Eight weeks into the 81st Session of the Nevada Legislature, and lawmakers are still unveiling new bills. This week, the state Senate and Assembly, once again, suspended the rule requiring all legislation be introduced by a certain day. At the same time, committees are holding hearings and methodically making their way through bills. KUNR Morning Edition Host Noah Glick spoke with Political Editor Paul Boger to get a sense of all the happenings in Carson City.
NOAH GLICK: We are roughly halfway through this legislative session. Where are we in the legislative process?
PAUL BOGER: So that is a really good question, and I say that because we have now had this deadline to introduce bills, twice. It has come, it has gone. We are still introducing bills. So who knows? We know that we are quickly approaching the halfway point. There are 120 days in this legislative session. So that's it. If they don't get it all done, they don't get a second chance at this until the next legislative session. So they can introduce all the bills they want up until Sine Die. But once that sunny day comes, it's over.
GLICK: Sine Die, of course, is the end of the legislative session. So I guess, what did lawmakers take up this week?
BOGER: You know, we heard a number of bills. That is one thing that lawmakers are really starting to dig into. They are getting into those committee hearings. We are seeing two-, three-, four-hour-long committee hearings on some of these bills. Which is great. We are finally able to really dig into that policy and we are seeing some of those more controversial bills come up.
I know, today, there's going to be a hearing on transgender public bathrooms. If there is an establishment that has a one-person bathroom, where there are no stalls, it's just a room with a typical bathroom - that will now be required to be gender-neutral. So [they're] trying to be more accepting and [inclusive] of transgender and non-binary people. That is probably going to be a little controversial. Those sorts of bills are always controversial.
Lawmakers are also continuing to dig in. A number of criminal justice bills have been brought forward this session. One of them is AB315, that actually looks at making sure law enforcement, first responders, anyone that has really any dealing with the criminal justice system—that they're going to be entitled to a little bit of therapy upon their retirement.
So once they retire, the state will then, under this bill, offer two hours of therapy that that person can go to and maybe dig into some of those issues that they've seen over their career. I talked to Republican Assemblymen P.K. O’Neill about it. This is his bill. He was in law enforcement for about 40 years. He says this is really important to him because of the things that he saw during his career. He just knows that with the suicide rate for police, in general, this is definitely a needed bill.
P.K. O'Neill: “Over 52% higher than the normal working public, which is not only is it a loss for that individual, but also for the family and think about how they deal. When I say family, their immediate family, but their community that they are involved with.”
BOGER: So you've got that bill that will probably make it through the session fairly easily.
There's another bill by Senator Pat Spearman. She calls it a clean-up bill, but it essentially would limit the amount of solitary confinement that any inmate can be put into with a maximum of 30 days. A couple of years ago, lawmakers passed limitations on solitary confinement, but that didn't necessarily work the way they thought it would.
GLICK: So when you say clean up bill, what does that mean?
BOGER: Sometimes when we talk about legislation there, we hear a lot about what lawmakers call unintended consequences. They want to make sure that the laws that they're writing are tight, that they can't be interpreted in various ways, that they know what they're talking about.
So I spoke to Senator Spearman about it. She says it's a bill that they want to make sure that they get right.
Pat Spearman: “Well, several people in the mental health community professionals, doctors say that solitary confinement for too long of a period can bring about the same kinds of results as, or, and so people can have PTSD. I think it should only be used if the person is in jeopardy, their life is in jeopardy. They might cause harm to themselves or cause harm to somebody else. But I just don't think it's, it's not something that you just, you know, frivolously do.”
GLICK: Now, lawmakers also heard a bill this week that would increase penalties for delaying public records requests. I know these public records and government transparency bills are of particular interest to you. So were you able to get lawmakers' temperatures on that measure?
BOGER: You know, it's always interesting to try to talk to lawmakers about open records because these are the group of people who pass open record and sunshine laws, and then exempt themselves from them. So it's very difficult to kind of get an idea of where they stand. I will tell you one group that is not interested in this is state agencies. So essentially public records requests, if you request something, and there is a delay, you can then sue to get those records. But there's [currently] not really a whole lot of teeth. This would put teeth in that measure by making sure that if you had to pay [fees], that you get twice as much back from those agencies. So this could really put teeth in that law. And hopefully, it is something we see, because I do think we always need more openness and more transparency from our government.
GLICK: Paul, what should we expect to see from the legislature this upcoming week?
BOGER: Hopefully, we're going to keep getting into some of those committee hearings. We're going to continue hearing a lot of the lawmaking stuff.
