Latest news with #NevadaCurrent
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Regional rail study, wrong-way driving bills among those signed into law
(Photo: Jeniffer Solis/Nevada Current) Teenagers won't be able to flip burgers at midnight. Newborns will be screened for more rare diseases. Cities will have to consider heat mitigation when drafting master plans. Those are just a few of the real-world outcomes of the hundreds of bills passed by the Democratic-controlled Nevada State Legislature and signed into law by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo. The session officially adjourned June 2 but won't truly be over until the governor signs or vetoes each bill that passed. Lombardo has until Friday to approve or reject the bills or else they automatically become law. In 2023, the first-term governor did not allow any bills to automatically become law, opting instead to take a stance on each piece of legislation that came across his desk. (Lombardo's predecessor, Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, did the same.) As of Friday morning, the Legislature's website listed 515 bills as signed and an additional four bills awaiting approval or veto. Eighty-seven bills were vetoed. Here's a look at more than a dozen bills the Nevada Current has previously covered that have now been signed into law: Working teens Teenagers will soon be prohibited from working between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. before a school day, thanks to Assembly Bill 215, sponsored by Assemblymembers Daniele Monroe-Moreno and Brian Hibbetts, a Democrat and Republican, respectively. Teachers and students pushed for the change, citing the negative impact lack of sleep has on learning, mental and social health. The new restrictions, which do include some exemptions, go into effect on Oct. 1. Regional rail group Nevada will soon form a Regional Rail Transit Advisory Working Group to assess the need for regional rail systems in Southern and Northern Nevada and look at potential funding sources for such systems. The group was created by Assembly Bill 256, sponsored by Democratic Assemblymember Selena La Rue Hatch of Reno. The working group will be composed of lawmakers, transit experts and county representatives. They are expected to deliver to lawmakers a report in July 2026 with 'an actionable plan' for achieving regional rail transit and recommendations to the 2027 Legislature. Wrong-way driving Driving on the wrong side of the road will soon be a misdemeanor crime, following the passage of Republican Assemblymember Brian Hibbetts's Assembly Bill 111. Previously, wrong-way driving was only a civil offense. Nicknamed 'Jaya's Law' after 3-year-old Jaya Brooks who died in a wrong-way crash in Las Vegas last year, AB111 was unanimously supported by lawmakers and goes into effect Oct. 1. Protections for health care providers Employees and volunteers of reproductive health care facilities, as well as their spouses, domestic partners or minor children, will soon be able to request a court order that keeps their personal information confidential on otherwise public records within the offices of county recorder, county assessor, county clerk, city clerk, Secretary of State, or Department of Motor Vehicles. Democratic Assemblymember Erica Roth's Assembly Bill 235 saw some bipartisan support in the Legislature before being signed by the Republican governor. The legislation goes into effect July 1. Right to Contraception Assembly Bill 176, sponsored by Democratic Assemblymember Selena Torres-Fossett, strengthens protections against a state or local government burdening access to contraceptive measures. Newborn screenings Nevada will expand the number of rare but treatable conditions newborn babies are screened for, thanks to Senate Bill 348, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Julie Pazina. The expansion is being funded through an increase in the fee hospitals pay the Nevada State Public Health Lab. The prior rate had been the same for more than a decade and kept Nevada behind what the federal government recommends for newborn screening. Raises for elected officials Many county elected officials will get a raise with the passage of Senate Bill 116, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Skip Daly. The bill establishes a formula to elevate the pay for the elected district attorney, sheriff, county clerk, county assessor, county recorder, county treasurer and public administrator of each county. The formula keeps those public servants' pay above the highest paid person in their office. Meanwhile, commissioner salaries across the state are also being bumped up by a set amount, followed by 3% annual increases for five years starting in 2026. The changes will go into effect in July with the new fiscal year. Foster parents People with criminal records of marijuana possession for amounts that are currently legal are now eligible to become foster parents. Democratic Assemblymember Tracy Brown-May sponsored Assembly Bill 107 for Clark County, which told lawmakers that otherwise qualified Nevadans are being needlessly turned away. The state faces a critical shortage of foster homes. Water rights Nevada will establish a Voluntary Water Rights Retirement Program that allows willing landowners to sell their water rights back to the state through the year 2035. The program was established by Assembly Bill 104 and unanimously supported. Charters behind on PERS With Senate Bill 418, the Nevada State Superintendent of Public Schools will be able to withhold a charter school's state-funded per-pupil