(Photo: April Corbin Girnus/Nevada Current)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

The Nevada Senate Republican Caucus-backed candidate hoping to unseat Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro describes herself on her website as having “a pragmatic and results-oriented approach” but has previously identified herself as a member of a right-wing Christian organization.

Jill Douglass, a retiree who previously worked in financial services, is one of two Republicans running to represent State Senate District 6, which covers parts of Summerlin in Las Vegas. In the upcoming primary, she faces Josh Stacy, a tech developer who has raised no money and advertises no endorsements. The winner will challenge Cannizzaro, who does not face a Democratic primary challenger, and a third-party candidate in the general election.

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Douglass has not previously held elected office but last summer challenged Jesse Law as chair of the Clark County Republican Party. (She lost to the indicted fake elector.) At that time, Douglass noted in a public campaign pitch that she is a member of the American Christian Caucus.

The American Christian Caucus is an affiliate of the National Association of American Christian Communities, and believes churches need to be involved in politics and voice their opinion on “the laws being passed when the Bible is perverted.” Among the examples included on a national blog of things they believe “pervert” the Bible: “homosexuality was legal and encouraged,” “divorce was made easier,” and “abortion was made legal.”

“We must change the laws to make America Godly again,” reads the post.

One of the cofounders of ACC, Calvary Red Rock Pastor Gregg Seymour on a podcast last year declared that, “We’re in war time Christianity, and it’s never going to change. Peace time Christianity is over.”

Another cofounder, Fervent Cavalry Pastor Jimmy Morales has praised Trump for setting the stage for overruling Roe v Wade and urged Christians to “fight and take this country back.” Fervent Cavalry, formerly known as Calvary Chapel Lone Mountain, hosted the former president at an event last summer and was one of the churches that successfully challenged a Gov. Steve Sisolak’s pandemic-era executive order restricting the size of church gatherings.

Douglass did not respond to the Current’s request for an interview or questions submitted via email about the American Christian Caucus and whether her personal political views align with those expressed by the organization.

Douglass is an ardent supporter of Donald Trump, though the website for her state senate campaign does not mention him. In an interview with Veterans in Politics last summer, Douglass said she would support the former president in his reelection bid and called him “one of the most effective presidents we’ve ever had.”

State Senate District 6 has been highly competitive in the previous election cycles. In 2020, Cannizzaro won the district over Republican April Becker by just half a percentage point. In 2021, Democrats redrew the political boundary lines in their favor, extending their registration advantage. But this year’s election will be the first true test to see how swingy the district remains. A third of the voters of the district are registered as nonpartisans.

Douglass has been endorsed by the Nevada Senate Republican Caucus but is largely self funded, contributing nearly all of the $100,575 she reported on her first quarter campaign finance disclosure form. Notably, her campaign has not been endorsed by Gov. Joe Lombardo, who has been making a concerted effort to endorse and support many candidates running for the state legislature.

Cannizzaro began this calendar year by announcing her campaign had $700,000 on hand, a record for any state legislator going into an election year, and she reported nearly $134,000 in contributions in the first quarter of this year. That brings her on-hand cash to more than $800,000, as of March 31.

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Nevada Senate Majority Leader Nicole Nicole Cannizzaro. (Photo: Trevor Bexon / Nevada Current)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

For the second time while serving in the Nevada Legislature, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro gave birth last year. And again, she publicly pledged to continue full participation in her duties.

As the nation’s groundbreaker when it comes to working moms in a state capital, Nevada made history in 2019 as the only female-majority legislative body in the U.S. Still, legislators like Cannizzaro acknowledge uncertainty before deciding to grow their families while serving.

Mom lawmakers grow in visibility but their proportional representation is still lacking

The number of women serving in state legislatures has more than quintupled since 1971, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University (CAWP). Nearly 33% of the 7,386 state legislative seats are occupied by 2,432 women, the center reported. Meanwhile, Vote Mama Foundation estimates 23% of lawmakers are moms.

