Gov. Steve Sisolak’s 2022 State of the State address — oddly delivered to an empty Allegiant Stadium reminiscent of the events held in empty venues during the governor’s pandemic restrictions — focused almost exclusively on announcing his distribution of federal dollars handed to him just like the governors of all other states.  

Many undoubtedly have noted the absence of his own creative solutions rather than simply more government and greater expenditures. For example, when Mr. Sisolak ran for governor approximately four years ago, he promised to turn around Nevada’s dismal public education. And yet, our public school system still ranks 49 out of 50 states, despite his declarations that education has been his “top priority.”  He failed to explain during his address why he has been unable to show meaningful improvement in Nevada’s public education, despite having a friendly Democrat-controlled Legislature.  

There were two other significant items missing from his speech that are, in my view, perhaps the most troubling.

First, the governor stubbornly refused to end his “emergency powers” that he bestowed upon himself two years ago at the beginning of the pandemic. In March of 2020, he declared he needed such sweeping powers to curb the spread of the then-mysterious COVID-19. Given the early lack of vaccines and treatment, he cited a model projection by Imperial College to justify the need for suspension of democratic norms — a projection that has since been debunked as error-ridden and wildly inaccurate.  

Two years later, this governor still hasn’t sought any approval from the Legislature to either grant or extend any of his emergency authority, nor did he seek its approval for any of his mandates and edicts including severe occupancy restrictions and lockdowns. He easily could have done so during the regular legislative session, when lawmakers were in a perfect position to weigh in on the state’s handling of the pandemic. 

Amazingly, during his speech he sought to portray himself as a governor who reaches across the aisle and proclaimed he’s willing to work with anyone to improve Nevada.  In reality, however, he hasn’t even been willing to reach out to Democrats on some of the most impactful actions he’s taken in the last couple of years. He has acted unilaterally, with the full force of government power — ordering Nevadans what to wear on their face, closing down businesses at his discretion, and even limiting what type of medication properly licensed Nevada physicians can prescribe to their patients for treatment of COVID-19.  

If there were any actions he has taken as governor that should have been contingent on legislative approval pursuant to the Nevada Constitution during the past two years, it should have been these historic and unusual actions imposed on the state.

Highlighting how arbitrary the application of much of this power has been, on Feb. 10, the governor suddenly dropped the state’s mask mandate, disregarding CDC guidelines — guidelines he had committed to follow just weeks earlier. In fact, he didn’t even discuss the decision with his state health advisors. As one of the last governors in the U.S. to do so, he took this action only after other blue state Democratic governors led the way, obviously motivated — at least in part — by party bosses concerned about the poll numbers for the upcoming midterms.  

Experts from the University of Southern California concluded that mandatory masks for school children have devastating and long-term effects on their development and mental health. And who can forget the video that went viral worldwide of primary-age Las Vegas school children cheering when told they no longer had to wear a mask to school? Such a pathetic sight brought tears to the eyes of many, but apparently not our governor who only lifted his school mask mandate because of his own selfish political expediency. Nothing in the governor’s speech about this either — or how he is going to address the psychological damage caused to Nevada children by such mandates even while many Nevada schools continue to prohibit children from using playground equipment to this day.

In lifting the mask mandate, the governor sought to justify what was obviously a purely political move by noting that masks no longer needed to be mandated since we now have readily available vaccines and treatment — the absence of which was the basis for his declaration of emergency in the first place. And yet, he still refuses to show even modest self-restraint by giving up his emergency powers — despite admitting through his actions that the very reasons for such drastic steps no longer exist. The contradiction is readily apparent.

We have now had two years since the outbreak of COVID-19 for the hospitals and medical providers to prepare for any future spikes in Nevada. The federal government has handed Gov. Sisolak billions of dollars for COVID Relief funds. Under Sisolak’s leadership with his full emergency powers in place during the last two years, and billions in federal funding, was he unable to make sure our state’s medical services were and are prepared for any future COVID spikes such that he can now rescind his emergency declaration?  And if he failed in this regard, why?   

The truth is, the governor should have given up his emergency powers long ago. And the fact he hasn’t should be offensive to all Nevadans. The leaders of our Legislature have similarly disgraced themselves by not demanding at any point in the last two years that the governor get legislative approval for his emergency declaration or the related actions that infringed on otherwise fundamental civil liberties. 

A second missing piece from the governor’s address was any recognition of the historic and painful mistakes he made in the last two years in dealing with the pandemic. Recent authoritative studies, most notably a review of world-wide study of pandemic lockdowns by Johns Hopkins University, has shown such drastic and devastating actions did not work as promised. Instead, as in Nevada, they caused severe economic hardship, food insecurity, increases in domestic violence, crime, depression and mental health issues, drug and alcohol abuse, and even increased suicide rates.  

The data in Nevada is no different, and the governor knows it — yet not a word during his speech of any regret or sincere apology to those who have suffered not only from the virus itself, but from the harsh and misguided actions of the governor acting unilaterally pursuant to his self-declared emergency powers. There wasn’t even a recognition of the suffering caused by tens of thousands of wage earners suddenly being thrown into massive food lines as a result of the governor’s lockdowns and other devastating measures.

Not a word of apology, either, to the religious community, churches, synagogues or mosques for his unlawful limitations on their ability to worship, despite the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals finding that our governor violated the Nevada religious community’s rights under the sacred First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Nor did he apologize to the taxpayers for the massive fraud and incompetence of the Nevada unemployment system that for most of the pandemic lockdown failed to deliver promised benefits to those truly in need. And to the business owners who lost their businesses due to the governor’s oppressive restrictions, also not a word of sympathy or regret.

Thankfully, the governor seems to finally be discussing the possibility of relaxing his emergency powers — however, more needs to be done. It is not only time for him to rescind his emergency declaration, but also time to form a bipartisan committee with adequate funding to commission a study of the effectiveness of lockdowns, restrictions and mask mandates versus the societal and economic costs suffered by Nevada adults and children for many years to come.  

Brett Sutton is a Nevada attorney and mediator whose practice is focused on labor and employment law. He is a Nevada Leadership Council member of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), has held leadership positions in various other industry organizations and is a frequent speaker on employment law.