Legislature convenes with near-empty building, full agenda

The fierce debates and new laws will be about the only normal things in Nevada’s 81st Legislature, which kicks off Monday.

Not only will lawmakers be dealing with significant budget constraints, but the building in Carson City — in normal times abuzz with lawmakers, staff and lobbyists roaming the hallways — will be closed to the general public amid continued COVID-19 concerns.

But even amid a global pandemic that continues to rage, the legislative show must go on.

A tighter budget means that any policy proposal that costs money will require a heavier lift, Democratic Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson said.

“We are in a crunch, and I don’t think we have the luxury that we’ve had in some cycles to advance policies that cost money,” Frierson said, adding that lawmakers need to “live within our means and recognize that very few things that cost money are going to get traction this session.”

The virtual environment for legislative meetings for at least the first several weeks (and likely longer), and the additional logistics that come with it, will probably limit the number of bills lawmakers can realistically take up during the 120-day session.

“We’re probably not going to be in a position to hear as many bills as in the past,” said Assemblyman Steve Yeager, D-Las Vegas, who chairs the Assembly Judiciary Committee.

But those limitations won’t eliminate big policy debates — this is politics, after all — and there’s no shortage of hot topics.

Tax talks

Sisolak’s recommended budget did not include any new taxes, but that doesn’t mean Democrats won’t be looking for ways to increase revenues to address the state’s budgetary woes.

After failing to pass an immediate tax hike on the mining industry during the special session last summer, Democrats’ sights appear honed in on the miners once again.

“Asking for them to pay a bit more to ensure that Nevada can keep moving forward is a reasonable thing,” Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, D-Las Vegas, said.

But to do that, or the pass any kind of new tax, they will need at least some Republican support in both chambers to meet the two-thirds vote threshold required for revenue increases.

Without that, Democrats’ fallback plans rest with three constitutional amendments passed during a special session last summer that would alter how mining companies are taxed. Lawmakers could approve one or more of those proposals this session, which would send them to the voters to decide on the 2022 ballot.

Senate Minority Leader James Settelmeyer, R-Minden, said that there are “always opportunities to have discussions about revenue increases” but that those talks also need to include ways to save costs.

Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, R-Reno, said there needs to be a clear picture of what those new revenues would bring the state, and he doesn’t see that yet with the current discussions about the mining taxes.

“If there’s a decision that the state is underfunding a program, and people want to start talking in those terms, that’s when you start finding traction,” Kieckhefer said.

There are also two proposals that the Clark County Education Association qualified via initiative petition that will come before the Legislature: one that raises the state’s sales tax by 1.5 percentage points and a second that would increase taxes on higher gaming revenues.

But don’t expect those plans to make much headway this session.

“They’re punts,” Settelmeyer said, as he does not expect the Legislature to take a serious look at them. They automatically will go to the 2022 ballot if the Legislature fails to act.

Elections

After expanding mail-in voting amid the pandemic for the 2020 general election via legislation passed during the special session, Democrats plan to explore which of the changes could become permanent fixtures in Nevada.

“We’re going to have some conversations about making voting as accessible to voters as open as possible, while also maintaining security,” Frierson said.

Frierson said he’s not sure yet what that will look like, but he mentioned increasing the number of polling places and expanding mail-in voting options as key topics.

“I think that people should have choices,” he said. “And if a majority of people choose to and want to vote in person, I believe we should accommodate that. But there are also folks who can’t travel, who don’t necessarily trust the Postal Service, who don’t know how to apply for an absentee ballot.”

Republicans are still bitter about the election changes made during the special session, but as the minority party in both houses, they probably will have little sway to stop election reforms that Democrats deem fit to pursue.

Criminal justice reform

In the wake of the Black Lives Matters protests that happened nationwide last summer, Nevada lawmakers passed a handful of criminal justice reforms during a special session, including a ban on police chokeholds.

But civil rights groups and reform advocates said at the time that the changes didn’t go far enough, while Democratic leaders said the changes were the first step in addressing concerns over police accountability, setting the stage for the 2021 Legislature to take up that mantle.

Sen. Dallas Harris, D-Las Vegas, said taking those next steps will be her main focus this session.

“The goal here is to continue to move the ball forward from the work that was done over the special session,” Harris said. “That was a good start, but we didn’t get all the way there, and that’s because these are tough discussions.”

Among the proposals Harris is planning to put forward are direct changes to police conduct, such as prohibiting certain actions from police in response to protests and making changes to the state’s use-of-deadly-force statutes. She also plans to increase the state’s data collection on prison conditions and police interactions and to require police officers to have either an associate’s degree or two years of military service.

“It’s not to knock people who don’t have a college education. Studies have shown that there is a trajectory that the more education you have, the more likely you are to handle stressful situations better,” Harris said.

Hope for cooperation?

As is usually the case before a session starts, there is plenty of talk and hope for aisle-crossing bipartisanship, especially when it comes to topics like economic development, workforce training, renewable energy development and restoring the previous cuts made to the state’s K-12 and health care budgets.

“I’m very hopeful that people are serious about it. And I hope that we’re able to go into this session with a determination to work towards solving problems rather than scoring political points,” Kieckhefer said.

The question is, how long will those talks last before the partisan gloves are donned?

“We’ll know early on whether that’s the tone that gets set,” Kieckhefer said.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.