“Things within the political ecosystem have changed to be more open to women,” said Kelly Dittmar, director of research at CAWP. “Having more women also begets more women.”

And there are visible signs of progress at statehouses across the country as the number of mom lawmakers grow.

In Georgia, where women state representatives did not have a bathroom near the House chamber until the 1970s, there is now a lactation pod on the first floor of the Capitol. And a freshman Republican lawmaker has brought her baby to the floor daily, but more notably, the baby was given an official House name tag — labeling him the “baby of the House’’ — so he would have floor privileges. Just two decades ago, such a move was frowned on by House leadership.

“We talk a lot up here about how representation matters, and I believe that to be true,” Georgia state Rep. Lauren Daniel, a Republican, said to her colleagues late last year.

“I hope as I stand here today, and every day, as the youngest female member of this body, that it shows any young girl in this state who may find herself pregnant that her life does not end when a new one begins,” said Daniel, who first became pregnant when she was 17 and is now mother to four.

Still, moms are struggling to get elected and remain in office. Beyond child care, there are myriad impediments. It takes money and an organized campaign infrastructure. As candidates, they are confronted with gender stereotypes that they often consider in executing their campaign strategy. And the time away from young children can be daunting.

Having run for office herself, Liuba Grechen Shirley said she sees why moms, especially moms of small children, are often missing from elected office. Grechen Shirley is the founder of Vote Mama, a political organization that seeks to increase the number of moms in office.

“If you are a mother with young children and you decide to step up and run, the first question you get asked is always ‘but who will watch your kids while you campaign?’” said Grechen Shirley, who ran for Congress in 2018 in New York’s 2nd Congressional District while wrangling her 1- and 3-year-old children on the campaign trail.

A run for the money

When it comes to fundraising, men dominate. A 2021 OpenSecrets report analyzing fundraising during open-seat House primary races in 2020 found white men candidates led the money race, though white women candidates maintained a significant advantage over women of color, raising three times as much as Black women in open-seat primaries, according to the report.  

Women donors also give less money overall than men, comprising around one-third of money contributed to state general office and legislative races nationwide from 2019 to 2022, according to a 2023 report by CAWP. At the individual state level, financial support from women donors ranged from 14% of donations in Nebraska state races, to 46% of contributions in Colorado.

That doesn’t sit right for Grechen Shirley.

Data from the Pew Research Center shows 85% of women will give birth and become mothers by the time they’re 45 years old. Vote Mama’s research arm, the Vote Mama Foundation, found that in 2022, 23% of state legislators were moms, and 5% had children under the age of 18.

On Capitol Hill, 37 of 541 lawmakers in 2022 were moms with children under 18, equal to 6.8% of the 118th Congress, according to Vote Mama Foundation. Put another way, there were three times as many men named John or Jon as there were moms of minor children serving.

“Vote Mama exists because of my personal experience running for Congress with two small toddlers,” Grechen Shirley said. “I immediately understood why there were not more moms serving at the federal level when I was running because it is really difficult. It’s unsustainable for somebody who’s a working parent, somebody who’s not independently wealthy, somebody who is a primary caregiver. This system was designed for wealthy older white men.”

Vote Mama PAC has helped over 500 Democrats who are moms run for office. Grechen Shirley pressed the Federal Election Commission to rule in her favor to allow use of campaign funds to cover the cost of her child care so she could run in 2018. And since then, at the federal level, parents started using funds similarly.

Between 2018 and 2022, 68 federal candidates spent $717,706 in campaign funds on child care, according to a report released by Vote Mama at the beginning of the year. About half those funds were spent by women. Grechen Shirley wants people to know that efforts to help moms run for office also help dads.

Women of color represent 77% of total Republican campaign funds spent on child care, the report says.

“This is a complete game changer and it will help diversify both parties,” Grechen Shirley said.

A major barrier to running

At the state level, 70% of campaign funds spent on child care between 2018 and 2022 were spent by candidates of color, according to the same report.

