Nevada lawmakers begin laying out priorities for Democrat-controlled session
Democrats are looking at gun reforms while Republicans are seeking common ground on education, Nevada lawmakers say as they prepare for the new legislative session. Lawmakers are set to meet in February for the first time since they adjourned their biennial session in June 2017. Democrats this year took a supermajority in the Assembly and kept control of the Senate, as well as taking over the governor’s office, leaving a smaller number of Republicans to push for GOP priorities.
Senate Majority Leader Kelvin Atkinson said Nevada Democrats are looking at ways to ban bump stocks and high-capacity magazines, as well as finding out what changes the Legislature could make to implement the state’s voter-approved gun background check law. The law seeks to close a loophole for background checks on private gun sales, but has gone unenforced without FBI cooperation.
“(There is) almost a mass shooting every week now,” Atkinson said. “There needs to be something done locally on bump stocks and extended magazines.”
Atkinson said Democrats are also discussing criminal justice reform, a priority for the last session. Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson said he wants to take another look at record sealing for certain marijuana convictions, one of the 41 bills vetoed last session by outgoing Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval.
In his veto message, the governor cited two other record-sealing bills signed into law in 2017 and said he didn’t see the need for a separate bill on marijuana. Frierson said legislators need to discuss the fact that people have been incarcerated or are being prevented from getting jobs due to convictions for amounts of marijuana that are now legal under state law.
“We have an obligation to look at that,” Frierson said.
A report expected from the Advisory Commission on the Administration of Justice will help determine other criminal justice bills, Frierson said.
Sandoval’s vetoes last session are topped only by former Gov. Jim Gibbons and his 48 vetoes in 2009. Republicans referenced those bills on the campaign trail, saying the Republican governor was a check on the Democrat-controlled Legislature. Atkinson said Democrats are looking at the vetoes and considering which bills may be reintroduced in 2019.