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March 29, 2024 3:29 am
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Legislators Reflect On 2017 Session

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

Nevada lawmakers successfully wrapped up the 79th Legislative session in Carson City earlier this month. With a solid Democratic majority in both houses of the legislature, there was plenty of controversy and conflict over much of the session’s agenda.

In the days after the session closed, and as the dust began to settle, the PROGRESS spoke to each of the four legislators who represent the local communities including Sen. Pete Goicoechea, Sen. Joe Hardy, Assemblyman James Oscarson and Assemblyman Chris Edwards. All four of them were part of the Republican minority at the session.

During the interviews, we asked for their take on the work of the 2017 session; where they saw triumphs and achievements; and where they had felt disappointments and defeats.

The Partisan Divide
One thing that seemed to stand out to all four legislators was the partisan nature of the session. They said that much of the session was marked by a deep partisan divide. Many of the votes on important bills were taken strictly along party lines. And the governor’s veto power was frequently employed to stop extreme measures from being enacted, they said.
“The Democrats took control and put forward a very progressive liberal agenda, especially on social issues,” said Edwards. “Some of it was so extreme that they couldn’t even get their own caucus to fully buy into it.”
This agenda included items like proposed changes to sex education, minimum wage increases, offering a medicaid program for everyone, retaining Obamacare, and a number of liberal labor measures, Edwards said.

“They were ridiculously extreme policies and most of them did not make it through,” Edwards said. “But many of them would have been very dangerous and very bad for the state.”
Hardy had much the same feelings about the session. He said that the Democratic leadership was carrying a national liberal agenda and trying to push it through.
“What I find is that when a Democrat is given a bill to carry that pushes forward a national agenda, they come and talk to me about the bill but they say, ‘Well, I’m not going to change anything in the bill,’” Hardy said. “That’s how I know that it is not really this person’s bill. It is someone else who gave it to them to carry.”

Hardy, who has served in some position in the state legislature since 2003, said that this was a “session like no other” for him.
“I voted ‘no’ 112 times in the session,” he said. “I think that is a record for me, not only for one session, but cumulatively.”
More than a third of those votes ended up being straight party-line votes, he said.
Of course, the minority Republicans were faced with the reality that they could be outvoted on everything. This caused a need to unify the caucus and to work with the governor to stop the more extreme measures from being passed into law. The four legislators felt that those efforts had been generally successful.

“I would say that the Republican caucus this time around was much more unified and focused on doing good things and preventing bad things,” Edwards said. “We worked better together on what our jobs really were; and progress was made there, for sure.”
Goicoechea said that the governor was clear from the beginning that if a bill came through as a straight partisan bill, with all Republicans voting against it, that he would most likely veto it.
“We gave him the support by full partisan ‘no’ votes on them,” Goicoechea said. “And he vetoed most of them.”

In addition, this arrangement prevented a lot of partisan bills from even coming to a vote, Goicoechea said.
“The governor was able to talk to the majority leadership and say, ‘These are partisan votes coming out so don’t bother bringing them becuase I will have to veto them’,” Goicoechea said. “So a lot of bills, they just didn’t even bring because they knew they would come out as partisan votes.”
Through this method, the Republicans were able to defend most of the legislative reforms that had been passed in the 2015 Republican-led legislature.
“We were successful in holding the line on some of the important legislative things that we moved forward in 2015,” Oscarson said. “We avoided having those things rolled back. So I think that, in itself, was a win.”

At the same time, Goicoechea found it nearly impossible to get many of his proposals through. Many of his bills dealt with issues in the rural northern part of the state.
“I had committee chairs in the Assembly who just wouldn’t move the bills,” Goicoechea said. “Bills would come out of the Senate with 21-0 votes; not even very controversial; and then they never came out of committee in the Assembly. I felt like it was strictly politics and personality rather than the merits of the bill.”

Goicoechea blamed weak Democratic leadership for this. “In the past I could always go to the Speaker in the Assembly and talk to him about a bill and, if it was a decent bill, they would tell the chairman to bring that bill forward,” he said. “That didn’t happen this session. The chairmen were in control and they ruled with an iron hand. If they didn’t like you, or if they were trying to force a vote on some other bill, they just killed it in committee.”