dollars if the charter school is more than 90 days delinquent in retirement contributions to the Public Employees' Retirement System of Nevada (better known as PERS). Administrators for PERS told lawmakers a mechanism for recouping the contributions is needed because of the unique quasi-public nature of charter schools. Local input on tax abatements Companies seeking massive tax abatements will have to enter into agreements to defray the costs of the government-provided services they require. Storey County, home to the heavily abated Tesla Giga Factory, sponsored Senate Bill 69. Heat mitigation Cities and counties with populations exceeding 100,000 people must include 'heat mitigation' as part of their master plans, following the passage of Assembly Bill 96. Inmate firefighters Democratic Assemblymember Jovan Jackson sponsored a bill, Assembly Bill 321 to require the Nevada Department of Corrections to create a program to allow formerly incarcerated people to work as firefighters within the Division of Forestry. The program is expected to help recidivism rates. Medical respite care Nevada's Department of Health and Human Services will apply for a federal waiver to amend the state Medicaid plan to cover medical respite care for people experiencing homelessness. The requirement was passed in Senate Bill 54. Net proceeds of minerals The Net Proceeds of Minerals Bulletin will soon be public again. Long made publicly available by the state, a new interpretation of state law resulted in the bulletin being kept private. Assembly Bill 277 makes the bulletin public again. The bill was sponsored by Republican Assemblymember Rich DeLong and had the approval of the mining industry. Tax increment areas Senate Bill 28 creates 'tax increment areas' in which a portion of future property tax revenue can be used to pay interest on bonds used to finance affordable housing development and public transit. The bill, sponsored by the City of Las Vegas, saw some bipartisan support in the Legislature. Mental health The Medicaid reimbursement rate for mental health providers will increase through Senate Bill 353, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Marilyn Dondero Loop. Immigration guardianship Assembly Bill 460, sponsored by Assemblymember Cecelia González, streamlines the process for selecting a temporary guardian for minors prior to any immigration action. Insulin costs Assembly Bill 555 prohibits private insurance companies from charging people more than $35 for a 30-day supply of insulin. The bill, sponsored by, Democratic Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, received broad bipartisan support, with only Senate Republicans John Ellison and Robin Titus opposing. Democratic Assemblymember Joe Dalia's Assembly Joint Resolution 8, which would let voters in 2028 decide whether Nevada should establish a dedicated business court, also passed the legislative finish line. Resolutions are not subject to vetoes by the governor. AJR1 is now set to return to the 2027 Legislature for consideration. If lawmakers pass the resolution again, it will appear in front of voters on the 2028 general election ballot for final approval. A dedicated business court could entice large companies to incorporate in Nevada and settle their corporate litigation here, Dalia and other proponents of the resolution have argued. Nevada Supreme Court Chief Justice Doug Herndon announced the court would try to establish a dedicated business court on its own as early as next year. Herndon said in a statement he didn't believe AJR1 to be necessary.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The veto governor: Paid leave, IVF bills fall as Lombardo crushes his own record
Gov. Joe Lombardo. (Photo: Jennifer Solis/Nevada Current) Gov. Joe Lombardo in 2023 smashed the record for most vetoes during a single legislative sesseion, rejecting 75 bills. This year, he beat his own record, vetoing 87 bills as of Thursday evening. Lombardo himself was not on the ballot last year, but he and his affiliated political action committee campaigned hard — and successfully — on the importance of getting enough Republicans elected to make sure Democrats would not have veto-proof majorities in the Legislature. Lombardo vetoed legislation sponsored by Attorney General Aaron Ford to rein in price fixing earlier this week, as well as a pair of trans protections bills last week. Other notable vetos as of Thursday included: Assembly Bill 388, sponsored by Democratic Assemblymember Selena La Rue Hatch, would have required private employers with more than 50 workers, as well as all public employers, to provide paid family and medical leave. The bill, which was opposed by chambers of commerce, was amended to push the requirement to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2028. La Rue Hatch's bill expanded legislative efforts in 2023, when lawmakers approved PFML for state employees. In his veto letter, Lombardo said the measure had 'broad, burdensome mandates' that would contradict the state's 'business-friendly environment' Senate Bill 217 (Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, D) would establish the right to assisted reproduction treatment, including in vitro fertilization. The bill was a focus of Cannizzaro. Assembly Bill 112 (Assemblymember Duy Nguyen, D) would have allowed workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to use their accrued leave to care for family members. After passing the Legislature with some bipartisan support, Lombardo vetoed the bill, writing in his veto letter that it represented 'yet another effort to mandate