In today's edition, Gov. Joe Lombardo will only sign legislation that “protects school choice and expands opportunity," an effort to punish death threats on the campaign trail and new measure seeks to address high teacher vacancy rates.

In the latest edition of Behind the Bar, we also look at bills to ban Styrofoam and increase the number of foster families in Nevada.

Some lawmakers were concerned about assurances that the workforce would be made up of Nevadans and whether it would benefit regions outside of Southern Nevada, while trade unions showed wide support for the proposal.

A handful of new laws enacted during the 2023 legislative session go into effect on Monday, including measures related to Medicaid coverage of mental health care and the interrogation of children during custody hearings.

We break down who will be running in the November general election.

Almost all the GOP candidates running for the Legislature or Congress in Nevada are not running on election integrity. In 2022, the GOP nominees for key statewide races echoed election conspiracies.

The fundraising lead is split in the 10 competitive races where both parties’ establishments have endorsed candidates.

The establishment-backed candidate in all but one of the important primaries identified by The Nevada Independent had a fundraising lead in the first quarter.

Sen. Jeff Stone and Assemblyman Ken Gray said fraud takes place in every election, but there's been no evidence that fraud altered the outcome of the 2020 election.

This year, party leaders in particular had the most success in getting their bills passed. Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) recorded a Legislature-topping 85 percent success rate, with 11 of 13 bills signed into law. 

SB307 outlines new regulations for the use of solitary confinement that are more stringent and individualized than a similar 2017 bill and mandates annual NDOC reports.

Juneteenth marks the historic moment that the last recorded enslaved Africans were freed by soldiers in Galveston, Texas, two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The newly recognized national holiday acknowledges the more than 250 years of enslavement endured by generations of Black families.

Caesars, which operates Nevada's only only poker website, said a bill that creates a list of suspended interactive gaming accounts, would burden the company.

“It’s very important the rural counties of our great state to be united with one message going forward,” said Gray at the time. “We must stand together as one to face the abuses of our civil liberties which have taken place and stop them from going any further.”

As the results for the midterm election pour in, Democrats appear to be maintaining control of the Legislature, but they will likely fall short of hoped-for supermajorities in either house.

In an August 2021 email to an Elko County deputy district attorney, Steninger laid out the group’s interest in having “the rural counties … announce plans to shift to paper ballots,” which they believed would make the rest of the state “obliged to follow suit.”

More than half of legislative primary candidates running on baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election survived the primary. Experts warn their success reflects a growing movement threatening democratic norms.

With the primary election dust starting to settle, legislative race results began to shed light on which candidates will be in the spotlight come November.

Even with more than half of their members not returning to the Legislature, Assembly Republicans are feeling confident heading toward the 2023 session that they can capture more seats.

As Mineral County commissioners approved a resolution to proclaim Monday, the federal Columbus Day holiday, as Indigenous Peoples' Day, Lyon County didn't get that far.