Nevada Update
I'm a week late on this, but apparently Nevada legislators have passed a budget and an $800 million-plus tax increase, with 2/3 of the members of the state House and Senate voting approval. The vote comes as some lawmakers continue to challenge a Nevada Supreme Court ruling that discarded the state constitution's requirement that a budget be passed by a 2/3rds majority in each house. The Nevada high court ruled that the legislature must pass a budget by a simple majority. It has been rightly reviled as atrocious constitutional law. The Las Vegas Review Journal reports

Lawmakers wanted the two-thirds vote in each house to head off any court challenges to the revenue plan. A Nevada Supreme Court ruling says approval of taxes does not require a two-thirds vote, but lawmakers want to meet the supermajority threshold to comply with the higher standard for taxes required by voters in 1996.

It is touching that the legislators decided to meet the constitutional standard anyway, but when a court says lawmakers don't have to follow the constitution as written by the people, the foundations of representative democracy have begun to crumble. What is needed now in Nevada is a new grassroots drive to make the constitutional more explicit - and to add an amendment that prohibits any Nevada court from setting aside any portion of the document.