Goicoechea anticipates legislative special session

State Senator Pete Goicoechea and Assemblymen John Ellison and James Oscarson held their weekly telephone conference call with interested persons last week to talk about the issues being worked on at the state legislature in Carson City. The session is supposed to end June 1.

But Goicoechea said he fully expects there will have to be a special session, most of which will deal with the governor’s Plan B tax proposal which is facing some opposition from both sides of the aisle. “We are nowhere close on this tax bill. It’s a $1 billion tax increase, and it isn’t going to fly,” He also hopes the legislature will get a week off before having to return for a special session.

Goicoechea said he expects there will be an added extra session of the legislature if they do not meet the midnight June 1 deadline to fund Gov. Sandoval’s roughly $7.3 billion budget.

The Plan B proposal, called the “Nevada Revenue Plan,” was introduced late in the session after Sandoval’s initial idea to tie business license fees to gross receipts passed the Senate but sputtered and collapsed in the Assembly.

In other news, the conference call noted the “campus carry” amendment by Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, R-Las Vegas, lost in the Assembly on a vote of 24-18. The amendment would have allowed firearms on college campuses in Nevada. Fiore said she still hopes to attach the amendment to a different bill.

On Senate Bill 81, to revise provisions relating to the management and appropriation of water, Goicoechea said it is in the Senate Finance committee right now, and “probably won’t move.”