LETTER: No need for supermajority on Nevada business tax extension

Your July 24 editorial on the GOP challenge to the extension of the modified business tax takes a parochial, distorted view of the Nevada Constitution.

Like it or not, the Legislative Counsel Bureau concluded that the extension did not require a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature.

The constitution specifically addresses an “increase” in revenue in requiring a two-thirds vote. In this situation, the question before the Legislature was: Do we decrease revenue by allowing a planned sunset of the business tax or do we maintain revenue by leaving the tax at its current level?

The constitution is silent on a reduction of revenue, which would have been the result absent this year’s legislative action. Nor does the constitution comment on a maintenance of the revenue status quo.

As a result, you stake a position counter to the constitution and common sense.