As one of Sen. Heidi Gansert's opponents in her bid for the state Senate in 2016, I found it more than a little intriguing that she was the one tasked with delivering the Republican response to Gov. Sisolak's State of the State address. Sen. Gansert was most certainly not a supporter of President Trump during her campaign and was loathed by much of the Republican base in her district. Was using her as the public face of the Republican Party, even if only for 10 minutes, telling of the direction Nevada Republicans want to try in 2020?

If so, they're going to need a lot of luck.

***

The Nevada Constitution requires the governor to "communicate by Message to the Legislature at every regular Session the condition of the State and recommend such measures as he may deem expedient." Given that both Gov. Sisolak and Sen. Gansert (in her blessedly shorter response) both stressed Nevada's precedent-setting female-majority Legislature in their states of the state, the presence of a male pronoun in that constitutional requirement feels increasingly anachronistic. Of course, Nevada has bigger lambs to fry than gender-neutralizing the governing documents of the state (though, for what it's worth, I would find that a worthwhile endeavor — at a minimum, time spent doing that would cut into session time spent doing something actively harmful).

Gov. Sisolak faces a familiar problem: He basically ran as a Sandoval-style moderate, only with a blue coat instead of a red one. True to Sandovalian form, he started his State of the State speech not only ignoring the whims and desires of his party's base, but intentionally antagonizing them by stressing that his proposed budget doesn't have any new taxes. Then he repeated himself, just to make sure he was heard.

Unsurprisingly, this sentiment is not going over well with the pro-Sanders/AOC wing of the Democratic Party.

There is some good news for Nevada's beleaguered Leftists, who see unprecedented Democratic majorities in both houses of the Legislature and a Democratic governor as proof that Nevada's voters have given them a mandate to bring their vision to life. It's going to be very difficult — actually, as predicted in my last column, mathematically impossible — for Sisolak to add collective bargaining for state workers, pay raises for teachers, greater state responsibility for Medicaid payments, higher prevailing wages for public construction jobs, and everything else on his laundry list without raising some taxes somewhere.

When I say that, I'm not playing semantic games, meaning I'm not counting as a tax increase the suddenly-not-sunsetted taxes that Gov. Sisolak is trying to keep on the books, though I'm sure there are more than a few accountants and tax watchdogs that (justifiably) will. There is just no way, especially in the face of the widely predicted recession that's coming, to pay for even half of Gov. Sisolak's State of the State wishlist without taxing more money into the state budget.

The lessons of the 2015 Session, when Republican majorities in both houses of the Legislature and a Republican governor was seen as proof that Nevada's voters had given Republicans a mandate to bring their vision to life, are potentially instructive. Though there probably won't be a left-wing, DSA membership card bearing, IWW flag waving equivalent of Michelle Fiore in the 2019 session (though The Nevada Independent is taking applications for that entertaining and newsworthy role if any legislators are interested), some Democratic legislators are going to be more tempted to play to their base than others — and some Democratic legislators have different bases than others.

As both the 2016 presidential and 2018 gubernatorial primaries demonstrated, the white collar Bay Area transplants of Northern Nevada aren't the same sorts of Democrats as Southern Nevada's union workers. Northern Nevada's Democrats, for example, don't find the potential union work embodied by the Raiders Stadium politically persuasive. They just see a giant giveaway to a rich corporation that already has more than enough money. What happens the next time the labor and progressive wings of the Democratic Party come into conflict? And what's stopping either side from thinking they should get their way now that the Republicans are seemingly irrelevant?

Just as Sandoval struggled to keep his caucus intact in 2015, and eventually settled on working with Democrats and moderate Republicans to neutralize the more extreme wings of his party, Gov. Sisolak may find it more than tempting to work with Republicans to try to support his base — Southern Nevada's unions and businesses, primarily — and to prevent a Northern-led DSA-tinged insurrection, if it comes to that.

Before anyone laughs, remember, Republicans have voted for union jobs before.

Wouldn't it be more than a little fitting if Sisolak led Nevada's first majority-female, majority-Democratic legislature through Nevada's largest tax cut, the same way Gov. Sandoval led Nevada's first majority-Republican legislature in ages through Nevada's largest tax hike?

A libertarian can dream.

David Colborne has been active in the Libertarian Party for two decades. During that time, he has blogged intermittently on his personal blog, as well as the Libertarian Party of Nevada blog, and ran for office twice as a Libertarian candidate. He serves on the Executive Committee for both his state and county Libertarian Party chapters. He is the father of two sons and an IT professional. You can follow him on Twitter @DavidColborne or email him at [email protected].