A Legislature in session is great for endless fodder. Even so, I’m glad to see the back side of this one. A few thoughts, post-sine die.

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When I was in the Navy, we came to learn that administrative bull… nonsense existed in a quantity inversely proportional to the actual importance of the mission. Training exercises and pre-deployment workups were opportunities for admirals and commodores to show off in front of each other, jockey for promotions, and “experiment” endlessly with policies they’d never have to actually live under, all from a safe distance ashore. You get a lot less of that when teams are boarding and inspecting Iraqi shipping or, say, when actual missiles are being launched.

This session felt like that to me. It never felt… serious. People were fighting just to fight, over bills that had no chance of becoming law. It was all jockeying for position for 2018, and to the extent that any real policy improvements were achieved, well, that was just incidental. There was no major policy change, unless you count the demise of the ESA school choice program. For all the angst, hate, and partisan discontent at the end of the session, you’d think there would have been more at stake.

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The Democrats' proudest achievement this session was to limit educational opportunities for kids whose regular public school systems are failing them. Dem legislative leaders Jason Frierson and Aaron Ford penned an op/ed that ran in the Reno Gazette Journal crowing about it, saying, “The defeat of ESAs is a victory for our public schools.”  

Notice they didn’t say it was a victory for public school students.  

About once a week, the Washoe County School District makes the news for beclowning itself in new and ever more creative ways. The latest was a panicked beg for more money after WCSD discovered they didn’t apply the state’s education budgeting formula correctly, and were (once again) “unexpectedly” shorter on cash than they expected by several million bucks. Legislative Democrats looked at this Cousin Eddie-esque cluster and said, “Every child should be trapped irrevocably with those guys in charge of their future!”

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The end of the session is when the sausage making is its ugliest. No-notice “hearings,” 11th hour “amendments” that had nothing to do with the original bill, “emergency” bills no one has time to read before they’re voted on…

I wish there was a workable way to prohibit these practices. In the absence of a practical constitutional solution, we should endeavor to elect people who will at least have a little foresight, ability to plan ahead, or at the very least, some sense of shame.

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Before deciding to draw a line in the sand, you must be certain of two things:  that you have both the ability and the will to stand firm on it. When Republicans said “No ESAs, No Budget,” they had neither. This took me by surprise, mostly because I couldn’t imagine that they would have taken that position without the governor’s support, whether he announced it or not. I don’t know if the Republican leaders thought they had it, or were just bluffing, but either way, being pushed over your own sandy line is an ugly way to lose.

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When one party seems to “own” any issue, they take it for granted while the other neglects it, to the detriment of us all. Such has been the story of education in Nevada. To me, one of the most important, long-term accomplishments of 2015 was that Republicans exposed the lie that is the Democratic claim that their party has some sort of political high ground when it came to education policy. ESAs were a part of that, but ultimately, ESAs weren’t going to “save” public education any more than getting rid of them will suddenly make Nevada a wellspring of endless college-bound honor students. Still, the ESAs were of outsized importance.

Parties in power win elections when people believe they are delivering results to them personally. ESAs were a more immediately apparent “delivery” than some of the other reforms will wind up being, and so they would have been the vanguard of Republican arguments that conservatives have superior solutions in the real world.

Encouraging choice, diversity, and innovation in our schools is good policy, but it’s great politics – especially when the other side is constantly trying to take little Billy out of his private school where he’s thriving and insist he go back to a one-size-fits-all traditional public school that was failing him. And for those the one-size fits? Republicans funded those schools better, too.

Giving up on ESAs took any up-and-coming Republicans who would otherwise have fought for followed Sandoval’s moderate, solutions-oriented model, and cut them off at the knees. Sadly, I think it cut moderate, solutions-oriented Dems off at the knees, too. That, more than anything else, will significantly diminish the legacy Gov. Brian Sandoval could have, would have, and should have had.

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How much different would this session have looked if a special session had been called to fix ESA funding immediately after the Supreme Court invalidated the ESA funding mechanism? I remain baffled at that squandered opportunity.

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The contrast between the respective leaders in the Assembly and the Senate is as stark as can be.  Anderson and Frierson are serious adults who respect each other even when they don’t agree.  Senators Ford and Roberson, on the other hand, are like a divorcing couple at Thanksgiving dinner. It’s no coincidence that it was the Senate where compromises and deals went to fall apart, leaving this session to truly be about… nothing.  

If I were a rabid partisan on either side, I would love nothing more than for Aaron Ford or Bearded Michael Roberson (he was so much more effective last session without the evil-alternative-universe beard) to remain in Senate leadership forever.

As I’m not, I hope the Senate chooses more serious leaders in 2019.

Orrin Johnson has been writing and commenting on Nevada and national politics since 2007.  He started with an independent blog, First Principles, and was a regular columnist for the Reno Gazette-Journal from 2015-2016.  By day, he is a deputy district attorney for Carson City.  His opinions here are his own.  Follow him on Twitter @orrinjohnson, or contact him at [email protected].