Nevada Legislature reaches deal allowing lawmakers to end session

The Senate voted on two measures Saturday evening which signal a deal has been struck to end the 2009 Legislature.

Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, and Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, both urged support for SCR97, the resolution spelling out an interim study of Nevada's revenue raising system and potential options to stabilize the revenue stream in the future.

In addition, the Senate voted to override SB201, the bill allowing the Washoe County Commission to raise fuel taxes in that county to provide for road and street repairs and construction.

Raggio had refused to vote on overriding Gov. Jim Gibbons' vetoes of the rest of the bills which make up the state budget until those two issues were worked out. Without at least two Republicans supporting the overrides, Democrats didn't have the votes to do it since 14 of 21 Senators are needed to make the two-thirds majority required by the Nevada Constitution.

The Senate followed that by overriding the veto of SB415, a bill intimately tied to the budget since it provides for the premiums to fund state employee benefits for the coming two years. Gibbons vetoed it because lawmakers decided to add more than $158 million to the budget to restore cuts his administration made to employee health benefits.

With the deal in place, overrides are expected today on the rest of the measures which complete the $12 billion overall and $6.745 billion General Fund state budget.

Lawmakers convene again at 9 a.m. today to process remaining legislation.

Most of today will be spent in conference committees. There are committees meeting to deal with some 20 remaining pieces of legislation where the Senate and Assembly have passed different versions.

They have until midnight June 2 to finish the job since the Nevada Constitution requires lawmakers to adjourn sine die by the end of the 120th day of session.

The total number of bills vetoed by Gov. Jim Gibbons swelled to more than 40 as of Saturday.

It wasn't clear whether there would be override votes on all of the vetoed measures.