## Facts

- Nevada’s biennial budget for fiscal years 2003–2005 was required to be in place by July 1, 2003.
- The Legislature did not enact a complete budget by the deadline, leaving K–12 public schools without assured funding for the 2003–2004 school year.
- A legislative majority supported a budget and related revenue measures, but the Legislature lacked the two-thirds vote required for bills that create, generate, or increase public revenue.
- The Governor sought extraordinary writ relief to compel the Legislature to reconvene and enact a balanced budget that adequately funded K–12 education.
- A bloc of legislators counter-petitioned, arguing the court could not authorize action inconsistent with the constitution’s two-thirds revenue requirement and separation of powers.
- The court initially ordered the Legislature to reconvene and indicated that, if necessary to fund K–12 education, revenue and appropriations could be enacted by simple majority.
- Shortly thereafter, the Legislature passed a balanced budget including education funding with a two-thirds vote.
- The opposing legislators sought rehearing; the reported decision resolves rehearing and addresses whether the court should withdraw or modify its constitutional analysis.

## Issues

1. Whether the Governor’s petition presented a justiciable constitutional dispute, or a nonjusticiable political question concerning legislative budgeting.
2. Whether the constitutional duties to fund K–12 public education and enact a balanced budget can take precedence over the constitutional two-thirds vote requirement for revenue-increasing bills when both cannot be satisfied.
3. Whether mandamus relief that permits majority enactment of revenue measures in a limited circumstance violates separation of powers or amounts to judicial rewriting of the constitution.

## Decision

- The court held the controversy was justiciable because it required constitutional interpretation and reconciliation of competing constitutional commands.
- The court concluded that, in the narrow circumstance where the two-thirds requirement would prevent fulfillment of the constitutional obligation to fund K–12 education and pass a budget, the education and budget mandates take precedence.
- The court maintained that its remedy was limited: it did not permanently invalidate the supermajority provision, but authorized nonapplication only to the extent necessary to avoid failure of the education-funding duty.
- Although the Legislature ultimately enacted the budget by the constitutionally prescribed two-thirds vote, the court declined to retract its analysis on rehearing and denied relief seeking to repudiate that reasoning.

## Legal Principles

- Courts may adjudicate and resolve conflicts between constitutional provisions when enforcement is needed to prevent failure of a required governmental function.
- When constitutional provisions cannot be simultaneously satisfied in an emergency setting, a court may determine which command must yield in that application to give effect to core constitutional duties.
- A constitutional supermajority voting requirement for revenue bills may be treated as a procedural constraint that cannot be applied to nullify an affirmative constitutional obligation to fund K–12 public education and adopt a workable budget.
- Mandamus may compel a coordinate branch to perform a constitutionally required act while leaving policy choices (e.g., specific taxes and appropriations) to that branch, consistent with separation of powers.

## Conclusion

The court reaffirmed that the judiciary can resolve a budget stalemate implicating conflicting constitutional commands and held that, in a narrow fiscal emergency, the Legislature’s duties to fund K–12 education and enact a balanced budget can require temporary nonapplication of the two-thirds revenue-bill voting rule.


Guinn v. Legislature of the State of Nevada, 76 P.3d 22 (Nev. 2003)