Thirty-two states authorize candidates to use campaign funds for child care, but according to Vote Mama, in at least six of them, the option had never been touched. In Indiana, elections officials issued an advisory opinion allowing their use, and the South Carolina House approved legislation last month over the objections of the chamber’s hardline Freedom Caucus. But the bill died with session’s end Thursday after never getting a vote in the Senate.

A bipartisan pair of moms pushed for the change in Georgia by asking the state ethics commission to weigh in. The commission approved the change last summer through an advisory opinion.

Georgia Republican state Rep. Beth Camp said she thought it was odd that federal candidates could use campaign funds for child care expenses but state candidates could not. And she says she hopes the change will encourage more parents with young children to run for office.

“It is not a partisan issue. It is a nonpartisan issue because it impacts everyone,” said Camp, whose children are now adults.

Camp said she was surprised when she heard negative feedback from some colleagues who questioned why the change was needed when candidates had not used campaign funds for child care in the past.

“Well, honestly, we probably would have had more parents — not going to say women or men but more parents — enter into elected office if they’d had the opportunity,” Camp said. “When you start looking at how expensive it is to provide child care, there are some people who make the decision not to take that out of their family household budget.”

Rhode Island passed a law in 2021 letting state and local candidates spend campaign funds on child care. It has yet to be used by any candidate with child care burdens, man or woman.

Sen. Sandra Cano, a third-term Democratic state senator who has given birth to two children since she was elected in 2018, said she opted not to dip into her campaign war chest for child care partly due to public perception.

“I do feel I would put myself through more criticism if I did, even though it is legal,” she said.

Also a factor: her family members provide most of the care for her children, Arianna, 4, and Alessandro, 1. And her parents refuse to accept her offers to pay them for it.

Lack of access to child care is a major barrier moms face when running for office and that problem continues if they win the election, Dittmar said.

“(Women) are still more likely than their male counterparts to be the caregivers,” said Dittmar of the Center for American Women and Politics.

Ohio has not authorized political candidates to use campaign funds for child care.

Ohio House Minority Leader Allison Russo, a Democrat, spent thousands of dollars in extra child care costs when she first campaigned in 2018. Her daughter was a 1-year-old and her two sons were in elementary school at that time.

“It was a big, expensive part of my first campaign that we paid out of pocket,” she said. “I am privileged to have the circumstance that I have with family nearby and the support network, but not everybody has that and I think if we want more parents with young children, especially women to run for office, we have to think about how do we create this support at work.”

And in Indiana, Ragen Hatcher, a representative from Gary, noted that childcare access and expenses continued to pose challenges even after she was elected. The mom of four moved her family hours away from their home in northwest Indiana so she could continue to care for them while she served in the legislature. Hatcher said she’d like to see free childcare offered at the statehouse, as well as the option to enroll her kids in schools closer to the state capital.

“Being a state representative or state senator, for young parents, is difficult. And I think it may be a barrier to why many younger people, and moms, don’t run for these offices,” Hatcher said. “There are some things that the legislature can do to accommodate people better with younger children, and I just hope that we start doing that instead of leaving that age group out — those who may have the younger children but don’t want to necessarily have to leave them at home.”

The X factor

From scheduling breast pumping, dropping kids off at school, securing child care and performing the full spectrum of duties expected of women as primary caretakers for their children, campaigning as a mom is a challenge and that’s before a person faces all the hurdles of serving in office as a mom, Grechen Shirley said.

“You campaign and you’re working full time for up to two years with no salary … the reality is no one talks about these things. Unless you know somebody personally who has run for office or served in office, there’s really no way to know what it will be like. It’s like childbirth, unless you know someone who’s gone through it, you really don’t know what it’ll be like,” Grechen Shirley said.

And no one questions why dads run for office because having kids is viewed as an asset for men in elections, and they’re good dads for taking a picture with their kids, Grechen Shirley said. But if a woman on the campaign trail or in elected office takes a picture with her kids, they’re “using” their kids.

