Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

ANALYSIS:

The 2017 Nevada Legislature: Fault lines and big ideas

Legislature Opens

Lance Iversen / AP

Spectators look down on the Nevada Assembly on the opening day of the legislative session, Monday, Feb. 6, 2017 in Carson City.

Think government, and you’re likely to picture whatever drama is unfolding today in Washington, D.C.

But closer to home, in Carson City, lawmakers are deciding issues that will affect Nevadans more directly than much of what’s coming from the nation’s capital — such as the quality of schools, the growth of the Southern Nevada economy and access to public lands.

The 2017 session of the Nevada Legislature began Feb. 6, with Democrats back in control of both the Assembly and Senate after losing their majorities to Republicans in 2015. Here are some of the key issues lawmakers are expected to tackle.

ESA

• The issue: The Education Savings Account law would provide state funding for parents to send their children to private school, home school them or find another alternative to public school. Under the original plan, most parents would have received about $5,200. It passed in 2015 on a party-line vote, back when Republicans controlled both the Assembly and Senate. But implementation has been on hold thanks to a Nevada Supreme Court ruling in 2016 saying the funding mechanism was unconstitutional. Republicans are now treating the ESA law like it’s the Alamo — including Gov. Brian Sandoval, who included $60 million in his budget for it. Democrats derisively refer to the measure as “school vouchers,” and their leaders went into the session saying Sandoval should have put the $60 million into public education.

• The friction point: Republicans say ESAs will improve the quality of education by giving parents more options, particularly low-income families with kids in underperforming schools. Democrats say vouchers are simply aimed at helping high-income parents offset the costs of private education, and will deeply wound public schools. Their argument is that the average per-student stipend isn’t enough for lower-income families to afford private schools. Meanwhile, vouchers divert state education funding from public schools and could weaken academic performance, since children from high-income families tend to be above-average in achievement.

• Supporters: Gov. Brian Sandoval, Senate Minority Leader Michael Roberson, state Treasurer Dan Schwartz

• Opponents: Democratic leadership (Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford, Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson), the Nevada State Education Association (teachers union)

Minimum wage/labor issues

• The issue: Aaron Ford, the Senate majority leader, is pushing a package of labor legislation called Nevada Blueprint that includes an increase in the minimum wage, equal pay for workers of different genders and earned sick leave. He’s also vowing to roll back legislation passed in 2015 when Republicans had control, such as limits on collective bargaining rights and project-labor agreements.

• The friction point: This is one of several areas where Ford and Michael Roberson, the Senate Republican leader, are expected to clash head-on. Roberson has muscle to flex even though his party lost control of the Senate. In 2015, he spent some of his political capital helping Sandoval push through a tax increase for public education — an unpopular measure among conservatives. Now, it’s ostensibly time for Sandoval to pay him back by supporting on conservative issues like the ESA and rollback attempt.

• Supporters: Democratic leadership

• Opponents: GOP, fiscal conservatives

Marijuana

• The issue: In the aftermath of Nevada voters strongly approving the adult use of recreational marijuana, Sandoval is seeking to impose a 10 percent excise tax on sales of the drug once the industry gets up to speed. The proposed tax would be on top of a 15 percent tax on wholesale marijuana sales and would generate $69 million for public schools. Meanwhile, Sen. Tick Segerblom, a longtime advocate of marijuana legalization, is pushing for a measure that would kick-start legal recreational marijuana sales by allowing licensed medical marijuana dealers to start selling it.

• The friction point: All eyes will be on U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a staunch opponent of legalized marijuana. Sessions could hinder the legal marijuana industry by choosing to aggressively enforce federal marijuana laws — which the Barack Obama administration chose not to do in states that have legalized use of the drug. What defense would Nevada have? In a world without politics, the state’s attorney general could sue the federal government. But Nevada’s Adam Laxalt would not be expected to take action. As a conservative who’s all but sure to run for governor, he’s unlikely to move on a liberal cause like marijuana legalization. So lawmakers went into the session weighing legislative options.

• Supporters: Democrats and moderates

• Opponents: U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, other conservatives

Gun background checks

• The issue: Nevada voters decided in November that sales and transfers of firearms between private individuals at gun shows, on the internet and so forth should have to go through the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, as is the case for purchases through licensed dealers. But Laxalt ruled in December that the law couldn’t go into effect because the FBI had indicated it wouldn’t conduct the checks. Some lawmakers are looking into workarounds.

• The friction point: Nevada is one of 12 “point of contact” states that do their own checks. When a sale happens here, state administrators run the buyer’s name through domestic violence offender records, state mental health records and other databases not used by the FBI, and also consult the FBI’s database. The ballot measure’s language, however, specified that private sales and transfers be approved by the FBI. But the FBI declined to handle those checks, saying Nevada “cannot dictate how federal resources are applied.” There are two deep fault lines on the measure — Republican-Democrat and urban-rural — that could come into play. The measure passed despite being rejected in every county but Clark, where it got enough votes to push it over the top statewide. And Laxalt, a Republican, campaigned against it in a move seen as an attempt to curry favor with conservative voters for his upcoming gubernatorial run.

• Supporters: Urban Democrats (including Ford and Frierson), Everytown for Gun Safety (Michael Bloomberg's activist group)

• Opponents: Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, Republicans, rural law enforcement authorities, the National Rifle Association

Other high-profile issues

• Teens at the tables? A bill proposed by Republican Assemblyman Jim Wheeler would reduce the legal age for gambling in Nevada from 21 to 18.

• Motor voters. Lawmakers will consider a measure in which Nevadans would automatically be registered to vote when they do business with the Department of Motor Vehicles. The initiative includes a clause allowing people to opt out of automatic registration.

• Criminal justice reforms. Democrats are pressing for a standard set of sentencing guidelines, which would establish a minimum and maximum range of prison terms for various crimes, and for steps to reduce the prison population. The measures are aimed partly at reducing an inequity in the percentage of blacks in Nevada prisons.

• True automation. An Assembly bill offers a next step on a 2011 measure that made Nevada the first state to legally allow testing of self-driving vehicles. The earlier action required vehicles to be occupied by a human operator who would take over operation if autonomous systems failed. The new bill does away with that requirement, allowing for operation of automated vehicles just carrying passengers.

• In his State of the State address, Sandoval said federal officials should ease restrictions on government-owned lands to allow mining on some of Nevada’s vast amounts of public acreage. Expect strong pushback from Democratic leadership.

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