Behind the Bar: No love lost between Democratic officers, Lombardo
Behind the Bar is The Nevada Independent’s newsletter devoted to comprehensive and accessible coverage of the 2023 legislative session.
In today’s edition: an excess of Valentine’s word play, bookended by a look at how remote work and regulatory cuts have spurred constitutional questions, plus fresh calls from the GOP for school choice, how legislative families handle the separation of a 120-day session and a quick peek at an avalanche of bill introductions.
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Days until:
- Last day for bill introductions: 42
- First house passage deadline: 71
- Sine die: 112
AG questions whether remote work, regulation mandates apply to his office
Attorney General Aaron Ford said he does not agree that Gov. Joe Lombardo’s orders requiring regulation cuts and mandating state employees work from the office apply to executive branch offices including his.
The remarks came during a joint press conference with Democratic constitutional officers Treasurer Zach Conine and Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar on Thursday when the three discussed their priorities for the legislative session.
“We are independently constitutionally elected officials. To the extent we can comport with the governor’s request … we will cooperate with him,” Ford said. “But let’s be clear: to the extent those requests begin to impede my clients’ ability to do their job, there may very well be a conversation to be had.”
In January, Lombardo issued an executive order requiring all executive branch entities to review state regulations and recommend at least 10 to be removed by May 1. It also suspended new regulations by executive agencies with exceptions for those affecting public health, public safety, pending judicial deadlines and the essential duties of the branch.
Lombardo also issued an executive order requiring the state workforce to transition to in-person work by July 1. Though officials with the governor’s office said they expected all state workers to return to normal work hours in a physical office by the start of July, Lombardo partly walked that back in an interview with Nevada Independent CEO Jon Ralston on Jan. 27, saying he is open to some people working from home as long as accountability measures are in place and justifications are given.
Though the offices of the attorney general and treasurer have “extremely limited” regulatory authority and play a minor role in regulations, the secretary of state’s office has regulatory authority across many of its divisions. During the press conference, Aguilar said he and his office are focusing on streamlining government processes and want to work with the governor’s office to make government work better for Nevadans.
“Everything we're doing through that lens, and making sure we're making our offices easy,” Aguilar said. “It doesn't begin with regulation. It begins with investment and making government more efficient. It's investing in systems, it's modernizing our government.”
All three of the state agencies have employees who work from home either part-time or full-time. Erik Jimenez, chief policy deputy for the treasurer’s office, said the office has an established work-from-home policy available to employees depending on specific job duties and can vary across divisions.
Though the state’s average vacancy rate is 24 percent, Jimenez said the treasurer’s office has a vacancy rate of only 7 percent. Jimenez attributed the lower vacancy rate to the treasurer’s work-from-home policy and other family-friendly pilot programs, such as allowing parents to bring their infants to work.
Cecilia Heston, a public information officer for the secretary of state’s office, said over the course of the pandemic, the secretary of state determined members of the team could work from home and considers those workers as equally productive as those working in the office.
“We’re comfortable with the management, ability to measure productivity and oversight of our employees, and we expect that practice to continue,” Heston said. “We have some of the hardest working teams in Nevada.”
— Tabitha Mueller
What we’re reading and writing
Follow the Money: Labor, real estate are top contributors to Nevada lawmakers, by Sean Golonka and Jacob Solis
Fun fact: Almost one-third of all legislative fundraising came from unions, real estate and gaming donors.
Majority of Nevadans oppose gas stove bans, many want an electric car, by Naoka Foreman
Poll: Don’t tread on me my gas stove.
Environmental group sues over ex-lawmaker’s appointment to lead agency, by Jacob Solis
In which we all learn what “civil offices of profit” are.
Amid NV’s health provider shortage, insurance companies denying specialists entry in networks, by Camalot Todd, Nevada Current
Insurers say there’s no need for new providers in their networks — even as every Nevada county remains in shortage conditions.
News Briefs
GOP senators, activists — again — push for school choice
“What do we want?”
“Options and choice!”
“When do we want it?”
“Now!”
So chanted roughly a hundred demonstrators outside the Legislature on Monday, hoisting white signs with big red hearts emblazoned with “#SchoolChoice” — an early valentine for legislators inside. It was the latest in a now-regular legislative scene over the last decade, a biennial — and so far largely unsuccessful — call to lawmakers to back school choice laws.
Republicans have for years jockeyed for such legislation in the absence of the party’s previous success: Education Savings Accounts (ESAs). An expansive 2015 program designed under former Gov. Brian Sandoval and a GOP-controlled Legislature, the program was left intact even as its funding mechanism was gutted by the Nevada Supreme Court.
Democrats in control of the budget from 2017 onward, however, left the funding question untouched. When they took control of the Legislature and the governor’s office in 2019, Democratic lawmakers axed ESAs altogether.
But now a Republican is back in Gov. Joe Lombardo, who made school choice a pivotal part of his campaign platform — even if Democrats still maintain their legislative grip.
Flanked by demonstrators, many of them children and students of Nevada private or charter schools, Senate Minority Leader Heidi Seevers Gansert (R-Reno) made another call for the state to expand Opportunity Scholarships, which are designed to subsidize private school costs for families under a certain income threshold.
Under Lombardo’s proposed budget, those scholarships would see funding authorization jump from $7 million to $50 million. Under a forthcoming bill, the income threshold would jump from 300 percent of the poverty line to 500 percent.
“When you look at the money, the $50 million is only one half of 1 percent — one half of 1 percent — of the entire K-12 budget,” Seevers Gansert said. “It is a small amount, and it's really helping to serve students on an individual basis.”