Increased representation of moms in office doesn’t mean the behind-the-scenes burdens have lessened, said Jennifer Lawless, the Leone Reaves and George W. Spicer Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia and chair of its politics department.

Lawless highlighted U.S. Rep. Grace Meng, a New York Democrat, as an example. Meng has talked about the continued stress of finding child care in New York while she sits through marathon sessions on Capitol Hill.

“It seems normatively wrong that women are being asked to manage this additional aspect of serving or running,” Lawless said. “We should have a political system where they should not be asked to manage something extra. Because women have been doing this for so long they’ve somehow figured it out.”

Said Dittmar: “In holding office you’re at the whims of leadership and deadlines and timelines. You can’t just say, ‘I’m sorry, I have to take off tomorrow because my kid is sick’ if you have a major vote.”

Lawless, who challenged U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin in the 2006 Democratic primary for Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District, said the experience was “incredibly taxing,” even as a single woman without children.

“I can’t imagine what it would have been like to have that third component of child care factored in,” Lawless said.

Because of that, some moms wait until their children are older or out of the house before running for office, but Dittmar said she thinks that’s changing.

“A lot of the women who have young kids feel like there’s a lot going on in the world and in their states that they need to speak up on and so you’re seeing that translate into candidacy and office holding,” she said.

It’s those life experiences that drive moms into running for office. Without people in positions of power who have experienced the challenges of raising children, things like child care aren’t prioritized issues, Grechen Shirley said.

“When you talk to men about why they ran, they say ‘I thought I would be good at this job’. When you talk to a woman, a mom with young kids in particular, there’s usually one particular issue that they reached out to their local representative to get help with and either never heard back from their representative or didn’t get the help that they needed and they said ‘you know what, I can do this job better,’” Grechen Shirley said.

For example, the female-majority in Nevada has advocated for policies such as the “pregnancy fairness act” that strengthens protections beyond federal law for pregnant and postpartum workers and endorsed a maternal mortality review committee to improve health outcomes, the Current has reported. In January, eight weeks of paid family leave for state employees after the birth or adoption of a child or to care for a family member with a serious illness took effect. Other issues, including pay equity, remain on the agenda.

Lawless didn’t think achieving parity between mothers in the population and in elected office was necessary, though. More important to Lawless was working toward equal representation of women in political office and campaigns, regardless of their family status.

“Right now if we continue at the rate we are currently electing women in Congress, it won’t be until 2108 that we reach parity for women,” she said.

April Corbin Girnus of Nevada Current, Megan Henry of Ohio Capital Journal, Nancy Lavin of Rhode Island Current, Anna Liz Nichols of Michigan Advance, Jill Nolin of Georgia Recorder and Casey Smith of Indiana Capital Chronicle contributed to this report.

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(Photo: Nevada Department of Corrections)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

The State of Nevada on Tuesday agreed to pay $340,000 to a group of inmate firefighters who alleged they were mocked and denied immediate medical care after inadequate equipment led to second-degree burns and their socks melting to their feet.

The state also approved a $126,500 settlement for a woman who was stripsearched and interrogated by corrections officers while attempting to visit her boyfriend at High Desert State Prison.

The Nevada Board of Examiners — comprised of Gov. Joe Lombardo, Attorney General Aaron Ford and Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar — approved the two settlements during a brief meeting Tuesday. State law requires the board’s approval for tort settlements above $100,000.

In a memo to the board, the state attorney general’s office recommended both settlements in order to avoid the costs of litigation and potential adverse judgments.

The $340,000 settlement will be paid to eight former and current inmates who were injured in April 2021 while working for the state’s wildland firefighting program, which is operated by Nevada Department of Corrections and the Nevada’s Division of Forestry.

