Lawmakers override 22 measures

With the addition of the bill creating domestic partnerships and the remainder of the major budget bills, lawmakers have now overturned 22 of Gov. Jim Gibbons' vetoes.

That breaks the record of 10 overrides in 1865 " the first session of the Nevada Legislature following statehood.

The list includes all but one of the major pieces which make up the legislatively approved budget: The Appropriations Act, Authorizations Act, K-12 Education funding and state worker salaries. The only piece missing is the Capital Improvement Projects bill which lawmakers say is unlikely to suffer a veto.

The votes effectively implement the $12 billion total, $6.745 billioin General Fund budget and provide the necessary revenue to pay for it.

The other key measures on the list are the bill increasing a variety of taxes " most notably the sales and business taxes " to provide an estimated $781 million in revenue to balance the budget and the legislation temporarily taking property tax money and governmental services tax revenue from Clark and Washoe counties.

Other measures where the governor was overridden are the increase in rental car fees, funding for state worker benefits premiums, fee increases for the state engineer's office and the bill creating rights for domestic partners.

Finally, overrides succeeded on a bill creating "dream tags" for big game hunting in Nevada and legislation allowing a surviving spouse to continue receiving industrial insurance death benefits even after remarrying.

The tightest votes were on SB283, the domestic partners legislation. In both houses, the vote was the bare minimum two-thirds required to override. In the Senate, Democrats John Lee and Terry Care voted against it. Republicans Dennis Nolan and Dean Rhoads were for it " 14-7 overall.

In the Assembly, the vote was 28-14. Democrat Mo Denis of Las Vegas voted against the bill but was offset by Republican Ed Goedhart of Amargosa Valley who supported the override.

The votes break the logjam which has been preventing the 2009 Legislature from completing their job.

One other measure needed to make the budget balance is SB427 which implements changes " reductions " to the Public Employee Benefits Program and Public Employees Retirement System agreed to by lawmakers. That bill isn't what Gibbons wanted because the reductions it contains aren't nearly as deep as he proposed.

But he is expected to sign it because, if he vetoes it, none of the reductions to those programs contained in the bill will occur.