As was entirely predictable (and predicted), the end of this month's special session ended with a credibility destroying whimper. The Democrats in charge of the state, from Gov. Steve Sisolak to legislative leadership in both houses, failed to plan and failed to communicate (either with each other or with various stakeholders), and so they did a terrible job. When you don't have a plan, you fall back on old (often bad) habits that don't fit the times – surprise tax increase bills, naked partisanship complete with childish stunts, and unabashed and tone-deaf pandering to special interests (in this case various public employee unions) who donate to your campaign coffers. 

But there is a factor in the failure of the session that I think has not gotten enough attention – the unwillingness or inability of the people who are supposed to be making our laws to actually show up. After someone in the legislative building tested positive for COVID, several members chose not to return physically, but instead participated remotely. 

I have been fortunate enough to have been working consistently throughout the various shutdowns. Most of the rural courts I practice in have kept their doors open, but courts in Washoe County are physically closed and operating almost exclusively with remote access for participants. I'm glad we at least have that option to work through cases that have settled, but for any sort of contested hearing (much less a trial) it is a poor (and from a due process standpoint, unacceptable) substitute for being there in person. From whatever staff meeting any given employee may be virtually attending to the distance "learning" foisted on our education system, you won't find many people who will disagree. When it comes to effectively communicating new information or working through disagreements and controversies, there is no substitute for human beings gathering together in person.

Legislative work, of course, is nothing if not communicating information and working through disagreements. And it's not just the legislators. In order for them to do their job (and to hopefully be prevented from abusing their power), citizens must be able to meaningfully participate in the process. Two-minute midnight phone calls do not cut it, nor does testimony via Zoom. And allowing government officials to operate with the public literally locked outside is not how government should ever operate in any free country, or in a state where we expect government to be responsive to its citizens. 

I don't think there's anyone out there at this point that thinks Governor Sisolak is an effective communicator. No one can credibly argue that he didn't do a particularly terrible job of it in the preparation for and execution of the special session. And I certainly don't mean to excuse his own negligence and lack of effort in that regard. But as a minor defense, in his efforts to model social distancing, he proved what a cost such distancing carries. You can't build effective working relationships without actually getting together – it's too easy to lose the humanity of your adversaries and let them become enemies when you're behind a screen.

And so the legislators who actually show up and are willing to talk to people will have more power and influence than those who don't. The stakeholders who are able (or permitted, which is chilling in and of itself) to show up and participate will be catered to, and everyone else will be ignored. Shenanigans like prioritizing public employee unions over money for health care and children in the classrooms themselves will become even more common than they already are. Both incompetence and corruption, already too common, will be the order of the day. 

The second special session, rumored to start this coming Thursday (is it really too much to ask for the governor to provide reasonable notice for these critical events?), should be cancelled. There is nothing – NOTHING – outside direct COVID emergency related responses (including reining in the governor's now illegitimate exercise of "emergency" power) that cannot wait until all stakeholders can meaningfully and fully participate in the legislative process. (Voting procedures are acceptable, criminal justice reform is not, as an example.)  And based on the last session, we can have no confidence that any issue addressed will be addressed competently. We are only seven months away from the regular session, and only four months away from people having a voice in any "reform" via the ballot box. Why, it's almost as if the current Democrat-controlled government doesn't have the confidence that their plans will stand up to public scrutiny…

Revolutions occur and blood is spilled when government becomes detached from and unaccountable to its people. I'm not being hyperbolic – the violence in the streets of our nation today is a direct result of prolonged shutdowns and arbitrary and capricious government action. It will get worse as more and more people (not just bored college students being used by professional agitators and activists) start feeling left out in the cold. And the thing about revolutions is that historically, the end result is often worse than the original wrong the revolutionaries claim to want to remedy. (See any communist revolution ever.)  It's far better to risk getting sick and keep our political institutions intact than force people to take action in other ways.

The future of our politics will belong to those who are willing – and able – to show up. If we would like to continue solving our political disputes with elections and lawmakers and courtrooms instead of riots, civil disobedience, and vigilantism, we'd damned well better open up our government properly again so we can show up constructively instead of in the streets.