Sen. Carrie Buck (R-Henderson), meanwhile, made renewed calls for accountability within the public school system.
That includes two of her own proposed bills, yet to be introduced, that would require an additional year of elementary school for students held back because they are not proficient in both reading and math, as well as a proposal that would put schools under state receivership should they fail certain benchmarks for three consecutive years.
“My Senate Republican colleagues and I must not overlook the hundreds of thousands of students who benefit from our traditional district public schools,” Buck said. “We must also look out for their well-being. For too long, for over 10 years, many schools have been consistently underperforming without any accountability measures in place, or any viable options nearby.”
How those bills will traverse a Legislature with Democrats in firm control of both chambers remains unclear.
— Jacob Solis
Family helped senator get where he is, but ‘now I’m the one who leans on him’
Hand resting on her son’s shoulder, state Sen. Edgar Flores’ (D-Las Vegas) mom stood proudly, holding back tears on the first day of the 82nd legislative session. She watched as her son spoke to the media about his plans as a newly sworn-in state senator and as a member of the Nevada Latino Legislative Caucus.
Griselda Flores said her and her husband’s sacrifices paid off as her three sons, and especially Sen. Flores, made a life and career of their own, followed their dreams and found their purpose.
Before becoming an assemblyman in 2015, Griselda Flores said she watched her son hustle, spending late nights studying for law school, having highs and lows but pushing through regardless.
“We say ‘con las botas bien puestas,’ meaning if he wished to do something he should be sure-footed to keep pushing ahead,” she told The Nevada Independent in a Spanish interview. “And me as a mother, I am so happy that [Edgar] has achieved his dreams. Not mine, but his.”
It all started when Griselda Flores and her husband Victor went in search of a better life, leaving Mexico and making the move to Las Vegas. In the early days, Griselda Flores made burritos for her husband to sell on the sidewalk.
Eventually, Victor Flores got a job in marketing at El Mundo, a Las Vegas Spanish newspaper, and Griselda Flores became a housekeeper at a casino. Unconditional love and support kept them going, she said.
“From there we settled ourselves and we never stopped sending the young boys to school,” she said. “They were beautiful experiences. We started from the bottom and if we saw we could go up, we would push as far as possible. We never stopped.”
She gave her children support and modeled endurance to keep pushing, offering an encouraging “empujón” — a little jab — whenever they were unsure about their path.
“Now I’m the one who leans on him,” Griselda Flores said. “I now say, ‘I support you, but you jump in. I’m here for you, but they’re your ideas.’”
— Jannelle Calderón
Deadline for legislators’ BDRs - Bill introduction roundup
Monday marked the deadline for lawmakers to submit their requests for bill drafts, contributing to many of the 972 total bill draft requests submitted to legislative staff — ideas that could eventually become a law.
Lawmakers and legal teams have until March 20 to turn those bill drafts into full proposals. March 27 marks the final deadline for any measures not sponsored by individual legislators, such as budget-related bills, though some emergency measures may arrive after that deadline.
Monday also saw the introduction of a wide range of bills. Here are some highlights:
- SB132 - Sponsored by Sen. Julie Pazina (D-Las Vegas), this bill aims to prohibit any insurer, life insurance company or other policy group from discriminating against a person based on their status as a living donor, or a living person who has donated an organ or portion of an organ to someone whose organ is no longer functioning.
- SB133 - Sponsored by Sen. Skip Daly (D-Sparks), this bill would make submitting false electoral votes or taking part in a conspiracy to do so a felony punishable by four to 10 years in prison. Under the proposed language, those found guilty would also be ineligible to run for office.
- SB135 - Sponsored by Sen. Robin Titus (R-Wellington), this bill would change the deadline for mail-in ballots, requiring them to be postmarked on or before the last day of early voting and received by 5 p.m. on the fourth day following the last day for early voting, which falls on Election Day. Existing law requires a ballot that is mailed to be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by 5 p.m. on the fourth day after the election. This would align with a proposal Gov. Joe Lombardo outlined in his State of the State address to require all mail-in ballots be received by the time polls close on Election Day.
- SB137 - Sponsored by Sen. Scott Hammond (R-Las Vegas), this bill would require Medicaid to include coverage for donor breast milk prescribed or ordered by a physician, physician assistant or registered nurse.
- AB149 - Sponsored by Assemblywoman Brittney Miller (D-Las Vegas), this bill proposes creating the Office of the Inspector General of Education. The office would have the authority to audit, investigate and review the performance of any person or government entity that receives public education funding.
— Tabitha Mueller
And to get you into the week, a few tweets that caught our eye:
- I have no mouth, and I must scream (because it won’t stop snowing).
- The Super Bowl is headed to Las Vegas next, but will the Raiders remind us if they make it to the big game, Nevada will lose out on millions of dollars in tax revenue?
- What’s that in the distance? Why, it’s honorary NASCAR pace car driver Joe Lombardo.
- "As anti-LGBTQ+ hate, and particularly anti-trans hate, grows in states across the country, I’m proud to form this caucus to send the message to LGBTQ+ Nevadans that you are welcome, safe, and represented here," Sen. Dallas Harris (D-Las Vegas) said in a press release announcing the Legislature’s LGBTQ+ caucus.
We’ll see you on Friday.
Editor’s Note: This story appears in Behind the Bar, The Nevada Independent’s newsletter dedicated to comprehensive coverage of the 2023 legislative session. Sign up for the newsletter here.