Deregulator: Alive since '85!

Court to Constitution: Drop dead (and we really mean it this time) In a decision that would make the 9th Circuit proud, the Nevada Supreme Court refuses to reconsider its July 10 decision setting aside the state's supermajority requirement for tax increases. In an interminable 30+ page ruling that reads less like a reasoned legal argument than a bad undergraduate poli sci paper, the majority argued that a) tax increases were necessary to fund education and b) the 2/3 supermajority amendment was probably invalid because voters didn't understand that the mandate would make it difficult to operate the government effectively during tough times. (This, notwithstanding the fact that more than 70 percent of the voters supported the initiative in separate elections and both sides got plenty of air time and column inches to make their case.) The court did not, however, take the logical next step and strike down the supermajority requirement. As far as I can tell, logic played absolutely...

The Las Vegas Expos? Don't be daft My colleague Norm! Clarke, the Review-Journal's gossip columnist, broke the story ( here -- check "Sightings" -- and here ) that Major League Baseball has opened high-level negotiations with parties who hope to make Las Vegas a possible destination for the Montreal Expos. Mayor Oscar Goodman, casting about as always to find something, anything that might revitalize his bedraggled downtown, is all aflutter. But back to reality. As much as I would love to have a big league ballclub playing a half-hour or so from my home, I'm convinced this is a ploy by MLB, using Las Vegas as a bargaining chip to extort a higher franchise fee out of the eventual owners in Washington or Portland (or Montreal, for that matter). In no particular order of significance, here are several reasons we won't get a major league franchise: Gambling. Every time talks of bringing big league sports to Las Vegas are initiated, they go nowhere, because so lon...

Dodging the raindrops Back from nine days in North Carolina, eight of them on the coast, where we experienced perhaps 4 hours of sun ... until it was time to head for the airport yesterday, of course. But as my friend Roger Waldon said, there's no such thing as a crappy day on the beach. I saw the Carolina Tar Heels lose a 49-47 triple-overtime football game to Syracuse; played cards with my Chapel Hill poker buds (and my second college roommate); frolicked in the surf for 90 minutes; ate shrimp burgers and oyster burgers; and enjoyed the absence of Internet access and 24-hour cable news. More sunshine would have improved the trip. It was nice to return to the desert. BTW, the link to my column on The Substance of Style , published while we were on the East Coast, is here . While you were out Warren Zevon, Johnny Cash and John Ritter died. John Edwards may have guaranteed an additional Senate seat for the GOP, though the jobless recovery has taken a psychological toll on my home s...