The Defeat of ESAs
For all four lawmakers, the major disappointment of the session was in not funding Education Savings Accounts (ESAs). The 2015 legislature had set up the ESA program to allow parents to use a portion of state education funding to send their kids to private, parochial or charter schools if they chose. The bill was considered a major breakthrough for school choice. But the measure met legal challenges in the interim and was defunded.

This year, Republicans went into the session with the clear statement that they would not support any budget unless it included ESA funding. But as the final days of the session approached, it was clear that the Democratic leadership had no intention of funding the program.
Many Republicans were ready to stand firm on the matter, even if it meant forcing a special session. But Governor Brian Sandoval neutralized this resolve by announcing that he would not be calling a special session under any circumstance. From there the unified Republican caucus quickly fell apart on the issue.

“That was probably the one big defeat of the session,” Goicoechea said. “Some of us felt that was a huge loss. We went into it thinking that we were going to stand fast on it. But when the governor said that he would not call a special session over the ESAs, there was really nowhere to go. So the caucuses in both houses fell apart fairly quickly on that.”

But Republicans did come away with a small silver lining in the loss. They were able to negotiate for an additional $20 million to go into opportunity scholarships. Somewhat similar to the ESA concept, this program provides families earning up to 300 percent of poverty level a scholarship of up to $7755 for private school tuition and fees.
“Those can kind of replace what the ESAs would have been,” said Edwards. “It is not nearly enough to cover all of the families that I know were counting on this program. But it is kind of a consolation prize.”

In addition, the ESA program is still an option for the future, Oscarson said. “They are still in the law,” he said. “That hasn’t been repealed. So we will just have to continue to work and see if they can become a reality for people in the future.”

The Fight To Broaden ASD
Other education reforms which were enacted in the 2015 legislature also maintained the status quo. Of particular interest to local education advocates was a bill dealing with the Achievement School District (ASD).

The ASD had been created by the 2015 legislature to help chronically failing schools. These schools would be pulled from their school districts of origin and placed under the ASD, within the direct purview of the State Board of Education. ASD officials would then select an outside charter school organization to come in and perform a complete overhaul of the school’s organization.
Local advocates saw the measure as an opportunity to bring greater autonomy to Moapa Valley schools. They had long been frustrated in seeking reform within the mammoth, urban-centered Clark County School District (CCSD) and wanted more local control of funding at the school level.

But the bill did not specifically allow for parents and communities to appeal for inclusion in the ASD. So local advocates approached legislators to craft language that would allow higher performing schools to opt in.
A bill was introduced this session by Sen. Mo Denis (D-Las Vegas) which eventually did allow for schools to opt-in to the ASD. But the provision ended up being limited to only lower performing 1- and 2-star schools. Local schools, which all perform higher than that, were ineligible.

In the end, the bill passed the Senate. But it never received a hearing in the Assembly.
“We were hoping that at some point we would be able to get Moapa Valley included into that ASD bill,” Goicoechea said. “But I’ll be honest with you, Sen. Mo Denis was adamantly opposed to that and he did block it.”
So the law regarding the ASD remains unchanged.
Goicoechea believes that, until the CCSD is broken down into smaller, more local parts, reform will be difficult.
“The fact is that smaller districts do a better job,” Goicoechea said. “We see that in the rural districts up north. The closer the decision-making is to home, the better. The rural school boards are tuned in better to local issues and it makes everything better. Unless we get something in place that allows Moapa to be a stand-alone of some kind, we are not going to accomplish what we need there. So we will keep trying.”

Holding The Line On CCSD Reorganization
Considered a victory in the realm of education reform, a bipartisan effort ensured that the reorganization of the CCSD would continue on as mandated in the 2015 session.
The 2015 bill had passed with broad bipartisan support. But when implementation of the plan began, the CCSD trustees filed a lawsuit contesting the legality of the regulations of the bill which had been drafted by an interim committee. But a bill passed this year put all that to rest. The bill codified the regulations into statute, thus neutralizing the lawsuit.

