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Democrats hate ESAs, governor hates minimum wage hike: Can they find love?

Jon Ralston
Jon Ralston
Ralston Reports
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The Nevada Legislature building as seen in Carson City on Feb. 6, 2017.

Notes on a Legislature -- Week 16

With one week to go in the 79th session, it all -- ok, mostly -- comes down to a simple proposition: The idea of raising the minimum wage, which is a hill to die for to Democrats, is as anathema to Gov. Brian Sandoval, as passing an Education Savings Account bill, which is a hill to die for to the governor, is to the party that controls the Legislature.

So to get this resolved, thus making the path to sine die smoother, will require both sides to feel some pain. The Democrats are going to have to swallow the bitter ESA pill, washing it down with a sliding scale of grants, and Sandoval is going to have to do the same with the minimum wage, so long as he gets some concessions on overtime rules long desired by business groups.

Can it happen?

Team Indy is following the negotiations, which blew up Thursday but reportedly had come back together as I post this late Friday afternoon. The Assembly negotiations seem to have more promise, with Minority Leader Paul Anderson and Speaker Jason Frierson now counting on their mutual respect and desire for a solution. The Senate blew up Thursday after several rocky meetings of an ESA working group and a core endgame negotiating group. The main GOP negotiators have been Ben Kieckhefer and Scott Hammond, the original bill sponsor, and the Democrats have been Tick Segerblom and Mo Denis. 

Once the ESA/minimum wage needle is threaded, the rest will follow. Simple, right? And we will adjourn three days early, right?

(No Scotch was imbibed before the writing of this blog post.)

A few other notes on an end to come, as deals come together and then fall apart and then come together before the Gang of 63 finally skedaddles:

----It depends what the definition of “emergency” is: State Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford has a first responder bill as one of his special measures. Coincidentally, he may run for attorney general. Minority Leader Roberson is introducing a bill to more closely monitor sex offenders, immediately praised in an obviously pre-written news release by Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who is likely to be on a ticket with Roberson next year (governor-lieutenant governor). These are about emerging candidacies, not emergency bills.

----Strangest end of session ever: No sense of urgency. Every deadline met calmly. The Ford-Frierson session is as “smooth a process as I have ever been involved in,” said one lobbyist who has been around even longer than your humble narrator.

----Seven vetoes in May: So far. I hear the governor is upset the Democrats sent over bills they knew he had to reject, undoing reforms from 2015. He does not like to be….mean. But the Democrats clearly made a calculation that they had to do some favors for labor and trial lawyers and others, no matter how quixotic.


 

Updated at 5:44 to clarify that there are two groups core group and working group on ESAs, and to correct participants, and to remove a detail about one senator that turned out to be incorrect.

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