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Politics is a human invention, designed around the needs of us as social animals. The same human nature that determines the efficacy (or lack of it) in our political endeavors must be accounted for in everything else we do. Take education.

I am frankly disgusted by the new push – mostly by teacher's unions – to keep our schools closed. Like millions of other Americans, I have spent the entirety of the pandemic continuing to work, engaged in the real world, meeting with clients (their life-altering decisions deserve face-time with their lawyer), and interacting with the public. This is partly because if I don't, I don't get paid, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Millions more Americans would kill to get back to work.  What I do – and what all those other millions of Americans do – is important, not only to my own well being (meaningful work is at the core of healthy human self-identity), but to my clients, our system of justice, and to the economy as a whole. Just as I was willing to risk my life for my country by putting on a uniform, I am again today – and frankly, the risk to me now is far less than it was when I was leading boarding teams onto Iraqi smuggling ships in the middle of the night. I have nothing but contempt for people unwilling to stand up and accept some measure of risk so that our children and our communities can have a better future.

When I hear teachers complain that they shouldn't be asked to choose between their job and their life, it sets my teeth on absolute edge. First of all, the implication behind such absurd hyperbole – that leaving your house guarantees an infection, and an infection all but guarantees your death – is simply contrary to everything both medical research and our real-world experience has taught us. Second of all, while fully operational public schools with teachers in the classroom are absolutely vital to both the present and future of our economic vitality, so are grocery stores and construction workers and manufactures and farmers and retail outlets and even bars and restaurants, and those people aren't overwhelming our hospitals, nor are they howling in indignant rage about how they shouldn't have to show up to work. 

Besides all that, who seriously thinks kids aren't already getting together right now?  A few kids camps around the country have seen COVID outbreaks, but out of the hundreds of thousands actually going on (my kids spend a good deal of the summer at the Discovery Museum camps, which were absolutely outstanding), those incidents are total outliers. And that doesn't count the less formal get-togethers kids (and their parents) are already doing. Camp counselors aren't dropping dead in the streets, and neither will teachers. 

Teachers aren't special in this regard, and their attempt to claim some status as being especially aggrieved by the pandemic (while their paychecks remain secure) is as unwarranted as it is offensive to the general public. Teachers unions are destroying the credibility of their members by adopting this line, and destroying it fast. (Think it can't happen?  After 9/11, police and firefighters could do no wrong. But firefighters tanked their credibility with lawmakers after their union-supported practice of spiking their retirements came to light, and law enforcement are struggling now as their unions failed to police and weed out their own bad actors. Now both lay vulnerable, fairly or otherwise, to political opportunists who are happy to rob their budgets for their own pet projects.)

The overwhelming weight of actual science says that it is not only safe to fully open elementary schools, but it is vital to our children that we do so. The counter-arguments, on the other hand, such as this op-ed in the Reno Gazette-Journal from an English teacher, rely solely on nakedly manipulative fear mongering, appeals to emotion, outlier studies (often taken out of context), and "what ifs" that the available data do not support. 

The actual science tells us what is intuitively obvious – the future belongs to the children who show up.

I have heard the school closure advocates try to minimize the damage they are advocating for by trying to say distance learning will be OK this time, because in the spring there wasn't time to plan, and this time, teachers will have more control, and that anyway, it will only be for a "few weeks."  What a bunch of [baloney]. 

Distance "learning" didn't fail (and no one can argue it wasn't a failure) because we didn't "do it right."  It failed because human children learn best when a real-live teacher is in a classroom teaching them. It failed because good teaching is about communication, and watching a pre-prepared video and doing worksheets is not communication. It failed because teaching is about working with children, and identifying where they aren't getting some foundational part of the curriculum early, even if the child doesn't want to admit it. It failed because too many kids don't have access to the needed technology, and even where they do, too many parents aren't available to supervise or supplement the teaching (those parents are out delivering food and supplies to the safely cloistered government employees who are getting a little to comfortable in their fully paid hermitage). It failed because too much screen time is detrimental to children's brain development. It failed because kids need physically present social interaction to be emotionally healthy. It failed because a huge part of what motivates kids to stay engaged in school is the interaction with their friends and the extra-curricular activities where so much actual learning is also done. 

