A quarter-century ago, the Legislature was ripe for gridlock.

Voters had left the Assembly in a 21-21 tie, leading many pundits (if memory serves, myself among them) to forecast hopeless conflict and partisan nastiness. There were co-speakers and co-floor leaders and co-chairmen of committees – an obviously unworkable situation. It was going to be the worst of times.

Instead, in a testament to the leaders involved, they worked better than in any session in modern memory, coming together out of necessity and doing what would be unthinkable today. Co-Speakers Lynn Hettrick and Joe Dini, along with their floor leaders, Pete Ernaut and Richard Perkins, set the tone for their caucuses, choosing bipartisan cooperation over partisan strife.

As this annus horribilis comes to an end, I am hoping 2021 is more like 1995 than most of its sequels. This may be the product of too much holiday spirit, optimism obscuring reality. Even though there are no ties – indeed, the Democrats control all three levers of capital power – never in this state’s battle born history has there been more need of a truce, more call for the partisan flames to be doused.

Nevada is in trouble.

The pandemic has exposed a porous public health system that has only exacerbated the pain of so many Nevadans and a dysfunctional unemployment department sorely in need of training and rehabilitation. And as Gov. Steve Sisolak prepares his State of the State speech and lawmakers prepare for their biennial bivouac in (or Zoom to) Carson City, COVID-19 has resulted in a massive, 10-figure budget hole, one that cannot be easily filled simply by raising taxes or making cuts or some combination thereof. The state budget has never been generous, and it already was gutted during a special session just weeks ago.

After all the talk through the decades of Nevada being at a proverbial crossroads, the modifier is no longer needed. Unless the Gang of 63 can capture the spirit of  25 years ago, the road they will take leads to ruin. Despite all of the obstacles – and they are many – I will enter ’21 believing they will legislate like it’s 1995.

It will not be easy.

The Legislature has been an unwelcoming place for substantive debate and thoughtful lawmaking for some time. The 120-day time limit, passed in 1998, has created a compressed system that contains languid periods followed by breakneck stretches, a recipe for poorly thought-out proposals on minor and major issues alike. And in the last decade or so, an influx of partisan operatives on both sides of the building, eager to issue blistering news releases or whisper damaging stories about the opposition in reporters’ ears, has only contributed to the dysfunction inside this mini-Beltway (Carson City Loop, perhaps?).

Partisanship has grown more toxic; rule-bending has become the norm. And it has been a bipartisan failure: For Democrats who would cite former state Senate GOP Leader Michael Roberson running roughshod, I give you the last special session in which Democrats pretended the Republicans did not exist. There are other examples, too, but anyone who has been around Carson City for any length of time will tell you the process is broken and the quality of lawmakers, while there are some stellar ones, has not improved.

That’s the macro view, an increasingly dysfunctional Legislative Building that does not lend itself to cooperation, with party-before-state the default position of too many. All of that is exacerbated by the run-up to this session, with the historic assault on democracy by the president and his enablers, including some in the Legislature, and the Democratic hegemony in Carson City on the eve of reapportionment and redistricting, with the concomitant temptation to write the GOP out of the political picture for a decade.

So why in the world am I hopeful?

It’s not just my biennial sanguinity before the Legislature starts, a feeling that usually turns to despair by May. I believe people do rise to the occasion, and I am confident there are those in the Gang of 63 who can put state over party at this critical intersection – maybe the correct geographic metaphor is the edge of a cliff. I believe there are Lynn Hettricks and Joe Dinis waiting to happen.

But one item must be taken off the table before the healing can begin.

A guy like erstwhile Co-Speaker Hettrick, a legitimate conservative and stand-up guy, would be appalled by what President Donald Trump and Nevada Republicans have done to try to undermine confidence in the state’s elections. Assemblyman Jim Wheeler, a former GOP floor leader, has been fully supportive of the inane #StoptheSteal movement, and his successor, Robin Titus, and her Senate counterpart, James Settelmeyer, have not lifted a finger to object.

With the exception of Assemblywoman Jill Tolles and state Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, the entire GOP legislative caucus should start the session by apologizing for their ongoing complicity. I suspect this will not happen – I get paid for this kind of oracular genius – so the first order of business should be for both houses to pass a resolution averring that the Nevada election was free and fair, and there was no evidence of widespread fraud.

Then comes the hard part.

The budget decisions will be excruciating. And they will be made impossible if everything is seen through the binary equation of taxes vs. cuts, simply as a math problem as they always are, without enough thought to what the real-world consequences of these decisions might be.

Here are some ideas on how lawmakers can avoid doing what has nearly always been done:

---Don’t listen to the extremes hectoring them on social media or in-person. Democrats should tell the taxing crowd to shut up; the Republicans should tell the same to the tax-no-one gang. Marginalize the marginals – including the ones in your own caucuses.

---Talk about what is supposed to be verboten for your party. Democrats should welcome a debate on election security and gubernatorial powers: Obviously mail ballots open up more potential for mischief even if there is no evidence of rampant fraud, and a debate over this state’s super-executive power is long overdue. Republicans should be willing to have a colloquy about new ways to raise revenue and wage/employee rights issues: The state’s tax base is still too narrow, and the working poor dealing with a porous social safety net on the Nevada plantation remain persistent issues in this state.

---Set aside personal grudges. I wouldn’t blame Democratic state Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro for wanting revenge on freshman Republican Carrie Buck, who was part of those ill-fated recalls, or the business community that rose up to try to smite her this year. Nor would I blame the Republicans for chafing after the Democrats treated them so shabbily last session or during the specials this year. I don’t expect 63 hands across the water. But if ever there was a need for the personal to not be the political, it’s this coming session.

---Ignore the siren calls of 2021. Asking politicians to holster their ambitions, even for 120 days, may be a bridge too far even for this Pollyanna column. But if all of those in the capital who are thinking of higher office in 2021 – a U.S. Senate seat, four congressional seats and six constitutional offices are up – see everything through that prism, nothing will happen. Or, at least, nothing good.

Of course, there is one other person in this calculus who will have a lot of say over what happens. Gov. Steve Sisolak, up for re-election and pounded for months over his response to the pandemic, also will have to put political and petty considerations aside for the good of the state.

I know that human beings are weak. I know some of this involves unlearning learned behavior. And I know I sound like a delusional dreamer.

So be it.

I’m not just a journalist; I’m as proud a Nevadan as you will find, and I am worried about my state.

I am not hyperventilating when I say this may be the greatest crisis state lawmakers have ever confronted. I think they and the governor are up to the task.

More than ever, I hope they don’t prove me wrong.