benefits for unionized employees outside the negotiation of their collective bargaining agreements, thereby undermining the integrity of those agreements.' In a policy hearing for the bill, union members said it is already common practice for members to use accrued leave to take care of their family but that they face potential discipline for doing so. With the veto, that will remain the status quo. Assembly Bill 597 (Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, D) would have established semi-open primary elections allowing nonpartisan voters to request a Republican or Democratic ballot. The bill passed on the Assembly on party lines, with all Republicans opposing. In his veto letter, Lombardo said the legislation 'would undermine the will of Nevada's voters,' who last year rejected an initiative to establish truly open primaries. Assembly Bill 185 (Assemblymember Natha Anderson, D) would have barred most HOAs from prohibiting licensed home-based childcare operations within their communities. The bill received some bipartisan support. In his veto letter, Lombardo wrote 'expanding access to child care is an important goal' but that the bill would 'erode the integrity of HOA governance.' Senate Bill 121 (State Sen. Dina Neal, D) would have made changes to what homeowners' associations are allowed to require of new residents. The bill received some bipartisan support. Similar to his veto related to home-based childcare providers, Lombardo in his veto letter cited the importance of maintaining HOA autonomy. Assembly Bill 209 (Assemblymember David Orentlicher, D) would have granted sex workers immunity from criminal liability from prostitution-related offenses when they call 911 seeking medical assistance. In his veto letter, Lombardo said the bill 'codifies a lack of trust in law enforcement by assuming that sex workers fear prosecution more than they trust officers to prioritize their safety and the investigation of violent crimes.' An overwhelming lack of trust in law enforcement by sex workers who don't believe law enforcement prioritizes their safety or humanity was the impetus for sponsoring the bill in the first place. Senate Bill 350 (State Sen. James Ohrenschall, D) would have extended the time period the state has for carrying out an execution of someone on death row. Lombardo in his veto letter said the bill would 'result in justice becoming even more elusive for victims and their families,' though he acknowledged it is currently virtually impossible for the state to execute anyone on death row. Assembly Bill 411 (Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui, D) would have allowed prescriptions for drugs used for medical abortions and miscarriage management to list the name of the prescribing health care practice, rather than the name of the specific individual providing the prescription. In his veto letter, Lombardo wrote that the bill may reduce transparency in clinical follow-up situations where identifying the prescribing providers quickly is crucial. Assembly Bill 320 (Assemblymember Jovan Jackson, D) sought to stop judges from using dress codes to turn away defendants. In his veto letter, Lombardo said if enacted the bill 'may infringe on the separation of powers by legislatively encroaching on the courts' inherent authority to manage their proceedings.' Assembly Bill 204 (Assemblymember Max Carter, D) would prevent collection agencies from threatening to arrest people for medical debt, obtain a lien against a primary residence, seek to foreclose on a home, or garnish wages. In his veto letter, Lombardo said if enacted the bill 'would increase healthcare costs and undermine fairness by discouraging responsible payment.' Assembly Bill 441 (Assemblymember Daniele Monroe-Moreno, D) would change how the state's publicly financed private school scholarship program is administered. In his veto letter, Lombardo's veto letter said the bill would 'obstruct' the program. Assembly Bill 597 (Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, D) would have established semi-open primary elections allowing nonpartisan voters to request a Republican or Democratic ballot. The bill passed on the Assembly on party lines, with all Republicans opposing. In his veto letter, Lombardo said the legislation 'would undermine the will of Nevada's voters,' who last year rejected an initiative to establish truly open primaries. The full list of bills Lombardo vetoed this year can be found here.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump acknowledges deportation agenda is hurting hospitality, promises ‘changes are coming'
Trump owns a number of hotels in the U.S., including one in Las Vegas. (Photo: Jeniffer Solis/Nevada Current) Complaints from the farm and hotel industries that President Donald Trump's mass deportation effort is costing them valued workers will prompt change, Trump promised Thursday in a post on Truth Social. 'Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,' wrote Trump, who owns a number of hotels in the U.S., including one in Las Vegas. 'It's a very simple thing to say, 'we're going to secure the border and we're going to deport violent criminals and terrorists.' Everybody agrees with that,' Culinary Local 226 Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge said during a phone interview Thursday. 