(Jeniffer Solis) – Rank-and-file lawmakers, lobbyists, and issue advocates repeatedly criticized the chaotic nature of a week-long special session that saw the demise of a Democratic-sponsored plan to publicly subsidize the film industry and the passage of Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s amended crime bill.
Underlying the session was frustration, anger, and confusion caused by a legislative process wherein rules sometimes seemed to alternate between capricious and optional.
At times, the special session also shelved transparency in a swirl of abbreviated timelines, stifled public input, and fewer opportunities for deliberation or review of legislation.
And all for what several legislators characterized as bills that did not warrant a special session.
Assemblymember Jill Dickman (R-Sparks) summed up that sentiment during a hearing when she explained lawmakers were speeding through the film industry subsidy bill during a special session “not because it’s urgent, but because someone wants it rushed.”
Michele Rindels, the president of Nevada Open Government Coalition and co-editor of the Nevada Independent, said the sheer volume of different topics and bills covered during the special session was “surprising and unusual” compared to previous special sessions which were more limited in scope.
“There were about 20 different items they were considering and several surprise additional items came on after the fact,” Rindels said. “This had multiple committees going on at the same time, which just makes it hard for anyone to follow.”
Transparency shortage
The Nevada Legislature is exempt from open meeting laws, making transparency issues common, but that can be exacerbated during special sessions.
Everyday Nevadans were cut out of the process when Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) made the decision not to permit telephonic testimony for Assembly hearings.
Two of the most contentious bills during the special session, the film subsidy and crime bills, were both Assembly bills, meaning they were heard in that chamber first.
Both bills attracted hours of public comment when they were first introduced during the regular session.
During a committee hearing, Assemblymember Tracy Brown-May (D-Las Vegas) explained the decision was made due to a staffing shortage in the Assembly.
It was a major departure from public comment processes established over the last several sessions, a deviation which advocates argued harshly excluded the public’s access and inclusion as lawmakers considered large, and in the case of the film bill, extremely costly policy issues.
The Nevada Assembly Democratic Caucus did not respond to emailed questions about why telephonic testimony was not permitted in Assembly hearings.
Other lawmakers, like Assemblymember Selena La Rue Hatch (D-Reno), said they weren’t convinced the decision to limit telephonic testimony was due to a staffing shortage.
The state Senate, which shares a lot of the same staff as the Assembly, did allow testimony over the phone despite working with similar limitations.
“The fact that the Senate was able to have phones shows that we had that ability. This was a deliberate decision by leadership on the Assembly side to not allow phone testimony,” La Rue Hatch said.
“It was a way to silence some of the dissent that would be coming from the public, and I think there was an attempt to try to slide things through quickly during a special session when people weren’t paying attention,” she said.
Advocates and lawmakers also criticized the lack of accommodation and transparency for Spanish speakers, who were not provided translation services as they typically are during a regular session.
Assemblymember Cecelia Gonzalez (D-Las Vegas), the chair of the Latino Legislative Caucus, said special sessions require staff to be available on short notice which can create staffing gaps, especially among certified interpreters.
The absence of translation services “has a clear chilling effect on public participation,” Gonzalez said.
“This session was initiated so abruptly, there was little time to prepare, and no alternative plan was implemented to ensure Spanish-speaking Nevadans could participate. It should’ve been something considered by leadership as well, as they set the decisions for the special session,” Gonzalez said.
Advocates echoed those concerns.
John Piro, representing Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice, told lawmakers during a hearing on the crime bill that “last session we had hours of opposition, and cutting the phones off has now cut off hours of opposition for this bill.”
“Don’t let the limited amount of working class people that could make it here today be an example of everybody else that opposes this bill,” he continued.
Situational rules
Disagreements over how the special session was handled by Assembly leadership also extended to the manner and content of legislation leadership decided to introduce.
Yeager and Assembly Majority Leader Sandra Jauregui (D-Las Vegas) introduced a resolution calling for a study of immigration enforcement operations in the state without consulting the Latino Legislative Caucus, which blasted it as a bill “that’s gonna do nothing.”
Details for nearly all the bills being considered during the special session weren’t available until the day before the session, when Lombardo released his official proclamation, which he announced less than 24 hours before lawmakers were scheduled to convene.
Lack of transparency intensified as the session progressed.
In the final days of hearings, committees rarely notified the public of planned action on significant legislation.
Instead, agendas were filled with references to “Possible committee Bill Hearings” and “Possible committee Bill introductions.”
“We didn’t see any of the bills before we got to session, which meant as soon as they got introduced, that’s the first time we saw them, and then we would be given an hour or two notice at most that a bill was coming up for a hearing,” La Rue Hatch said.
In the final hours of the special session, Democrats introduced a resolution to enshrine universal mail-in ballots in the Nevada State Constitution.
Also on the final day, a bipartisan supermajority of state lawmakers petitioned to add their own topic to an ongoing special session: a bill that would limit cash-rich corporate investors from bulk buying housing.
Conflicts between rank-and-file Assembly lawmakers and leadership heightened when Yeager allowed Assemblymembers.
Brian Hibbetts (R-Las Vegas) and Heidi Kasama (R-Las Vegas) to vote remotely on the contentious film subsidy bill.
The two Republican lawmakers’ votes were critical to the Assembly’s narrow passage of the bill, 22-20.
The chamber’s procedural rules permit remote voting under “exceptional circumstances.”
On the Assembly floor, Selena Torres-Fossett (D-Las Vegas) questioned whether Hibbetts and Kasama “preparing for vacation” was truly an exceptional circumstance.
Torres-Fossett and others attempted to override Yeager’s decision but failed on a 19- 21 vote.
La Rue Hatch, who voted to appeal Yeager’s decision, called it hypocritical.
“The fact that we are allowing lawmakers to participate remotely, but not allowing the ordinary public is an unacceptable double standard. You are either letting everybody call in or you’re letting nobody call in, but the fact that we are going to bend the rules when it is convenient for a vote is not appropriate,” she said.
“I think those allowances were made because the speaker wanted the film bill to pass, and he was willing to break the rules of the Assembly to make it happen,” she continued.
‘No sit down conversations’
Several attorneys in Nevada also raised concerns about ramming complex legislation, like the crime bill, through during a shortened special session.
Paloma Guerrero, Deputy Public Defender at Clark County Public Defender’s Office, said they had major concerns about language surrounding social media in the crime bill, but weren’t able to work with the governor’s office on an amendment that addressed their concerns.
“They said that there was an amendment coming. We didn’t see the language until it was presented to the committee. So there’s just been no sit down conversations, which is how any sort of big change in law should be done,” Paloma said.
“There was just none of that with the governor’s office bills.”
Tim Robb, the governor’s homeland security adviser, said during an Assembly hearing that “with the timeframes we were working under” during the special session Lombardo’s team was not able to “get this language in front of them through approval processes we have on our end.”
Paloma suggested the legislative failure to consult public defenders analysis of the social media amendment to the bill probably rendered that portion of the legislation vulnerable to a legal challenge.
“The language ended up being worse than what we had first issues with, with the like, the first version of it,” Paloma said.
“They just want to push the language through without any sort of input. And that’s just not how the legislative process should work.”
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views. This article was originally published by the NevadaCurrent.com.
