Saturday, Sept. 17, 2005 | 4 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
Sept. 17-18, 2005
Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the Ralston Report. He can be reached at (702) 870-7997 or at [email protected].
AMID THE darkness of Sun City, where tax proposals and old people come to die, two of Nevada's would-be future leaders played to a packed, raucous house last week.
State Sen. Bob Beers and Assemblywoman Sharron Angle played the song that 400 or so old-timers wanted to hear Wednesday evening at the Desert Vista Community Center -- lower property taxes, less government spending, and without consequences. The crowd lavished cheers and encomia on the pair of noble tax warriors while pelting with derision the third man on stage, Sun City activist Gil Eisner, as he tried to explain the potentially deleterious effects of the Beers and Angle proposals.
As I stood on stage as the moderate moderator, trying to keep order and wondering if Eisner would make it out alive, I realized just how powerful the Beers-Angle message could be in Campaign '06 and just how difficult it will be for the other side to be heard.
The most striking aspect of the forum last week was that many of the people simply were not listening. These seniors not only are hard of hearing, but they also are deaf to any arguments that might suggest that the fastest-growing state in the country cannot survive a property tax rollback proposed by Angle and a government spending constriction proffered by Beers.
And my guess is it's not just the old folks who have tuned out. Many Nevadans will happily hum along to the siren songs of initiatives the Republican duo are pushing. Beers is the more glib and skillful of the two but it was Angle who articulated the pitch that could galvanize the conservative base in 2006 and affect not only the initiatives but also political fortunes up and down the ticket.
The assemblywoman told the crowd that three initiatives she hopes are on the ballot would be a "property owners protection" package for Nevada. The trio is made up of her Angle Property Tax Restraint initiative, Beers' Tax and Spending Control for Nevada and an eminent domain-restricting plan.
No three issues could be better designed to activate every part of the GOP base than the trilogy Angle kept referring to last week, ensuring the kind of high turnout across the state that should easily push all three initiatives across the finish line, boost the higher office candidacies of the two proponents and might even assist Republicans running for constitutional office.
But even better for Angle and Beers and their acolytes is that the sheer and simple power of their ideas threatens to turn their opponents into craven mutes or waffling wimps. The question is whether anyone, especially candidates for governor, will put their convictions where their mouths are during the campaign season and sing to a different, politically risky tune.
Neither Beers nor Angle will have any trouble qualifying their petitions -- and the eminent domain initiative is a lock, too. And both showed last week that they have their patter down, remarkably describing their ideas in almost liberal terms, saying they are allowing government to spend more, just not too much.
That is, the Angle rollback simply goes back a couple of years to set rates and then allows only 2 percent increases per year. So she allows for revenues to rise -- and surely 2 percent can cover the state and local government needs.
And Beers serially characterizes his proposal, which would restrict spending to population growth plus inflation, as a moderate plan simply designed to ensure government doesn't have outrageous increases. Surely government can survive with less money than it has been spending, especially because education, infrastructure and social service spending is so excessive in Nevada.
Sing along with them -- there's no government like no government like no government they know.
Both Beers and Angle have Web sites and Beers especially has skillfully erected a network through an e-mail newsletter about his initiative that he pushes to subscribers when he is not campaigning.
In a business where purity is as rare as selflessness, Beers and Angle are not pristine. Both can and will be accused of using their initiatives to bolster their campaigns for governor and Congress, respectively. And even though they have established their anti-tax bona fides over several sessions, each voted for the largest spending package in state annals this year.
But if the so-far dormant opponents of these moves think they can get the initiative by getting the man or woman behind it, they are delusional. The only way to stop what Beers and Angle are trying to do is to present an alternative message, an apocalyptic picture of a future with these initiatives in place.
Will we hear the Democratic contenders for governor speak out against these initiatives? My guess is even that wouldn't be enough, nor will the inevitable crafty maneuvers to put forth competing initiatives designed to either negate the effects of the Beers-Angle proposals or energize the left-wing base (increasing the minimum wage, for instance).
Gov. Kenny Guinn, who remains popular, will have to expend his remaining political capital, lest his legacy be undermined. And others also should be called to account -- anyone with a stake in the state's future, from unions to businesses to gaming companies, should be hectored to join the chorus.
Beers and Angle, love 'em or hate 'em, have drawn a clear, philosophical dividing line in what should be a great debate about the state's destiny. If no one lines up on the other side, the powerful Sun City effect will win out, the initiatives easily will pass, Beers could be governor, Angle could be in Congress and whatever progress has been made in education and social service spending will be erased.
Is that the song you want to hear?
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