“The trustees had been fighting (the reorganization) from the get go,” Edwards said. “They made a last ditch effort to stop it with the lawsuit. But we put those rules and regulations into statute so there is no question on what is going to happen, and we did it in a bipartisan manner. I think that will be very good for everyone in the CCSD.”

Funding Education
Also considered an accomplishment of the 2017 session was funding for education. The budget included full education funding for the state. Additional funding was also made available for many individual educational programs.
Oscarson talked about his work on securing funding for teacher mentoring in rural areas of the state. A similar program has already been in place in southern Nevada, Oscarson said. The program was being continued through a bill by Sen. Denis. But in communication with Denis, Oscarson said that it was important to him to make it available to rural districts in the state as well.
“It told him I would have a hard time supporting the bill if there was no money in it for the rurals,” Oscarson said. “So I worked with him and we put money into the program for the other 15 counties of the state. I am proud of that.”

Edwards worked on a bill to expand dual credit programs for high school students who wanted to take college courses while in high school.
“There are some schools that really focus on this in the north,” Edwards said. “Through cooperation with Truckee Meadows Community College, they have been able to graduate their high school classes with much higher grad rates and most of the students have both a high school diploma and an associates degree when they leave. It is a phenomenal program and we hope to get it across the board throughout the state.”

Though he was pleased that education had been funded, Goicoechea left the session with some misgivings. He felt that, while education spending for the 2017 session was robust, there was probably some excesses to it as well.
“I don’t know if you want to call it an accomplishment, but man! there was a lot of money that went into education; especially into southern Nevada programs and teacher incentives,” Goicoechea said. “There was a lot of pork going around and most of it went into CCSD. At some point I’m hoping that we see some accomplishments from that. But I think a lot of us kind of felt like it doesn’t matter how much money you throw at a failing program, it is really not going to solve the problems.”

The Battle of Sex Ed
One of the hot-button issues that came before the legislature was a bill regarding sex education in the state’s public schools. This issue brought a lot of reaction throughout the state.
“I know that sex education was particularly important for Moapa Valley folks,” Oscarson said. “I heard more about that issue from Moapa Valley constituents than anything else. And of course, we as Republicans had some concerns with it.”

The bill, presented by Assemblywoman Amber Joiner (D-Reno) made slight changes to parents’ control over education of their children in sex ed. It also implied a general instruction to school districts on what should be included in the sex ed curriculum, stating that the classes include materials appropriate for “a pupil of any race, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation or ethnic or cultural background.”

“This was an example of a national agenda, where they didn’t want to change anything,” said Hardy. “The trouble is, you can’t have sex ed that includes words like gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or some of those kinds of buzzwords, without having the curriculum be required to address them. So it was a little disingenuous for them to say that the bill doesn’t deal with those issues at all. How can you not deal with those issues when you have put it in the bill that it is going to be something sensitive to those things?”
The bill passed both houses strictly along party lines. It was then vetoed by the Governor.

Threats To Small Business
All four legislators also expressed satisfaction at being able to head off several bills that, they felt, would have harmed small business in the state. They especially cited several Democratic attempts to reverse 2015 legislation intended to help small business and industry in Nevada. These included mandates on the 40 hour work week, overtime pay, paid sick leave and more.

In addition, another bill which passed on party lines and was vetoed by the governor was an agressive increase to the minimum wage over a period of years to more than $12 per hour.
“We know what that would have done to small businesses in the state to raise minimum wage to $12-15 per hour,” Goicoechea said. “Those kinds of things would have been detrimental to business all over the state.”

The Marijuana Tax
What to do about a tax on recreational marijuana was another contentious issue. A bill proposed a 10 percent tax, over and above the regular sales tax, to be placed on recreational marijuana sales. These funds would then be used to help fund education in the state, according to the bill.
Oscarson wasn’t a fan of the 10 percent tax to begin with. “If we tax a product to a point where it is still cheaper to get it from an illegal source, then where is the value to the legislation?” he said.
Oscarson added that he was also uncertain of the process of taxing a product which was still prohibited by federal law and how the state could use those funds to provide essential services.
Hardy agreed. “We have this whole concept of preventing addiction, especially in our kids,” Hardy said. “And yet here we are using an addictive substance to make money for K-12 schools. It seems like a two-faced way of approaching the things that we are doing.”

