The Clark County Republican Party Tuesday night went through with Chairman Bernie Zadrowski’s threat to pass a resolution censuring the six Republican lawmakers who voted for the $781 million tax package and the override of Gov. Jim Gibbons’s veto of the same.

(Hat tip to conservative activist Chuck Muth, who posted the resolution on his blog. Let’s take a look:)

Whereas, Clark County, Nevada is already burdened with high unemployment and a sagging business economy; and,

Whereas, the platform of the Clark County Republican Party is clear in its opposition to new taxes; and,

Whereas, raising taxes is extremely poor public policy for Nevada’s people and it’s economy; and,

Whereas, the Nevada Republican Party as a whole, and every Chairman of every Nevada County Central Committee has signed a resolution urging it’s elected legislators to vote against raising new taxes; and,

Whereas, the political damage caused to the Republican Party brand name from Republican officeholders who support higher taxes is tremendous; and,

Whereas the Clark County, Nevada Republican Party has a responsibility to make it clear that individual legislators who are registered as Republicans who voted for tax increases did so in disregard for and in opposition to their own political party; therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Clark County, Nevada Republican Party that for their votes in support of raising taxes in SB 429, we censure the following registered Republican legislators:

Republican Senators:
Dennis Nolan
Warren Hardy
William Raggio
Dean Rhoads
Randolph Townsend

Republican Assemblymen:
John Carpenter

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the members of the Clark County Nevada Republican Party urge the Republican Party Central Committee, or any other official party entity from giving any assistance of any kind to those legislators listed above.

[UPDATE: We're now told the final sentence of the resolution was amended to read, "...members of the Clark County, Nevada, Republican Party urge the Republican Party Central Committee to support legislators who uphold state and county Republican platforms." It's not as snazzy as the original, but it did pass by an overwhelming majority.]

Now, that’s a barn-burner of a resolution, even if it won’t really have an affect on several of the people listed. Carpenter, Townsend and Rhodes have served their last legislative session, thanks to term limits. Raggio is serving his last term, and has one more session to go, in 2011. Only Hardy and Nolan are eligible for re-election, and then to only one final four-year term before term limits kick in for them, too.

The fact is, members of the GOP who are anti-tax have every right to be angry at the six Republicans on the list, with the exception of Carpenter, who added only a single vote to an already-solid two-thirds Democratic majority in the Assembly. Had Raggio, Townsend, Nolan, Rhodes and Hardy voted “no” on the tax package, Democrats would have been left with only 12 votes out of 21 in the state Senate, two short of the required two-thirds majority. In other words, it would never have passed.

Now, as far as we’re concerned, the lawmakers who voted “aye” on the tax plan did the right thing, and a very moderate thing at that. (Consider that no mining tax or broad-based business profits tax was even attempted by the Legislature.) It was Raggio and those Senate Republicans who limited the scope of the tax increase, which will go to reduce the severity of reductions in budgets for schools, higher education and mental health budgets, among other things. And education and mental health care are the pet projects of at least two members of the Senate Republican caucus, Raggio and Townsend, respectively.

But then again, we don’t belong the GOP, so of course we’d take that position. In the meantime, the debate will continue. Is the Clark County Republican Party standing up for bedrock principle, and asking that people who wish to affiliate with the GOP live up to its standards? Or is this a case of principled Republicans eating their own, and further damaging their party in the process?

We have a hunch we know how at least six Nevada Republicans would answer that question.