As wildfire season 2019 winds down, it's important to look back at the strong partnership between NDOC and Nevada Division of Forestry, and the work Nevada's minimum-security inmates did in support of fire fighting efforts throughout the western United States. pic.twitter.com/mZlRUwgBqM

— Nevada Corrections (@NevadaDOC) October 14, 2019

Seven of the eight plaintiffs were women assigned to Jean Conservation Camp, and the eighth was a man assigned to Three Lakes Valley Conservation Camp.

The inmate firefighters alleged that in April 2021 they were transported to an area near Laughlin to “clear out red-hot embers, churn burning soil and rip out tree stumps” after a large wildland fire. When they reported the ground was still smoldering and burning their feet through their boots, supervisors “mocked and ignored” them, according to the lawsuit.

When the sole of one boot came off, a supervisor allegedly instructed the inmate to duct tape it back on and get back to work. Another supervisor allegedly told an inmate firefighter who was crying in pain that she could “keep crying as long as you keep working.” A third supervisor was reported to have said he didn’t want to see an inmate’s injured feet “cause then I would have to do paperwork…”

The women alleged they did not receive medical care that day, despite forestry and corrections staff seeing they were visibly injured — some to the point of being unable to walk and resorting to crawling on their hands and knees to the showers and restrooms. It was only after other inmates reported their condition to the camp nurse the following day that the women’s injuries were evaluated.

As part of the settlement, the Division of Forestry has agreed to provide “renewed, expanded training” to its supervisors and incarcerated firefighters in areas like equipment standards and inspections, as well as regarding disciplinary procedures for employee misconduct.

The lawsuit cited a Nevada Inspector General’s investigation into the incident that concluded the inmates had been “academically trained” on the activities they were assigned but “never involved or trained in the practical application.”

That report found the state-issued boots used by the inmates were “in absolute horrible condition” — with the oldest pair being from 2013 and the newest being from 2018.

NDOC as part of the settlement has agreed to implement a policy to ensure that any incarcerated firefighter who reports a work-related injury not be reassigned in retaliation. One woman reported she was afraid to push for medical attention out of fear she would be sent to a higher security facility.

Jean Conservation Camp and the inmate firefighting program have come under criticism in the past. Inmates are paid a subminimum wage of $24 per day. Some lawmakers believe it to be a modern form of the post-Civil War practice of convict leasing.

According to the lawsuit, incarcerated people made up approximately 30% of the Division of Forestry’s fire response capacity in 2021. More recently, Nevada has scaled down its inmate wildland firefighter program and consolidated some of its conservation camps, citing a lack of qualified inmates.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada represented the inmate firefighters in their now-settled lawsuit. Three of the eight plaintiffs are no longer incarcerated, according to the settlement document. Of the five plaintiffs still incarcerated, one is in transitional housing, one remains at Jean Conservation Camp, and the others are housed at different NDOC facilities.

Each plaintiff will receive between $24,200 and $48,400.

“We filed this case to make sure no firefighter is ever treated like this again, and the changes in policies and training required by this settlement agreement are a mark of progress for the state of Nevada,” said ACLU of Nevada Legal Director Chris Peterson in a statement. “People who are incarcerated are not disposable laborers, and we will continue to fight slavery in all of its forms in the state of Nevada.”

$126k to stripsearched woman

The second settlement approved by Nevada’s Board of Examiners Tuesday involves a woman who was stripsearched and interrogated while attempting to visit her incarcerated boyfriend in 2017.

Sonjia Mack alleged in a lawsuit she was subjected to a stripsearch by NDOC officers at High Desert State Prison while attempting to visit her incarcerated boyfriend. Mack alleged she did not provide consent and was not given the opportunity to leave the prison facility, a violation of her constitutional rights and prison policies.

Despite no contraband being discovered on Mack, NDOC denied her visitation that day and later suspended her visitation rights indefinitely.

Mack’s case, which she first filed in 2018, led to what some have described as a significant ruling from the Nevada Supreme Court. In December 2022, Nevada’s high court ruled that government officials can be sued for civil rights violations under the state constitution and that they are not covered by qualified immunity.

