midnight Monday, well after Ensign's announcement.

Roth and Moynihan were said to be angry at being left out of the loop about the casino tax measure and other unrelated last-minute amendments.

They were not happy campers much of Tuesday, as Nevada's congressional delegation and casino industry lobbyists scampered to repair the damage caused by Ensign's premature news release.

Casino lobbyists, who had been working the halls of Congress the past two weeks, could hardly believe their eyes as the still-unsigned deal became public.

"It's been a very delicate dance here the last two weeks," one casino industry source said. "We just didn't need this. If everybody had just waited until the legislation was passed, there would have been enough credit for everyone to claim some part of it."

Tuesday morning's Wall Street Journal didn't help matters, either.

The paper ran a story suggesting the 11th-hour amendments, including the meals tax measure, were threatening to delay passage of the IRS bill.

The Journal also reported that Gingrich had been embarrassed by the way Ensign had jumped the gun, a report Ensign decried as untrue.

By the time the story was printed, a panicky Gingrich, first approached for help on the meals tax during a Las Vegas fund-raising trip in April, had already taken steps to smooth things over.

Gingrich telephoned Mirage Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn, a major political donor with strong Culinary Union ties, late Monday to enlist his support with Moynihan.

That set off a series of high-level phone calls between Las Vegas and Washington on Monday night and Tuesday morning.

Wynn telephoned John Wilhelm, the newly elected president of the international Culinary Union, to convey the speaker's concerns.

Wilhelm, who was in Las Vegas, relayed that conversation back to Bryan in Washington.

Bryan consulted with Reid and talked to Moynihan, who assured his fellow Democrats that he supported the meals tax amendment.

Then, Bryan called Wilhelm to say that the speaker's concerns about Moynihan were erroneous.

Reid, meanwhile, spoke with Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Nebraska, another conferee on the IRS bill and received his backing for the amendment.

And just to make sure everyone understood each other, Reid on Tuesday morning informed Wynn that Moynihan and the Democrats were not the problem.

Late Tuesday, after some anxious moments, Moynihan brought the news everyone was waiting for.

He told Bryan the meals tax provision would indeed be written into the IRS bill.

"It just took some time to get everybody calmed down and get the train back on the tracks," one congressional insider said.

In the end, Wilhelm was ecstatic with the work of the Nevada delegation.

"I commend the delegation for working together in spite of the fact it's a political season," Wilhelm said. "I think it shows the delegation is capable of putting politics aside and do what's best for the workers."

Well, almost.

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