Day 24: Astonishingly Little Done.

When starting out this session, I committed to myself to remain positive.  But the lack of meaningful legislation is astounding to me.

We are nearly a quarter of the way through this session and we’ve seen precious little effort regarding what is ailing the state.  Nothing that would ensure jobs, education, or reopening the state.  I suspect that’s in large part because the federal government has bailed us out of most of the state’s budget problems.  We know the huge hit to the state’s revenue we expected last summer failed to materialize.  Indeed, the Feds have pumped no less than $18 Billion into the Nevada economy since early 2020 – that’s nearly as much as Nevada spends in two normal years! And yet we can’t get our unemployed back to work (because their employers are largely shut down) or get them the unemployment benefits to which they are entitled.

Today is another example of the seeming lazy approach we have to this session.

Rather than deal with the real problems the state faces, we spent about two hours debating the “need” for disallowing insurance companies’ ability to “discriminate” against pit bulls.  It’s as if the state would suffer irreparable harm if we don’t act, and act now!

I’m as big a dog lover as the next guy, but really?  This is how we spend our time?  And even then, what came out during the testimony is that there was no evidence presented that any Nevada insurers actually engage in the practice – the answer was “we don’t know.”

The sad reality is more likely that the majority isn’t lazy – they are just hell-bent on pushing all legislation up to the deadlines to give them cover for only hearing the bills that advance their political careers (think special interest favors). Even their cheerleaders are admitting they are intentionally stalling.  Heaven help them if they are ever held accountable to the constituents they ignore by doing so. 

Indeed, they have established a history of disregarding the views of the people who elected them – as evidenced by a scathing letter from some of their staunch liberal supporters (like the ACLU, Battle Born Progress, the Culinary Union, Human Rights, Campaign, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN), and 56 other hard-left leaning groups) – and a couple of conservative ones too. They allow their chosen witnesses to occupy the majority of time, then cut off anyone else after just two minutes. They are playing games with people’s rights.

At some point, the people of this state are going to either wake up and demand their representatives work for the benefit of the people of the state, or they are going to wake up and realize they no longer matter in the operation of government.  Once they ignore this majority’s power grab long enough, there is no taking it back.

As Thomas Jefferson observed: the government we elect is the government we deserve.