Deadline Day: Death Penalty, Cannabis Licensing, Police Ticket Quotas And Other Policies On The Precipice

Las Vegas NV

09 April, 2021

5:23 PM

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By Riley Snyder | Michelle Rindels | Tabitha Mueller, the Nevada Independent April 9th, 2021 Friday marks the do-or-die moment for hundreds of legislative proposals — bills must pass out of their first committee unless they have a special exemption. Lawmakers are expected to hold marathon committee meetings throughout the day on Friday, working to process backlogged bills or cut last-minute deals on controversial legislation. Proposals in the balance on Friday cover a wide variety of policy areas, including repealing the state's death penalty, allowing operation of cannabis consumption lounges, banning so-called "ghost" guns and a host of other major policy issues. Lawmakers haven't crammed all pending bills into Friday meetings. Since Monday, lawmakers have already voted out 155 bills from committees, including major election changes, criminal justice modifications, adding additional marijuana licenses and even increasing fees on marriage licenses. But those measures and likely hundreds already passed face another daunting deadline — the first House passage deadline on April 20, just 11 days away. Here's a look at major policies that passed out of legislative committees on Thursday. The Nevada Independent will update this story as additional bills are passed out of committee on Friday. Permanent expanded mail-in voting In a contentious vote, members of the Assembly Legislative Operations and Election Committee voted Thursday to approve AB321, the bill from Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson (D-Las Vegas) making expanded mail-in voting similar to the 2020 election a permanent feature of Nevada elections. The measure included several proposed amendments that were previewed during the bill's first hearing last week, including mandating a minimum number of in-person voting locations, setting deadlines on mail ballots for new voters and allowing for uninterrupted online voter registration all the way through Election Day. Assemblyman Glen Leavitt (R-Boulder City) said he was appreciative that the amendment addressed some of the "concerns of constituents," but still planned to vote against the bill. That irked Frierson, who said the amendment was crafted to address concerns from Republicans in the Assembly and that "until recent cycles, (it had) been customary to make concessions and make good bills better and make bills that you don't agree with less bad." "If someone's a no, then be a no, and don't list out things that are the problems, if those problems get addressed and it's still a no," he said. "I think that AB321 goes a long way in addressing both constituent concerns, concerns we received via email and concerns expressed by members of this body." Banning police ticket quotas Police agencies in Nevada generally maintain that they do not set quotas for tickets or arrests for their officers, although some people in a recent hearing on AB186 said there's widespread suspicion that police are judged by departments on being prolific ticket-writers. Democratic Assemblywoman Rochelle Nguyen's (D-Las Vegas) bill banning quotas passed from the Assembly Government Affairs Committee on Tuesday. Although it still prohibits law enforcement agencies from ordering, requiring or mandating a specific number of citations or arrests, or from considering how much ticket revenue a police officer is generating in a performance revenue, the amended version of the bill now allows agencies to "suggest" a certain number of citations an officer should be making. Proponents of the bill said police should be spending time on activities in the community that are not punitive. But law enforcement agencies cautioned that if the bill was too stringent, they may not have a way to address officers who are simply not doing their work and are slacking on the job. Putting the brakes on additional marijuana licenses Marijuana companies that did not win permits to open a dispensary in a contentious 2018 licensing round initially sought to double their licenses through Democratic Sen. Dallas Harris' bill SB235. But groups including the Nevada Dispensary Association strongly opposed the concept, saying that the industry — which includes 81 dispensaries — would be destabilized if a proposed amendment took effect and added up to 110 new marijuana stores. The bill that passed out of the Senate Revenue and Economic Development Committee on Tuesday no longer seeks to grant additional licenses to those who previously did not win them. Instead, it seeks to take steps such as creating a single, streamlined marijuana dispensary license rather than requiring stores to have both a recreational and medical store license. But committee members raised the concern that creating a consolidated license for marijuana stores would halve the revenue that the state brings in from dispensary licenses. While the bill lives for another day, lawmakers said they had reservations about it and wanted to explore how to avoid a precipitous drop in revenue. Ban on lions, tigers and bears Nevadans will be banned from keeping, breeding, importing or selling a dangerous wild animal unless they fall in a certain category such as maintaining a zoo or being a veterinarian under Democratic Sen. James Ohrenschall's SB344, which passed from the Senate Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday. The measure, nicknamed the "Tiger King bill" after the Netflix series about tiger collector Joe Exotic, grandfathers in people who already own the animals. People could keep any exotic pets they had as of July 1, 2021. An amendment also clarifies that casinos and the film industry would be exempt from the bill's provisions. Las Vegas entertainers who use live animals in their shows were some of the most prominent opponents of the bill during an earlier hearing. More expensive marriage licenses A fee on marriage licenses that supports services for victims of domestic and sexual violence would increase from $25 to $50 under a bill passed Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee. SB177, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Julia Ratti, seeks to shore up funding for victim services that has suffered with the decline of marriages, especially during the pandemic. Republican Sen. Ira Hansen forcefully opposed the bill, arguing that higher fees would discourage marriage, and cited a study drawing a correlation between marriage and a lower risk of domestic abuse. And Republican Sen. James Settelmeyer asked why federal aid funds are not being used to bolster the services. Ratti said the marriage certificate funding stream is a stable way to address the issue, rather than the one-shot help that federal funding represents. She also said that putting fees on divorce certificates was not a workable alternative because there are significantly fewer divorces than marriages, and often people don't have enough money to get a divorce. Top down voter registration system Members of the Assembly Legislative Operations and Elections Committee voted to approve AB422 on Thursday, which requires the secretary of state's office to begin implementing a top-down voter registration system. The bill was amended to push the implementation date back to 2024 and require the secretary of state's office to provide biannual updates on the project's progress. The Nevada Independent is a nonprofit, reader-supported news site. 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