Friday, May 30, 2003 | 9:20 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- Reporters presented "Third House" to lawmakers Thursday night, poking fun at the Legislature with skits and fake news reports.
But in their wildest dreams, wags couldn't surpass the unbelievable things legislators continue to say and do in the last week of the session.
During a discussion Monday about whether vacant government positions should be eliminated, Sen. Sandra Tiffany, R-Henderson, championed public workers in an uncharacteristic show of support.
When her colleagues asked if they were hearing her correctly, Tiffany gave what could wind up as the most-famous response of the session: "I love government, I just don't want to fund it."
On Wednesday, Assemblyman Josh Griffin, R-Henderson, remarked that as a freshman he didn't help create the state's fiscal problems.
"You certainly did," David Goldwater, D-Las Vegas, interrupted light-heartedly. "You've got four kids."
About an hour later, the biggest spectacle of the session emerged in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee where the Democrats' attempt to shove a tax package out by any means became apparent.
The numbers they were attempting to put into a new bill weren't the same as the numbers the Assembly Taxation Committee had just agreed to pay.
Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, called it a "tax wedgie," after others noted how the number was riding up.
When Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, began objecting to the change, Goldwater angrily interrupted him: "What does it matter? You're going to vote 'no' anyway."
Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, who sits next to Hettrick, leaned in and demonstrably shook his head no to Goldwater, who backed off.
Then came the real confusion. Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons, R-Reno, asked whether her vote in Taxation minutes earlier was on "a bill or a concept."
"The earlier was a concept," Ways and Means Chairman Morse Arberry Jr., D-Las Vegas, said.
Before the vote to put the taxes into the appropriation bill, Arberry was asked whether such a move was legal.
"Legal gave us a legal opinion to do just this, uh, what we would be doing," Arberry said.
Finally he added: "Let's just vote on the motion and worry about the consequences later."
Griffin, now aware that the $857 million he had voted to support had become $881 million (and that another $60 million in fee increases is in a separate measure), wanted the committee to remove $50 million in spending.
Ironically, the $50 million transfer to the state's rainy-day fund was the largest single cut in state government a Republican has identified and supported this session.
A failed coup
Griffin also withstood an attempt Thursday to remove him from his assistant minority leader position, retaliation for his vote in favor of a tax increase.
The 32-year-old lawmaker received 10 caucus votes to stay in the position during a secret ballot motion brought by Beers and Ron Knecht, R-Carson City. Nine Assembly members voted to replace Griffin as assistant minority leader.
"We had some healthy discussion on the issue," Griffin said afterward.
Although it was a secret ballot, many in the caucus know who was on each side.
When Griffin sought the assistant leader position after winning election last fall, he worked to obtain 10 votes. (Note to the mathematicians in the Republican caucus: The first requirement for a coup is to count to 10.)
At the time Griffin became assistant leader, he also appeared to have the votes to take out Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, but never pushed for the top job at the time.
Hettrick, who is staunchly opposed to the Unified Business Tax, glared at Griffin in committee Thursday while the freshman was speaking about the tax vote he was about to cast.
For weeks, lobbyists have been swarming Assembly Republicans to shore up votes on a tax package. Five Republicans would have to join Democrats in support of a tax package in order to meet the two-thirds majority requirement in the Assembly.
The 10 votes Griffin got to keep his job may not be votes for taxes, but were certainly viewed that way Thursday by Democrats and lobbyists who support tax increases.
As Griffin walked a hallway to his office Thursday afternoon, a teacher's union lobbyist shook his hand and said: "You have our support."
When he voted Wednesday to approve $857 million in taxes, Griffin said he didn't care if his vote meant he was going to lose his election next year.
"If someobody else wants to come and take this seat in two years, they won't have a problem," Griffin said in committee.
Punch drunk
Assemblyman Joe Hardy, R-Boulder City, supported lowering the state's DUI alcohol content limit for drivers this week with a strange fact the physician has learned in his practice.
A person who goes 24 hours without sleep suffers the same physiological effects as a person who drinks enough to register a 0.08 in a blood alcohol test.
After several straight days of late-night negotiations on the budget, lawmakers began showing the effects of sleep deprivation.
On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio made a pitstop while driving fellow Reno Republican Randolph Townsend home. Raggio pulled into a Jack in the Box at about 11 p.m., went inside and ordered a chicken sandwich, onion rings and a Sprite.
No report from Hardy on the physiological effects of late-night fast food.
Lemon bill goes sour
A bill requiring car dealers to post a $50,000 bond with the Department of Motor Vehicles was touted as good consumer protection in the Assembly.
Assembly Bill 417, sponsored by Kelvin Atkinson, D-North Las Vegas, passed the Assembly Transportation Committee, the Assembly floor and the Senate Transportation Committee unanimously.
It wasn't until the Senate Transportation Committee received an e-mail from Las Vegas car dealer Jim Marsh that trouble began. A DMV representative said he did not think Marsh's concerns were relevant.
But Marsh, Tiffany's ex-boyfriend, didn't let up, and sources report, got the bill shelved to the secretary's desk after it arrived on the Senate floor.
The bill, which is exempt from deadlines because it was granted a waiver, is not exempt from Monday's midnight deadline.
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