Thursday, June 15, 2023 | 2 a.m.
The Nevada Legislature contemplated several bills this session that centered Indigenous concerns, from free entrance to state parks to children’s rights.
The bills and new laws include:
AB 73: This bill, which Lombardo signed into law on May 22, allows public school graduates statewide to wear culturally significant adornments with their caps and gowns. Though this was not specific to Native American regalia, several Indigenous people and tribal representatives supported the bill. Previously, graduation dress codes were a local or school-based decision. The law went into effect immediately, just in time for high school graduations.
AB 84: This bill, which Lombardo signed on Friday, grants free annual entrance permits to all state parks for Nevada tribal members and military veterans.
AB 125: This bill, which Lombardo signed on Friday, allows any police officer in Nevada to accept a report of a missing Indigenous person, dropping jurisdictional barriers when time is of the essence in getting a person into missing persons registries. The law goes into effect July 1.
AB 150: This bill, which is awaiting the governor’s action, expands fee waivers for tribal members who attend a public Nevada college or university. The waivers, which previously applied only to members of Nevada tribes, would also apply to members of tribes from out of state.
AB 444: This bill, which Lombardo signed on Monday, codifies the federal Indian Child Welfare Act into state law. The Indian Child Welfare Act, also known as ICWA, was enacted in 1978 after studies revealed that Indigenous children were being disproportionately separated from their families by state child welfare and private adoption agencies, also separating them from their cultures. ICWA faces a potential gutting this summer with a landmark decision pending by the U.S. Supreme Court, which could leave the question of Indigenous children’s placements to the states. Nevada joins several states that have mirrored ICWA’s protections. The law goes fully into effect in January 2024.
AB 516: This bill, which is awaiting the governor’s action, creates a separate Nevada Department of Native American Affairs by elevating the existing Nevada Indian Commission out of the state Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs. The five-member appointed Nevada Indian Commission, which was created in 1965, serves as a liaison between the state government and Nevada’s Indigenous residents who live on and off reservations. Among other duties, the commission and its small staff have oversight of the Stewart Indian School Cultural Center & Museum in Carson City.
AB 519: This bill, signed on Tuesday, allocates $64.5 million to the Elko County School District for a new PK-12 school in Owyhee on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation and directs Elko County to raise its property taxes for school buildings. It also allows other rural counties to do the same, collecting proceeds in a new state fund just for their school building needs. That fund will be seeded with $50 million, $25 million of which will be for tribal schools. See accompanying story for more.
SB 364: This bill, which failed to get final approval in the Senate after being amended in the Assembly, would have required that if police encounter remains believed to belong to a Native American, that they consult with a representative of a local tribe or the Office of Historic Preservation of the State Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. The bill was doing well until it ran out of time, with unanimous initial approvals in the Assembly and House.
SB 391: This bill, which Lombardo signed on June 7, silenced the “sundown siren” in Minden. Minden, about 50 miles south of Reno, historically sounded a siren that warned Indigenous people in the area to leave Minden and neighboring Gardnerville at 6:30 p.m. or face severe consequences. Town officials repealed the racist ordinance in 1974 but continued to sound the siren as a firefighter callout and tribute to first responders. Indigenous residents, including the Washoe people, told lawmakers how for generations they have felt it differently. The Legislature passed a similar bill in 2021 but the previous legislation’s wording created a loophole that allowed Minden to change the time of day that it sounded the alarm. Now, sounding the siren except for emergencies, legal holidays and infrequent testing is subject to fines of up to $50,000.
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