Deadlines looming for Legislature

Nevada lawmakers have their hands full as they start their 15th week of the 2009 session on Monday, trying to resolve remaining differences in a state spending plan that must be balanced by new taxes and other revenue sources.

A core group of legislative leaders hopes by Monday to resolve differences over higher education funding so that final subcommittee recommendations can be made on the overall state budget for the next two fiscal years.

The goal was to have the differences resolved by last Friday, but a closed-door meeting of the core-group legislators broke up without agreement on the state university-college budget.

The higher education plan that's expected to surface on Monday will have cuts far below the 36 percent proposed by Gov. Jim Gibbons. Educators said anything in the 15-16 percent range or higher would be devastating, and held out hope for reductions closer to 10 percent.

In settling the higher education differences, core-group lawmakers also may review in private a long-

waited draft of specific tax increases and other revenue sources to fund their alternative to Gibbons' $6.2 billion budget.

Besides the budget and tax plan activity, legislators face a Friday deadline for approval of one house's bills by the other house's committees that had them under consideration. Any measure that lacks exempt status and that fails to advance from those committees will be dead for the session.

To meet the Friday deadline, the lawmakers have busy committee schedules, including Senate Judiciary discussion of AB116, which revises a law requiring consideration of any "contributory conduct" by domestic violence or rape victims in determining whether they get benefits under Nevada's Victims of Crime Program.

Senate Commerce and Labor reviews AB95, which would expand the authority of the state attorney general to review mergers of major health insurance companies. The idea is to ensure that such deals don't lead to abuses of market power.

Senate Health and Education considers AB102, which would allow Nevada, the nation's No. 1 gambling state, to have special court programs for problem gamblers charged with crimes such as passing bad checks, embezzlement, forgery, insurance fraud, or even robbery or assault.

On Tuesday, Assembly Ways and Means considers AB543, one of the measures on an "ugly list" of proposals designed to help fill a gaping budget hole. That measure would redirect 4 cents for every $100 of property value from Washoe and Clark counties to the state.

Senate Judiciary considers AB325, requiring sex offenders to stay away from victims or witnesses who testified against them; and AB380, which imposes civil penalties of up to $1 million on sex traffickers who lure or force children into prostitution.

Assembly Government Affairs takes up SB412, which would change the salary structure in the state Agency for Nuclear Projects, which is fighting federal plans for a radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain, so that staffers' pay would be set by lawmakers.