Joe Lombardo and the largest tax increase in Nevada history

A Joe Lombardo campaign ad that says Aaron Ford is horrible because Ford has supported tax breaks for data centers (a policy Lombardo continues to support) also flashes on your screen the words “FORD VOTED FOR THE LARGEST TAX INCREASE IN NEVADA HISTORY.”

The largest tax increase in Nevada history was enacted in 2015. Valued at $1.3 billion at the time, it consisted of a package of tax measures, including: the creation of a gross receipts tax on business; an increase in the modified business (aka payroll) tax; extensions of taxes that had been scheduled to expire; and an increase to the cigarette tax.

The tax package had been spearheaded by Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval in cooperation with the gambling and resort industry, which (if memory serves) was willing to accept a small increase in the payroll tax in exchange for making Nevada’s non-gaming businesses finally pay a business tax — thus minimizing any imperative to raise the gaming tax.

Republicans controlled both the Senate and the Assembly at the time, and bipartisan support for Sandoval’s tax package in both chambers was large enough to easily clear the state constitutional requirement that new or increased taxes must be approved by two-thirds majorities in both houses.

The vote in the Senate was 18 to 3. Ford was one of the 18. Among the eight Republican state senators also voting for the largest tax increase in Nevada history was Ben Kieckhefer, who would later become Gov. Lombardo’s chief of staff during Lombardo’s first legislative session, and James Settelmeyer, who Lombardo as governor would appoint Director of the state Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources. Settelmeyer also unsuccessfully sought the Republican primary nomination for Nevada’s 2nd congressional district this year, and was backed by Lombardo.

Another anti-Ford ad, being aired by the Lombardo-aligned Better Nevada PAC, says Ford as a state senator voted to raise taxes 15 times, taxes which, according to the ad, would total $3 billion. 

At least two of those votes, and about half the $3 billion, are accounted for by the 2015 Sandoval tax package. Presumably.

I say presumably because it’s not clear what votes on which taxes the Better Nevada PAC is referring to in its ad. This week I repeatedly asked the political consulting firm November, Inc., whose Jeremy Hughes, according to the firm’s website, “is once again leading Better Nevada PAC,” for citations identifying each of Ford’s 15 votes and their dollar amounts. The firm failed to respond.

November Inc. is a highly regarded political consulting firm, and not just in Nevada. It’s hard to believe the firm would create an ad for a client without having facts to back up the charges in the ad. November Inc.’s failure to provide citations in an ad placed by the PAC that November Inc. leads, however, makes it difficult for the public to know for sure to what degree the statements in the PAC’s ad are true.

But, to reiterate, presumably the Sandoval tax package is the cornerstone of the ad’s claims.

According to November Inc.’s website, Hughes also managed Sandoval’s reelection (over only token opposition, by the way) in 2014, and also consulted on Republican Mark Hutchison’s successful campaign for lieutenant governor that year. Hutchison, who would become a Better Nevada PAC fixture,  was not only a gushing supporter of Sandoval and his agenda in 2015. Hutchison had come to the lieutenant governor’s job straight from serving as a Republican state senator, and was no doubt helpful in whipping up support among his former Senate Republican colleagues for the largest tax increase in Nevada history.

The crew Lombardo is riding with now had a hell of a lot more to do with enacting the largest tax increase in Nevada history than Aaron Ford did. If Lombardo sincerely feels Ford’s vote for something another Republican governor accomplished that Lombardo hasn’t — a major legislative achievement — disqualifies Ford to be governor, how nauseating it must be for Lombardo to have all those people who did so much to pass the largest tax increase in Nevada history working right under Lombardo’s nose.

The more likely scenario, of course, is Lombardo himself doesn’t take the ads aired on his behalf seriously.

Which raises the question: Why should anybody else?

This column was originally publishes in the Nevada Current newsletter, which is free and which you can subscribe to here.