'When you bring in the Marines to arrest dishwashers, that backlash is exploding in industry, among citizens and voters. If there's one thing this president knows how to do it's to backtrack quickly when he gets a backlash.' The U.S. employed more than 782,000 farm workers in 2023, according to the government. About two-thirds are immigrants, according to the government. The leisure and hospitality industries in the U.S. employ some 14 million people, and almost one-third are immigrants, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics. Nevada's hospitality and leisure industries employed 368,400 people as of April, according to the Federal Reserve. 'These industries are run by very smart people, and they understand that the immigrant workforce powers this economy,' said Pappageorge. Pappageorge said he's not bothered by a carve-out from the deportation policy for two industries, suggesting agriculture and hospitality are just the first two to the table. Gov. Joe Lombardo, who endorsed Trump and was endorsed by Trump, did not respond to inquiries about whether he's reached out to the White House regarding the president's deportation plan and disruption to the labor force. The Nevada Resort Association, which represents casino hotels in Nevada, referred the Current to the American Hotel and Lodging Association. 'Along with our members, we continue to communicate with Congress and the administration about the importance of building a strong hospitality and tourism workforce,' the AHLA, which represents 32,000 properties, said in a statement. 'As an industry, we are committed to strict compliance with labor laws and immigration regulations, including those focused on recruitment, background checks and employment verification.' The hospitality industry is already reeling from a precipitous drop in travel resulting from Trump's trade wars, Bloomberg reported last week. 'The AHLA urges Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform, and strengthen the H-2B visa program, which allows temporary non-agricultural work in the U.S., and the J-1 visa program, which allows participation in exchange programs,' says the AHLA website. 'We believe that the United States can have both an effective and welcoming legal immigration process that enables hotels and other businesses to meet our workforce needs, while also protecting our national security.' How Trump plans to exclude workers from the two industries from deportation is unknown. 'They could do this by prosecutorial discretion possibly,' said Michael Kagan, director of UNLV's Immigration Clinic. Immigrations and Customer Enforcement (ICE) has the option to close cases and allow individuals to avoid deportation.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Attorney general blasts governor's veto of bill to rein in price fixing
Attorney General Aaron Ford and Gov. Joe Lombardo. (Photo: Richard Bednarski/Nevada Current) Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford said Monday that Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo's veto of Ford's legislation to crack down on price fixing 'means fewer protections for your wallet.' Lombardo, in his veto message last week, blasted the bill as 'a striking case of government overreach' and 'inherently broad and open to wide interpretation, likely making enforcement subjective and inconsistent.' Assembly Bill 44 sought to expand the state's existing Unfair Trade Practice Act to include knowingly deceptive price fixing of essential goods and services, defining those goods as things 'needed on a daily or recurring basis for the livelihood of a person.' The list of essential goods defined by the bill included housing, food, internet service, ground transportation, and pharmaceutical and other medical products. 'Let's be clear about what this veto means,' said Ford, who has indicated he hopes to take Lombardo's job away from him in next year's election, in a statement Monday. 'It means fewer tools to hold bad corporations accountable. It means fewer protections for your wallet. And it means more power for the people who rig the rules against all of us in the Nevada family.' During his presentations of AB 44, Ford told lawmakers the legislation was designed to bolster consumer protections and wouldn't apply to businesses if they weren't engaging in fraudulent practices. The legislation passed the Assembly 24-18 in April with three Democrats, Assemblymembers Joe Dalia, Duy Nguyen and Venise Karris, joining Republicans in opposing the measure. AB 44 passed the Senate 14-7 in late May, with Republican state Sen. John Steinbeck joining Democrats. The veto showed Lombardo sided 'with corporations that cheat and deceive to make a buck,' Ford said Monday, adding that Lombardo's decision was 'disappointing, but not surprising.' While the bill encompassed several categories of goods and services, perhaps its most notable feature was an attempt to rein in price fixing in the rental market. Landlords and property owners across the country, including in Nevada, have come under fire in recent years for using rent-fixing software to artificially raise the price of rents. Real estate software companies, like RealPage, have been sued by several state attorneys general and the federal government in the last year, though the companyRealPage has denied wrongdoing in these cases. During the legislative session, rental property owners and real estate groups likened the bill's efforts to address price fixing as 'rent control.' 'This bill does not cap in any kind of way how much someone can charge for something as long as they aren't knowingly, fraudulently or deceptively engaging in conduct,' Ford said in a March bill hearing. 'You can charge what you want to charge.'
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Democrats ignore Nevada's upside down, regressive, and unfair tax structure. Again.
