Senator Chris Brooks speaks with Nevada lawmakers and local businesspeople regarding legislative priorities in transportation and infrastructure for the up coming 2021 legislative session, Thursday Jan. 30, 2020.
Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020 | 8:26 p.m.
The Nevada Legislature isn’t meeting this year. But lawmakers are still busy in anticipation of next year’s session, gathering Thursday with business leaders and other stakeholders in the Las Vegas council chambers to discuss issues that could be addressed in the next legislature.
The Southern Nevada Forum is touted as a means for locals to help make their concerns known to their legislators, who could bring forward proposals to alleviate those problems in 2021. Ideas first discussed at forum and the have resulted in successful bill passage in the past.
“We need to make sure that, regardless of party, that we are trying to collaborate on some of the most important issues, so we bring all the community that wants to participate into this process,” said State Sen. Scott Hammond, R-Las Vegas.
The forum, first held before the 2013 legislative session, is the beginning of a months-long process in which the committees, each led by two senators and two assembly members, will discuss priorities outlined on Thursday. Issues addressed included: economic development, health care, education, transportation and infrastructure.
They touched on everything from school class sizes and higher education funding, to specific request such as helping promote pathology degree programs. Hammond said there will be three recommendations from each committee that will be eventually brought before the whole group.
Marilyn Kirkpatrick, the chair of the Clark County Commission, said the first forum resulted in 14 bill proposals in the 2013 legislative session which passed and were signed into law. One of these was the creation of Zoom schools, which gives extra funding to low-performing schools with a high percentage of English language learners.
In the last session, there were multiple pieces of legislation that passed that began in the forum, including a revision of Nevada’s K-12 education funding formula.
State Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzarro, D-Las Vegas, said that the forum results in good legislation due to the work between all the interested parties.
“We’ve had a lot of really good success in terms of bringing together folks, and I think, that always makes for, frankly, a better piece of legislation when you can bring all of the interested parties together and talk through ways to accomplish a goal,” Cannizzaro said.