The claims that distance "learning" will work because this time we'll do it "right" are no different than fools who claim communism or socialism work of we do it "right" in spite of a century of starvation, slavery, stagnation, and death everywhere it's tried to tell us otherwise. Plans that look good on paper but don't account for actual human nature will never work. 

And the goal posts have been moved far too often, and in too many unsavory ways, for us to trust that it will only be for "a few weeks" (another argument I often see). The same union shills who vaguely tell us they need to feel "safe" without providing any sort of criteria for what will make them feel safe will begin insisting that only a vaccine will do. Even if a vaccine is developed by the end of the year (and it won't be), they'll say it needs more testing, and "there is too much we don't know" about it. If schools don't open now, they won't open for the rest of the school year, and maybe not even after that. This is unacceptable.

The unsavory politics that is exacerbated by the shutdowns is too evident here, too. Washoe County District Health Officer Kevin Dick, a man unqualified and unfit for the position he holds, surprised everyone a few days ago by announcing schools should be shut down, based solely on numbers of cases (not deaths or hospitalizations) in adults (not children). Superintendents and principals of schools public and private have been repeatedly ignored all summer by Dick in their attempts to get information or metrics to assist in their planning (or haven't asked for it), and only now, mere weeks before schools were set to open, did Dick drop that particular bomb. Does anyone seriously doubt politics of the worst kind were involved?  The kindest thing one can say about Dick's actions is that he suffers from the same communication challenges everyone else does when our governments are not operating openly and publicly. 

Fortunately, actual medical experts in Washoe County are pushing back hard, but everyone in the state is on edge wondering what (and when) the governor will wave his scepter and proclaim the future of schools (without legislative input, 'natch).  Multiple education professionals have (with frustration after months of planning) told me they expect Mr. Sisolak will soon simply pronounce schools should remain closed for months, mandating distance "learning" in the meantime and based on the governor's history of reactionary lurching around and belated policy pronouncements to date, those fears are well justified. If he does, we will all know with absolute certainty that his insistence that he is following science instead of politics is a damnable lie. Such an action would be a pander to teacher unions who donate to his campaign and nothing more.

But many parents know that the future of their children belongs to them only if they show up. Some of those parents will protest the government while the governor hides away in his locked office. That's all well and good, but many more will simply make their own schools via neighborhood co-ops, or chose homeschooling instead. Many of them already are. 

Those of us with the flexibility and resources to privately secure our children's education will do so. The rest, victims of the public school monopoly model school choice advocates have been warning against for decades, will fall farther and farther behind. Meaningful public education (only achievable in-person) in childhood is critical to economic mobility as an adult, a fact that's been well recognized since (at least) John Adams was the president. To my friends on the left who claim to be on the side of the socio-economically disadvantaged, I say to you – are you really going to let this terrible disparity go on one day longer when the science cannot justify it?  Will you let fear of the unknown make you accept the very real and well-understood harms happening to disadvantaged kids, many of them racial minorities, right now?  As it is, the lamentable decision by Clark County to stay closed will keep their already dismal education statistics in the toilet for untold years.

And to the teachers asking to keep their schools closed – how long do you think it will be before the public tires of paying for inadequate distance education, or paying double because they have to pay out of their own pocket for a private school, microschool, tutor, or non-educational child care so they can go to work in addition to their taxes?  Some teachers claim that distance learning takes more of their time than being in the classroom (this claim is not logically credible, and even if it is in the short term, that won't be true in the long term as class videos are used over and over again), but results matter, and ultimately, the results of distance "learning" aren't worth paying for no matter how many hours teachers spend on doing it. (That's another public/private sector disconnect teachers would be wise to pay attention to – it's not the thought or effort that counts, but the tangible quality of the service or product upon delivery.)  If for no other reason than self-preservation of the future of their profession (and their own paychecks), teachers should see what a terrible disservice their unions are doing to them right now. 

If nothing else, break up the larger school districts into on-line only and in-person in the actual facilities, with teachers (plenty of whom desire to get back into their classrooms in spite of the risks) and parents choosing which way they want to go. And the governor should absolutely leave it to individual school districts to make their own decisions about re-opening. We are under no obligation to insist that one size fits all educational or family needs. 

