State Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio called a news conference for 9:30 a.m. today, but after about an hour, word came that it had been canceled. Several key players — including Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie and state Sen. Bob Beers — were seen going in and out of Raggio’s office before the announcement came.

And just moments ago, we were told another news conference has been scheduled for 2 p.m. at Gov. Jim Gibbons‘ office following the unveiling of the official portrait of former Gov. Kenny Guinn. What are the odds that the ex-governor can talk some sense into his successor, and perhaps get him to back off his "no new taxes" pledge that’s seemingly holding up progress on the schools budget?

Yeah, that’s what we thought. More after 2 p.m. on that…

But it wasn’t just the frustrating budget negotiations that saw rising tensions. On Monday, things boiled over a bit in at least one committee hearing.

As the Assembly Ways and Means Committee joined with the Senate Finance Committee to review the state’s capital spending projects, state Sen. Bob Coffin objected that he hadn’t seen a list of funding projects until that very day, and that Assemblyman Morse Arberry, the panel’s chairman, was moving too quickly through the spending.

Arberry responded that the committee was simply approving the projects recommended by staff.

“So we’re just ratifying staff?” Coffin asked his fellow Democrat.

“Yes, that’s pretty much what we’re doing,” Arberry replied, adding, “I see where you’re going with this. You’re saying someone sat down with staff [to set the spending priorities]. I did not sit down with staff and go over these recommendations. And I don’t appreciate the accusation.”

Coffin said he wasn’t accusing Arberry personally, but when it came time to vote on projects, he and fellow Democratic state Sen. Bernice Matthews voted no on certain spending projects, killing the proposals on the Senate side. (A majority of Assembly members approved the projects on the Assembly side, which means they will be sent to the full Assembly for approval.)

And Matthews, who is from Reno, also said she hadn’t seen the project list until Monday, took offense at Arberry’s mild suggestion that she was more focused on a Northern Nevada project, perhaps to the exclusion of the rest of the list.

“I’ll get real passionate about that,” Matthews said, insisting she never lets regionalism affect her decisions. “That statement really ticks me off.” Arberry apologized to her.

Unfortunately, Senate Finance Committee chairman Raggio wasn’t there to moderate the dispute; he’d left the meeting hastily upon learning Gibbons had arrived at his office in order to discuss the ongoing stalemate over the budget that was still lingering when everybody went home Monday night.

• Senator Beers, who is cursed with an unfortunate resemblance to your humble correspondent, declined to take the bait on Monday as he left back-room negotiations in Raggio’s office.

Beers is known for his martini-dry sense of humor, so we asked him about the rumor that he’s the lynchpin holding up negotiations that would allow a state budget to be approved. (Back in 2003, then-Assemblyman Beers was a leader of the so-called Mean 15 Assembly members who similarly held up progress on a final tax package, which he thought was too high.)

“Why you gotta hate?” was the end to our long and rather unlettered question.

Beers paused, usually the sign of a pretty good zinger on its way. But this time, he only beamed a cherubic smile and walked out, without sharing the joke with assembled members of the press.

• We learned recently while reading journalist Christopher Hitchens‘ new book, god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, that the Roman Catholic Church long ago did away with the office of “Devil’s Advocate,” a position created to argue against the case for sainthood for those nominated for canonization.

But we decided to fill the role anyway as the Senate Democrats gathered to complain that Gibbons was abandoning his campaign-trail rhetoric about putting education first. Democrats say that by insisting the modified business tax be kept at 0.63 percent before he signs off on any education bill, he’s really putting his political promise not to raise taxes first.

Isn’t there an element of politics on the part of Democrats, too? we asked. Aren’t they trying to force Gibbons to sign off on a tax increase so as to further weaken him politically by making him violate the only real promise he made on the campaign trail?

The response was overwhelming:

“He said education first, first,” replied state Sen. Maggie Carlton. The Democrats noted a campaign video they had located on YouTube in which Gibbons promises “As governor, I’ll make sure more of our tax dollars go directly into the classroom,” and “As governor, my top priority will be to make our schools better.”

It’s not even a tax increase, added Matthews, since the reduction in the modified business tax (from 0.65 to 0.63) was always scheduled to expire in July anyway.

The law — which by the way was created via an initiative circulated by Gibbons himself — says the Legislature has to work on the education budget first, not taxes, reminded state Sen. Steven Horsford.

“He is the person who said you cannot hold education hostage, and that is precisely what he’s doing,” summed Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus.

Good answers, all. This devil’s advocate thing is pretty fun.

• The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada held a protest outside the Legislature on Monday. We didn’t go, since, well, it’s not air-conditioned outside. Besides, there are always protests going on outside the Legislature. Just the other day, we honked for peace in response to a protester’s sign. You know, from inside our air-conditioned Chevy Impala.

Anyway, the PLAN people — in the person of lobbyist Jan Gilbert — were nice enough to outline their grievances for us anyway: Basically, they don’t like Gibbons because he’s pushing for a tiny reduction in the modified business tax and putting money into “…special ‘pork’ projects such as a military program for youth and a ‘fusion center’ intelligence-gathering operation in the state capital — a proposal already rejected by law enforcement and committees in both the Assembly and Senate.”

We think that’s called a “fusion hub,” PLAN, but that probably doesn’t matter.

“Gibbons priorities doom Nevada to a nightmare of dog-eat-dog communities,” said PLAN’s Executive Director, Bob Fulkerson. “He’s giving pork to the wealthy and bones to our schools.”

The attached list complains that Nevada ranks at the bottom for education and Medicaid funding, but high for uninsured children, meth use, homelessness and teen suicide. But it notes that Chief Executive magazine (it’s really true: there’s a magazine for everything these days) ranks Nevada the No. 2 best state for business.

Must be that low modified business tax.