Assembly works weekend to meet important deadline

CARSON CITY - The Nevada Assembly held its first weekend meeting to clear out a 46-bill logjam ahead of Monday's deadline for passing all of its measures to the Senate.

In their Saturday meeting, the lower house lawmakers passed measures dealing with issues ranging from slot machines and wild horses to workers compensation, student discipline, police complaints and telemarketing.

"We have about 17 bills left," Assembly Majority Leader Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said as the session ended, adding that the lower house is in good shape to finish its business by Monday's deadline.

"We'll be spectators for the Senate," he said. The Senate didn't call a floor session Saturday and has about 50 bills to deal with before midnight Monday.

"This was a big week," said Assembly Speaker Joe Dini, D-Yerington, noting that in addition to the Saturday floor session the Assembly held several lengthy floor sessions during the week.

The first major deadline was April 9 for bills to be moved out of committee. Hundreds made the cut, but another 320 lacked enough votes to pass out of committee or simply died without a hearing.

Saturday's action included Assembly passage of AB651, which mandates that slot manufacturers pay their share of state taxes based on the amount of money networked slot machines - like Megabucks or Wheel of Fortune - generate.

The Nevada Resort Association, representing casinos, claimed IGT and other large slot manufacturers have been able to make casinos pay the taxes because their dominant market shares give them an unfair advantage in contract negotiations.

The bill also requires that slot manufacturers offer the same games to small casinos that they offer to the larger, mega-casinos. Also, it spells out in law the regulations already adopted for such slots by the state Gaming Control Board, according to Mike Rumbolz, chief executive officer of slot-making Anchor Gaming.

The bill was watered down in the Assembly Judiciary Committee amid criticism that the debate belonged in private contract negotiations rather than in the Legislature.

The original version of the bill sought by the NRA would have forced manufacturers to offer such leased games for sale, but that requirement was amended out of the bill.

Also approved was AB509, which will allow Nevada counties to round up wild horses for sale.

Proponents say the legislation is intended to shore up a failed Bureau of Land Management program to euthanize or put up for adoption part of a wild horse population that has grown beyond what the habitat in Nevada can sustain.

There are currently about 24,000 wild horses and burros on land administered by the BLM, but Nevada can only maintain a healthy population of about 14,000 animals, according to Assemblyman John Carpenter, R-Elko, the bill's author.

But during a hearing in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee, environmentalists and wild horse advocates called Carpenter's plan a "declaration of war."

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