But make absolutely no mistake – the future will belong to the kids, the educators, and the communities that show up in person for their education. The damage done to the kids left behind with tablets for teachers will grow every day they stay at home, and will hobble them for the rest of their lives.

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In a representative republic like our own, all policy questions are ultimately political questions. In spite of the low esteem in which we often justifiably hold our politicians, this is a good thing. The public must have a voice in – and indeed, through their representatives, direct – the crafting and implementation of public policy. If the current crop of politicians isn't getting the job done, then in theory, we can swap them out for a hopefully more competent set. Politicians should be changed like underwear, and for the same reasons. 

But the political future only belongs to those who show up. 

Single-party political systems are always unhealthy and tyrannical. Unchecked power always turns out that way, which is why so many of our inner cities, run exclusively by democrats for decades, are now literally and figuratively on fire. Conservatives like to snark that those inner-city voters are fools, but Republicans to their shame haven't bothered showing up in the inner-cities for so many election cycles that they frankly aren't a viable choice even if someone wanted to make it. (Where they have shown up, like in New York City in the Giuliani years, they've greatly improved the lives of their residents and the health of their communities.)

While I typically prefer Republicans to be in office, I would never want to see them unconcerned about losing their jobs if they fail the public. The gerrymandering that will occur if (as is likely, but not inevitable) Democrats consolidate their hold on the state government will do tremendous harm to our state for a generation, not just (or even primarily) because I think Democrats are often wrong in both philosophy and policy, but because it will make them lazy, unaccountable, and entitled.  

Republicans in Nevada are not showing up, and haven't meaningfully done so for years. There is no strategic political leadership. Fundraising is pathetic. Candidates are left to fend for themselves. No one is recruiting or cultivating a bench of future qualified candidates for legislative seats or constitutional offices. 

Even now, when the current crop of Democrats has shown themselves to be feckless, unprepared, and are doing unnecessary damage to families across the state, Republicans are sending out lame fundraising emails that could have been written in 1995 about stopping tax increases. Not that I want tax increases, but like their counterparts on the left, they don't know what to do and so are using old habits as crutches. It's not going to cut it.

It's not enough to point out the Dems are hosing things up. If the issue is competence, then we need to know who the competent individuals who will challenge the status quo are. Who are our candidates?  How will they do it better?  If we want to "get rid of Sisolak," who do we replace him with?  Beyond bromides about Californication, what will improve our everyday lives?

Republicans have done more for education in this state than Democrats ever have, both in terms of revenue-raising and breaking (or at least denting) the unhealthy public school one-size-fits-all monopoly. Now more than ever, meaningful public education needs to be their rallying cry, as does getting people back to work, transparency and communication in government, public safety and support of law enforcement, and ending rule by unending gubernatorial surprise edict. 

But they need people – candidates – to carry this message. X number of voter "contacts" (robocalls and emails) isn't showing up. Candidates people can see, get to know, get to trust, and get to understand – that's showing up. And it can't be any generic Republican, they need to be seasoned and experienced, with records of success in their non-political endeavors. Adam Laxalt didn't fit that bill (and still doesn't), and neither did most of the rest of the candidates who ran for state-wide office last cycle, from attorney general on down. The failure of the Republican Party leaders a decade ago to plan ahead for now is inexcusable, and it needs to change immediately.

Unless government officials feel their job is on the line, they will not be responsive to real problems of real people. Without viable electoral options, the status quo will not and cannot change for the better. 

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The future belongs to those who show up. That's true in politics, in industry, in the law, and in anything else human beings do. 

Trying to hide from a virus until it goes away is not only ridiculous and impossible, but it robs us all of our futures by making us not show up for ourselves. Our absence from our own civic lives is far, far more destructive than any illness could ever be, both for our communities today and our communities in the future. 

It is time we recognize this self-destruction for what it is, and end it, before it's too late. If we want to have a future, it's time to start showing up.

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 criminal defense attorney in Reno. Follow him on Twitter @orrinjohnson, or contact him at [email protected].