Police reforms, education funding revamp survive late-stage deadline at Nevada Legislature Reno-Gazette-Journal 2 hrs ago James DeHaven, Reno Gazette Journal
Efforts to overhaul Nevada’s school funding formula and limit no-knock warrants survived another major deadline at the Legislature, where lawmakers on Friday coolly and quickly culled dozens of bills from a stack of legislation set for a final vote over the next two weeks.
Death penalty opponents, who have spent decades trying to end capital punishment in Nevada, were not amused. The Nevada ACLU issued a searing statement calling the move “an embarrassment,” while progressive activists jammed the phone lines at a series of unrelated committee hearings to protest the bill’s demise.
Sheila Leslie
View Comments
This opinion column was submitted by RGJ columnist Sheila Leslie, who served in the Nevada Legislature from 1998 to 2012.
As the flurry of bills and budgets are processed in Carson City during the last month of the legislative session, it’s worth remembering that creating a new law is not the only way to right a wrong. A little compassion and empathy, and a lot more communication, could resolve many situations where there is conflict. Case in point: the “sundown siren” in Minden.
Historically, many small towns in the United States used blasts from a daily siren in the late afternoon to signal that people of color needed to get out of town before darkness fell. In the South, the target was primarily African Americans, while in the West, it was Native Americans who were being warned to leave town before sunset. Enforcement of this racist policy caused untold violence; beatings were common and people were murdered for resisting the siren call of
Democratic legislative leaders struck a similar note in statements issued minutes after Sisolak’s announcement.
Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, who has spent weeks stiff-arming questions about when the bill would get a hearing, said finding consensus on the bill was “unlikely” over the remaining two weeks of the session.
“This decision understandably will disappoint many advocates, but it will also not change our commitment to moving other critical legislation this session reforming policing practices, the bail system, and other important aspects of our criminal justice system,” Cannizzaro added.
Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson, who saw AB 395 pass on a strict party-line vote in his chamber, also looked to console activists who have spent decades trying to bar capital punishment in Nevada.
Brooks, the Legislature’s top environmental policy advocate, in 2019 passed a measure that boosted reporting of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions and set a non-binding zero-emissions target for the state by 2050.
To have any chance of reaching that goal, Brooks said the Silver State needs an overhauled, interconnected energy grid that can refuel tourists’ Teslas while giving residents access to “wind power from Wyoming, solar in the southwest and (hydroelectric) in the northwest.”
“If you watched the Super Bowl a few months ago, electric vehicles were the MVP,” Brooks added during a virtual roundtable held shortly after the bill’s introduction. “That’s coming whether we want it or not. But we have an opportunity to get in front of the electric vehicles coming here and reap the benefits.”