The Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents listen to Attorney Michael Wixom speaks about the UNLV Medical Education Building Project during a special meeting, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020.
Thursday, April 29, 2021 | 2 a.m.
CARSON CITY — Nevada voters may experience a bit of déjà vu on the 2024 ballot, as lawmakers have resurrected a ballot question to give the Legislature greater power over higher education governance in Nevada.
Legislators are discussing a measure, Senate Joint Resolution 7, which would again place before voters a ballot question on whether to remove the state Board of Regents from the Nevada Constitution and give the Legislature more oversight over the Nevada System of Higher Education. It’s nearly identical to a question that narrowly failed on the 2020 ballot.
According to proponents, the re-emergence of the proposal, which has already unanimously passed the state Senate with one excused, is necessary because the 2020 ballot question’s complicated language may have made it difficult for voters to truly understand the question.
Warren Hardy, a lobbyist and former state senator who is working closely with supporters of the ballot question effort, said there is polling and statistical evidence that voters did not understand the question.
One indicator, he said, is fewer Nevadans opted to vote on the question than the other five on the 2020 ballot. The Board of Regents measure was only defeated by 3,877 votes.
“A lot of that blame goes to us for not being clear enough on what it was we intended and what we wanted to have asked,” Hardy said in a bill hearing in early April.
To return the question to the ballot after its defeat, the resolution would have to pass in this year’s legislative session and in the 2023 session. It would then go to the statewide ballot in 2024.
The question is designed to address criticism that wording in the state Constitution allows the Board of Regents to operate as a “fourth branch of government,” independent of oversight from the legislative and executive branches. It’s an argument that opponents of the measure, including some regents, have rejected, but the issue has created ambiguity in the extent of the regents’ authority.
In SJR7’s first committee hearing, Assemblyman Tom Roberts, R-Las Vegas, cited Nevada Supreme Court proceedings in which the Board of Regents argued its unique constitutional status exempted it from some laws.
“I’m not a big fan of changing the constitution for a lot of things, but for this I’ve seen firsthand there’s some confusion about whether the Legislature has oversight over NSHE, and so I believe this will clear that up,” Roberts said in a later interview.
The resolution would also require the Legislature to conduct a biennial audit of the Board of Regents or any other educational governing body created by state statute. Hardy said the audit addition came about after public feedback showed support for it.
Elliot Anderson, a former Democratic lawmaker who sponsored the 2017 resolution that brought forward the 2020 question, said the audit provisions will likely be “easily digestible and popular.”
“That addition alone may be enough to win voter approval,” he said over text.
Anderson, who stressed he hadn’t been “hugely involved” in the new effort, said that in an election with a close margin of defeat, “a hundred different things” could contribute to its defeat. A complex issue such as the Board of Regents ballot question, he said, can be difficult to fully educate voters on.
Roberts said that he expects a significant effort to win voter approval this time around.
“I think voters weren’t educated last time, I don’t think the proponents of the measure did a good enough job in educating what it really did and what the challenges were,” he said. “Those folks have pledged to take a better shot at doing that this time.”
“I knew from the beginning in 2017 how difficult it would be to educate voters on complex issues of constitutional history combined with a statutory overlay,” Anderson said over text. “When you do something this complex, there is only so much that you can do to make the effects clear to an average person without losing the substantive legal effect.”
Regents Chair Mark Doubrava spoke in opposition to the bill in early April, arguing it would do nothing to advance higher education, research or workforce development.
Doubrava also argued the November vote was too recent to bring the measure back up.
“The people of Nevada rejected those changes. This occurred only four months ago,” he said. “Our democracy mandates that the collective wisdom of the voters be respected.”
Roberts said he thought the issue resonated with both parties.
When the 2020 question was first brought forward as Assembly Joint Resolution 5 in 2017, the only lawmakers still in the Legislature who voted against it were Assemblywomen Teresa Benitez-Thompson, D-Reno; Lisa Krasner, R-Reno; and Jill Tolles, R-Reno. Sen. Heidi Gansert. R-Reno, also voted against the measure.
In 2019, Benitez-Thompson switched her vote to a yes, and Assembly members Gregory Hafen, R-Pahrump; Alexis Hansen, R-Sparks; and Robin Titus, R-Wellington, along with Tolles and Krasner, voted against the measure. Gansert voted for the bill in 2019, and for SJR 7 this session.
The bill, which has been referred to the Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections, has yet to be scheduled for a hearing.
“We’ll be bugging them for a hearing, and we’ll get it on the agenda,” Roberts said.
