Tuesday, April 25 was the deadline for bills to be voted out of their first house, creating a mad scramble of votes on the hundreds of bills that made it through the first committee passage deadline on April 14.
Senator Robin Titus, MD (S-17) reported that three of her bills and one resolution are still alive, out of her original 12. AJR1, which passed in the 2021 session has passed out of the Assembly and is now in the Senate. It changes language in the State Constitution regarding people with certain conditions. If it passes a second time it will go to the voters for approval in the next election.
SB 241 is exempt from the Tuesday deadline and had made it out of the policy committee and is now in the finance committee. Key to the bill is Medicaid reimbursement for rural hospitals at their actual costs, which is of great importance to rural communities.
In an effort to improve rural healthcare access and expand medical training opportunities post-undergrad, SB 369 also has passed out of committee and is in the finance committee. It allows for the deferrable modified business tax to be allotted to Graduate Medical Education, in hopes of creating residencies and fellowships for undergraduate medical students from Nevada, keeping them at home rather than pursuing graduate opportunities out of state.
SB 328 increases regulation of the cannabis industry and mandates any regulations have to go through the Legislative Commission.
Titus is also working on several water bills that she has signed with Senator Goicoechea that are still alive. Goicoechea is serving his last session due to term limits and Titus said she is working to “absorb as much of his water knowledge as I can.” The most exciting bills are the governor’s, but we are waiting to see where they go, especially SB 405 and SB431.
Assemblyman Greg Koenig continues working across the aisle and was the only legislator in the building to have all of his Bill Draft Requests make it through the first committee passage deadline. Late Monday night, his optometry bill, AB 432, passed out of the assembly unanimously, adding language to state law that would expand telemedicine opportunities.
Koenig said on Monday there were over 70 bills read into the record during the first assembly floor session of the day in an effort to meet the Tuesday deadline. There was a second session to read in bills, as well in the Tuesday morning session, before the rules were suspended and votes on the bills began. “It’s hectic as hectic can be,” he said.
AB 277 establishes provisions governing rural emergency hospitals that would let the 13 rural hospitals convert to a rural emergency hospital and increase reimbursement under Medicaid for services provided. Two interests requested that fiscal notes be attached to bills. Chairman Daniele Monroe-Moreno of Ways and Means suggested Koenig meet with the groups to see if they would lower the fiscal notes. After a meeting where he was able to explain what the bill would do, both agreed to remove the fiscal note. “I went into Ways and Means with a clean bill, so it was a quick five-minute hearing that everyone voted unanimously because the financials were off of it,” said Koenig.
Koenig will be hosting a Legislative Field Trip to NAS Fallon and the Frey Ranch Distillery on May 6, allowing legislators to see firsthand rural economic drivers.
One other bill that has the potential to impact Churchill County is SB 354, which would require justices of the peace to have passed an examination prescribed by the Nevada Supreme Court. Currently, JOP are elected and are not required to have a law degree.
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