Work still remains for lawmakers before adjournment

Their 2009 session isn't over, but Nevada lawmakers have a relatively easy final week starting Tuesday compared with all the work they got done on the state budget, a major tax measure and scores of other bills in the preceding week.

Circumstances dictated that the $6.8 billion budget for the next two fiscal years and a $781 million tax-increase plan get to Gov. Jim Gibbons by last Friday. He's expected to veto the taxes, and the big task in the lawmakers' final week will be a veto override attempt.

Gibbons has five days, excluding Sunday, in which to veto the tax plan. If he takes all five days, a veto override attempt wouldn't occur before Thursday. Had lawmakers not sent him the tax and budget plans on Friday, they could have wound up dealing with an override vote on June 1, the last day of the session.

Legislators also faced a Friday deadline for the Senate to act on most bills that the Assembly had sent it, and for the Assembly to do the same with Senate measures it had received.

Among several measures that missed the deadline was AB95, which would have expanded the authority of the state attorney general to review mergers of major health insurance companies. The bill stemmed from the 2008 merger between Sierra Health Services and insurance giant UnitedHealth Group.

Legislators will keep themselves busy in their final full week reviewing remaining bills and amendments, and scheduling conferences to resolve differences between the Senate and Assembly on various proposals. While most committees are done with their work, a few are still discussing bills.

On Tuesday, Senate Legislative Operations and Elections plans a hearing on AB82, a proposal from the secretary of state's office that makes numerous changes in Nevada election laws.

Changes in the measure include an increase in penalties, from gross misdemeanors to felonies, for offenses such as intimidating voters and interfering in the conduct of an election. The bill also prohibits county clerks from knowingly appointing field registrars who have felony records for theft, fraud or dishonesty.

The American Civil Liberties Union has expressed numerous concerns about the measure, particularly the sections that increase the criminal penalties and impose new reporting requirements on campaign donations.

Senate Energy, Infrastructure and Transportation has no meeting scheduled, but still has AB522, Assemblywoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick's renewable energy bill. The bill says, among other things, that lawmakers would approve the governor's appointment of an energy commissioner " oversight that Gibbons opposes.