Editor’s note: This column was written before Wednesday night’s vote in the Senate rejecting the bill.

The fairy-tale ending Hollywood was looking for from Nevada lawmakers looks more like the beginning of a fiscal horror show for the rest of us. 

But such is the nature of political favoritism and corporate cronyism. 

Despite robust bipartisan opposition and a plethora of data suggesting we should shut down Hollywood’s attempt to raid Nevada’s treasury, the Assembly nonetheless dipped into its morally and democratically bankrupt well of political favoritism to get the job done for studio executives. 

On Sunday, the bill to approve a massive increase to the state’s film tax credits advanced out of the Assembly during the special legislative session — but not without its fair share of drama. In a procedural twist on the first day of session, opponents of the bill nearly killed the proposal before it even had a chance to be fully debated. The Assembly then had difficulty getting approval from two-thirds of members to get the bill moving on an expedited schedule. 

Hollywood and its lobbyists, however, didn’t spend the last several years buttering up Nevada politicians to let their dream of profiting from taxpayer assistance die so easily. Even if it meant getting legislative leaders to twist ordinary voting procedures to get things done, the show had to go on.  

And that’s exactly what happened. When it became clear that the votes would be close, Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) declared “exceptional circumstances” to allow votes to be cast remotely by two lawmakers who were on vacation, providing supporters with a much-needed but nonetheless narrow victory. 

The overall concept of remote voting probably shouldn’t be considered outlandish in today’s technologically advanced world — especially considering the fact that we have a citizen Legislature that normally meets a mere 120 days every biennium. However, the Assembly’s refusal to allow members of the public to testify remotely provides ample reason for the average Nevadan to raise a skeptical eyebrow over the type of inside baseball used to get the bill across the finish line. 

After all, allowing vacationing colleagues to literally “phone it in” while prohibiting the public a chance to remotely voice opposition (or support) for Hollywood’s yearslong attempt to tap into our public treasury feels a bit “hypocritical,” as Assm. Cecelia González (D-Las Vegas) put it in an interview with The Nevada Independent. 

Assm. Selena La Rue Hatch (D-Reno) was also rightly critical of the hypocrisy on display, telling the Reno Gazette Journal she thought the whole process “smacks of a culture of corruption and a culture of cronyism.” 

Of course, it’s not as if public input would have made much of a difference anyway. For years now, economists, activists and organizations from across the political spectrum have been making their dissatisfaction with Hollywood subsidies known — and for good reason. Such deals have a long and sordid history of simply not panning out for taxpayers. 

As La Rue Hatch pointed out, even an analysis commissioned by supporters of the bill found Nevada would only receive about 23 cents back in direct revenue for each dollar it shelled out in transferable tax credits. 

“The numbers don't lie,” La Rue Hatch told journalists Sunday. “And that is my concern if we do this — we are going to have to come back in 2030 and either raise people's taxes or cut their services.”

Her concern isn’t unfounded. Despite an explosion in popularity of similar deals in other states, virtually every film tax incentive program has demonstrated similar losses for local governments. Economics professor John Charles Bradbury’s research has found that there isn’t a state in the nation that has managed to come out ahead on film tax credits, with “average return per dollar of tax credit issued being 27 cents.”

Part of the reason for this universally dismal return on investment is due to the simple fact that film tax credits aren’t merely a reduction in the taxes owed by studios or production companies. Instead, as I’ve pointed out before, they’re transferable vouchers that are handed out without regard to how much (or how little) tax the company might owe the state. The result is that production companies end up receiving far more credits than they are capable of redeeming — and when that happens, the studios sell those vouchers for a profit to other companies that actually owe local taxes. 

In Georgia, for example, an audit found that 97 percent of the state’s film tax credits weren’t redeemed by the production companies that received them. Instead, those credits were sold to local businesses or wealthy individuals with otherwise high state tax liabilities, thereby reducing and shifting projected tax revenues in unexpected ways. 

But why let a little data or a bipartisan coalition of skeptics keep the preferred Hollywood plot line from proceeding as planned? After all, those poor studio executives have been working relentlessly to get Nevada to replicate the revenue-sucking handouts and subsidies of other states. 

And to the politicians who are eager to please powerful lobbying groups or cozy up to politically favored industries, what’s a few million dollars of poorly spent tax dollars in exchange for a few photo ops? 

Of course, this isn’t to suggest every vote cast in support of the film tax credits was the result of cold political calculus or pure political favoritism. Undoubtedly, some of the politicians who showed support for the measure simply believed the fantastical promises made by the purveyors of entertaining fiction — promises that were cobbled together by an industry that promises seemingly every state and city it will transform local suburbs into the next Hollywood hub. 

Since those promises haven’t exactly panned out elsewhere, it’s unsurprising more than a few lawmakers, economists and activists were ready to derail the fairy-tale imaginings of a “Hollywood 2.0” in the Mojave — and early on in the special session, they nearly succeeded in doing just that.  

Undoubtedly, that initial drama — the near death of the bill before any vote even took place and an uncomfortable divide on the issue within the majority party — had studio lobbyists worried their efforts would once again fail to yield the tasty fruits of corporate cronyism in the Silver State. Thanks to a rule change that allowed a couple of vacationing lawmakers to vote via Zoom, however, the Assembly managed to breathe life back into the industry’s dream of setting up shop in Southern Nevada.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, that’s a “happily ever after” ending that apparently requires a steady diet of political favoritism and taxpayer dollars. 

Michael Schaus is a communications and branding expert based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and founder of Schaus Creative LLC — an agency dedicated to helping organizations, businesses and activists tell their story and motivate change. He has more than a decade of experience in public affairs commentary, having worked as a news director, columnist, political humorist, and most recently as the director of communications for a public policy think tank. Follow him on Twitter @schausmichael or on Substack @creativediscourse.