In the end, the bill was changed. Rather than directing the money to education, it would be placed in a rainy day fund for a time when the state is in desperate need.
“Cooler heads prevailed on that one,” Hardy said. “So at least we, as a state, are not becoming dependent upon illegal drugs to fund our kids’ education.”

Cooperative Extension
Another bill of particular interest to many local residents would have brought a change to the way the state’s Cooperative Extension programs were administered. The bill proposed to split the state-wide Extension program into two zones, north and south. The north would be administered by University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) while southern zone programs would be managed by University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).

The main impetus to the bill was that the UNR Dept. of Agriculture, which has administered the state-wide funding in the past, had not allocated more than $12 million in funding for southern Nevada programs. UNLV officials felt that with the division, funding could come straight to the south where it could be put to immediate use, specifically in urban-based programs.
Local advocates for rural Cooperative Extension and 4-H programs feared that the funding for rural programming might all be diverted to urban programs if the bill was enacted.

Oscarson said that he had carefully followed the bill through the process, working with its sponsor to modify its language to a point where he thought it would be acceptable for rural interests.
“I worked pretty hard to get it to where it ended up,” Oscarson said. “I didn’t support the concept but I followed it through the process and thought that we had ended up with something that was workable. It was not anywhere near perfect, but it was much less onerous than it was initially.”

As it ended up, the revised bill stopped short of dividing the state into two entities. Instead it proposed more of a study, requiring the legislature to do an audit of the finances involved.
The bill passed both houses of the legislature. But in the end, it was vetoed by the governor. “I thought that it was workable, but the governor decided that it wasn’t; and I support him in that decision,” Oscarson said.

Measured Successes
Most of the legislators named some measured success stories of legislation they were able to get through in this session.
Hardy was able to get eight of his bills through the legislature. A physician by trade, Hardy focused most of these bills on healthcare issues. “I focused on health stuff because it wasn’t as controversial in many ways and we could form some consensus on them,” he said.
Hardy was also successful in getting a bill passed which would bring an economic boost to the town of Laughlin. It allowed a marina facility, which has been closed for years, to be able to reopen; providing maintenance funding to clean out the marina entrance and resume operations there.

“The closure of that facility has been a drag on the local economy for a long time,” Hardy said. “Because it hasn’t been operational, people who own property there have not been able to build condos and apartments. There has been wonderful economic growth on the Arizona side of the river where those facilities exist. But not on the Nevada side. This will change that.”

Oscarson was pleased with successes of a couple of smaller matters. One allowed for child abuse hotline posters to be installed in schools where children and staff could see them. Another modified water law so that owners of proven water rights did not have to waste water to prove beneficial use of that resource.
“It was frustrating to see people pumping a field full of water just so that they could prove beneficial use,” Oscarson said. “Then six weeks later, the whole thing is dry and dead again. It was just wasteful.”
Edwards said that he brought a number of bills through the process that helped the state’s veterans. He cited the funding of the northern Nevada Veteran’s Home as a great accomplishment of this session. In addition, he worked on legislation that would ensure that academic credit in the state’s higher education system would be given for various kinds of military training.

Finally, Edwards worked a bill through that moved the city of Mesquite from a general law city to a charter city.
“That will give the community a lot more control over its destiny,” Edwards said. “It does not involve any raising of taxes, but just a matter of how taxes are collected and what funds they go into.”

Looking Back and Forward
In summary, the four legislators all agreed that the session would be marked, less for its broad accomplishments, and more for the effective defense that Republican lawmakers played against radical proposals.
“We went down there and spent four and a half months and didn’t really accomplish much,” Goicoechea said. “But we didn’t do any damage either so I guess that is a good thing.”
Goicoechea emphasized the importance of the 2018 midterm elections in maintaining the checks and balances of power in Carson City. He said that regaining the majority in the legislature might be a long-shot for Republicans. But this session proved how important the governor’s office is, he said. That seat will be in play in the upcoming election and very important for Republicans to retain, he added.
“I really hope that we don’t have to go through another session like this again,” Goicoechea said. “Because it really does weaken the process.”

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