The Nevada Legislature Building underwent a face lift prior to this year's session, but the Democratic legislative leadership's economic agenda, inasmuch as there is one, remained the same as it ever was. (Photo: Richard Bednarski/Nevada Current) Democrats nationwide are awash in conflicting opinions about how to stanch the loss of young and working class voters before the U.S. backslide into autocracy is irreversible, if it's not already. Some Democrats blame 'wokeness.' Some Democrats say the party needs to lean in on kitchen-table issues. Some think they should do nothing and just wait for Trump and Trumpism to collapse under the weight of its self-generated slagheap of corruption, lawlessness, malice, and counterproductive policies. Some Democrats, including at least half of those in Nevada's congressional delegation, seem to think the best way to inspire the electorate is to make sure every sentence they mutter includes a noun, a verb, and the word 'bipartisan.' And on and on. And then there are Nevada's Democratic state legislative leaders. They chose to meet this inflection point by yet again allowing generous public subsidies for deep-pocketed Californians to serve as the featured attraction of this year's recently concluded Nevada legislative session. Yes, ding dong, the film tax credit bill is dead. Praise be, etc. But Democratic legislative leadership — Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager — whether by design or neglect, allowed a government giveaway scheme to film corporations to become the one and only thing about the 2025 Legislature working class voters, especially young ones, most likely ever heard about. Assuming they heard about anything legislative at all. Ever since it was plopped onto the Nevada policy landscape more than a decade ago by then-Democratic state senator, now Democratic state Attorney General Aaron Ford, the film tax credit has always been a predominantly Democratic production. One of the chief legislative sponsors of this year's version was state Sen. Daniele Monroe-Mareno, who also currently serves as chair of the state Democratic Party. To reiterate, a critical mass of voters nationwide, including voters on which Democrats once relied, are marinading in nihilism and cynicism, and evidently don't grasp the goals, agenda, priorities — the point — of the Democratic Party, or just cold stopped caring. Against that backdrop, Democrats in Nevada put on a big show about a scheme to use nearly $2 billion of public money to enrich two of California's largest film corporations and one of the nation's most prominent corporate developers of master-planned communities. Weird. In Nevada, Democrats over the last ten years have been very successful at doing what(ever) it takes to win and maintain majorities in both houses of the state Legislature, an endeavor which, luckily for them, had more to do with voter registration numbers and redistricting power than policy positions. As a result, mean-spirited reactionary policies that are racist, poverty-shaming, misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ, anti-democracy, anti-immigrant, and anti-rights — policies designed first and foremost to feed the MAGAfolk — are (mostly) not enacted here. Keeping such pernicious policies (mostly) at bay in Nevada is no small consideration. Winning enough elections to block Republicans from enacting that stuff is arguably the crowning state-level achievement of contemporary Nevada Democrats. But when it comes to pro-active progress, specifically on economic policy, the Nevada Democratic legislative agenda, inasmuch as there is one, is tired (they're 'for' education), and worse than useless (inveterate footsie-playing with industries, mischaracterizing public giveaways to private corporations as 'economic development'). In the meantime, with only the occasional exception, they can rarely be bothered to acknowledge, let alone confront, the fact that the state has one of the country's most upside-down tax structures, in which the smaller your income, the higher the percentage of it you pay in taxes. Giving working families a break by lowering the state's aggressively high sales tax rate would leave a budget hole that would have to be filled by generating revenue elsewhere (evergreen suggestion: raising Nevada's lowest-in-the-nation gaming tax). Under Nevada's constitution, raising or creating taxes requires a two-thirds vote of both legislative houses, majorities Democrats have not had and would probably be afraid to use if they did. In Washington state, which is bluer than Nevada but whose residents have also suffered under a regressive tax structure, it took 15 years of advocacy from organizations and politicians to finally enact a tax on the ultra-wealthy (another good suggestion). Reforming Nevada's tax structure would likewise be a long process. That's assuming Democrats and, for that matter, their most powerful progressive organizational allies, would do something they so far haven't: get started on a public education campaign advocating tax fairness that would also enable the state to be a little less cheap and a little more responsible when it comes to funding public services, programs, and projects. If only the state's Democratic legislative brain trust had spent as much time advocating for an equitable tax system as they've spent advocating and/or rubber-stamping government handouts to corporations and billionaires. The first quarter of the 21st century has been economically harder on Nevada than any other state. It's perhaps a testament to the state Democratic Party's long-hailed organizational oomph that Nevada didn't go for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and only finally fell to Trump last year. It remains to be seen if and how Democrats nationally can generate enough trust and optimism to pull the country out of its degenerative spiral. If they do, there might be some Nevadans, including some state legislators, who will make a meaningful contribution to the effort. But if prior performance is any indication of future results, it's hard to imagine Nevada legislative and party leadership having much of a role in that. At least not in a good way. A version of this column originally appeared in the Daily Current newsletter, which is free and which you can subscribe to here.
