Several games of political chicken converging at one intersection

By Jon Ralston

Sunday, May 11, 2008 | 2:01 a.m.

As elected and unelected leaders try to reach an elusive consensus on how to tax the gaming industry to help education, several intersecting chicken contests among these various cocks of the walk and a few assertive hens could cause a spectacular crash or a breathtaking solution.

The engines started revving last week, with Steve Wynn trying to drive the industry agenda again after a political hiatus. Wynn’s plan made sense for both sides: The teachers would back off their 44 percent gross gaming tax increase they believe will qualify for the ballot but would still have to pass twice, making them wait years for the money. In return, the casinos would fork over increased room tax revenue for education, thus heading off an attempt to raise the gaming levy 3 percentage points.

Apocalypse denied. Initiative kaput. Happiness abounds.

Perhaps we will arrive at this fairy tale ending in which no one swerves off a bridge and a head-on collision is averted. But we are not there yet because these roosters often like cockfighting even more than a game of chicken.

And oh how they like to fight.

Long gone are the days when these oligarchs — or as Wynn is fond of calling them, “the guys” — used to sit around a boardroom table, decide whom to anoint and not have to worry too much about taxation. The botched 2003 gross receipts tax increase, proposed by the anointed Kenny Guinn, combined with Wynn’s Far East sojourns, Gondolier Numero Uno Sheldon Adelson’s Forbes list ascent and MGM Mirage chief executive Terry Lanni’s assertive leadership have rearranged the dynamic.

Gamers, gamers, where did the love go? Or at least the clenched-teeth tolerance?

Wynn and his education activist wife, Elaine, have not been this deeply enmeshed in politics for some time. Wynn’s political machine — and loud voice — often has moved the industry agenda despite his colleagues’ envy/disdain/fear of him. But when he started this ball rolling, as Harrah’s and Station and others went along, Adelson and Lanni started a Strip form of chicken with Wynn.

I am not sure which Lanni dislikes more intensely — the teachers union, which he has openly attacked as greedy and self-serving, or Wynn, with whom there has been long-term tension. As for Adelson, you get the impression he would have built the Palazzo even closer to Wynn’s eponymous property, perhaps even blocking the entrance, if the county would have sanctioned it.

So by the end of last week, neither had signed on to the deal, which had been further altered to garner Gov. No New Taxes’ support by including an advisory question to give Jim Gibbons cover.

The teachers have been playing their own game of chicken here since they proposed the initiative months ago. I think the union always expected the gamers to come to the table, although they may have underestimated Lanni’s fury at their proposal and the industry’s disparate viewpoints on taxing matters.

The teachers may well be able to get the signatures by May 20, but they still have no guarantee the state Supreme Court will allow it on the ballot. And they also may not want to endure the long-term consequences of a bloody campaign that would feature a “teachers are greedy and selfish” vs. a “gamers are greedy and selfish.”

The teachers have used this tactic before, back in 1990, when the union backed an initiative to tax corporate profits. In that contest, they succeeded in getting their enemies to blink and promise to support a business tax during the 1991 Legislature — the profits tax proposition already had qualified but was soundly defeated.

It was an imperfect solution, just as this one, if it happens, is destined to be. Remember all the political folks involved in this, too, with their varying agendas and potential gubernatorial campaigns playing out against a backdrop of an in-progress, elongated budget disaster. Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley and Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio have been meeting with gamers, and Mayor Oscar Goodman, who heads the convention authority board, has been involved.

I relish a peaceful ending to these games of chicken among the casino bosses and between the industry and the teachers union. Peace in our time — or at least before May 20 — might be the catalyst for an old alliance to become reinvigorated so we can stop worrying about who is paying too little and start focusing on who is paying nothing.

The gamers and teachers vs. the virtually untaxed business community? Now that’s a game of chicken I’d like to watch — again. Maybe this time the ending will be different.