LEGISLATURE BRIEFS

JOINT RESOLUTION

Another bid made to have Nevada lottery

Advocates of a lottery have faced a long run of bad luck in getting Nevada legislators to back the idea -- but they're betting the time is right for one more attempt.

Among the 200-odd bills and resolutions introduced by a Monday deadline was Assembly Joint Resolution 7, sponsored chiefly by freshman Assemblyman Paul Aizley, D-Las Vegas, to remove a prohibition against lotteries that's now part of the Nevada Constitution.

Similar proposals have been rejected by the Legislature more than two dozen times since 1970.

If the latest proposal wins approval from lawmakers this session, they'd have to endorse it again in the 2011 session and then let voters have final say in 2012.

When the idea came up in the 2007 session, proponents argued unsuccessfully that a lottery could generate up to $200 million for the state. But lawmakers also got a gambling industry report estimating a lottery would pull in $51 million in profits, but those gains would be offset by a net loss of jobs.

Lotteries now are operated in all but eight states.

ASSEMBLY APPROVAL

Specialized court for veterans gets nod

The Nevada Assembly voted unanimously Tuesday for a plan to set up a specialized court for military veterans charged with nonviolent crimes while struggling to readjust to civilian life.

AB187, sent by the Judiciary Committee to the full Assembly, would authorize a specialty court that would handle cases of veterans charged with such crimes and who suffer from mental or substance abuse problems stemming from their military service.

Under the plan, proposed by Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, such veterans could go through a treatment program and, if they complete the program, have their criminal file sealed.

The measure was modeled after a veterans court in Buffalo, N.Y. The Nevada plan is optional for any jurisdiction that wants to create such a court.

EDUCATION WOES

Students travel to seek funding for schools

A bus load of students and teachers from rural Nevada traveled overnight to urge state lawmakers on Tuesday to reject Gov. Jim Gibbons' proposed education budget and pump more money into K-12 schools.

About 35 teenagers and teachers from White Pine High School left Ely about midnight Monday and made the six-hour trip to speak at a Senate-Assembly budget subcommittee.

For K-12 schools, the state's base per-pupil spending would drop from $5,098 this year to $4,945 next fiscal year; and increase by just $1 to $4,946 in the second year of the budget cycle. Gibbons' proposal provides nearly $2.3 billion, or 37 percent of the total budget, to elementary and secondary public schools. That's down 2.6 percent, or nearly $62 million.

Shania Cook, a White Pine High School junior, said that she never guessed she and fellow students "would be here today defending our education." Assemblywoman Debbie Smith, D-Sparks, the budget subcommittee chairwoman, thanked the students saying it was important that they drew attention to educational needs.