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Courtroom at Esmeralda County Courthouse. (Photo: Sydney Martinez/Travel Nevada)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Progress on correcting systemic issues with the delivery of indigent defense in Nevada’s rural counties has sped up in recent years, but the state is still out of compliance with standards set in a legal agreement it entered three years ago.

Nevada’s Department of Indigent Defense Services (DIDS) was established by state lawmakers in 2019 under the looming shadow of a high-profile class action lawsuit filed in 2017 by the ACLU. That lawsuit, Davis v. Nevada, argued the state was routinely violating people’s constitutional right to adequate legal representation. Specifically, the lawsuit took issue with rural counties that outsourced their indigent defense to contract attorneys who were financially incentivized to perform as little work as possible.

In 2020, the parties settled and agreed to a stipulated consent judgment that specified steps the state would need to take to guarantee the right to counsel to those who don’t have the resources to hire an attorney and rely on a public defender after being criminally charged.

Overhauling decades-long systems across nearly a dozen rural counties is a heavy lift that will take time, but DIDS Executive Director Marcie Ryba says the state has made significant progress, particularly after some key pieces of legislation passed earlier this year.

Lawmakers during this year’s regular session established in statute a funding mechanism recommended by the Board on Indigent Defense Services wherein counties would not be saddled with the full cost of indigent defense. Using actual spending data from 2018 and 2019, maximum contribution amounts were set for each county, and anything spent above that amount would be covered by the state.

The cost sharing system encourages each county to expand and improve their indigent defense relative to their own starting point and without worrying about how to pay for it.

Lawmakers gave DIDS a two-year budget of $7 million for reimbursing counties directly and placed an additional $12 million into a contingency account that can be accessed by the Interim Finance Committee.

Ryba says these changes were designed to give counties confidence the state would reimburse them as promised, and quickly. Some at the county level had worried the state would treat indigent defense services as an unfunded mandate that they would be forced to absorb.

“We are showing the counties we are doing everything we can to protect them,” said Ryba.

In fiscal year 2022, the state reimbursed eight rural counties around $1.9 million in indigent defense expenses. In fiscal year 2023, $3.2 million was reimbursed. Ryba sees it as a groundbreaking achievement because counties previously had to bear the full cost of these important services themselves.

Total reimbursement amounts are likely to increase going forward as counties further improve their indigent defense services, but it is unknown what level of expenses the state might eventually see.

Moving toward compliance

Prior to Davis, 10 rural counties in Nevada paid contract attorneys a flat fee for providing indigent defense, with no regard for caseloads or severity of cases. That system created a financial incentive for closing cases as quickly as possible — something the ACLU argued was a violation of the 6th Amendment.

Diane Davis, the namesake plaintiff in the case, at the time of the lawsuit’s filing in 2017 claimed no investigations had been done into her case in the four years since her arrest and that her contract attorney was pressuring her to plead guilty.

The Davis settlement did away with flat-fee agreements in those 10 counties, which are often referred to as “Davis counties.” The settlement also requires the state to determine standards for caseloads to ensure that attorneys aren’t overburdened with too many clients, as well as set minimum performance standards, which could look at things like how quickly the attorney meets with the client after being appointed to the case.

Every county in the state has submitted its own plan for providing indigent defense services, and DIDS staff is now working with each county to help implement those plans. All of Nevada’s counties are moving toward legal compliance, but some are fully embracing major internal changes.

Churchill County and Carson City both launched their own public defender’s offices. The latter has indicated it wants funding parity between its public defender’s office and the criminal division of its district attorney’s office.

Lyon County raised the hourly pay rate for its contract attorneys — a decision DIDS staff said had a ripple effect on pay rates in other counties.

Also during this year’s legislative session, the Board on Indigent Defense Services was given the authority to set the minimum reimbursement rate for contract attorneys providing indigent defense in counties with a population less than 100,000. Rates had previously been set in statute and hadn’t been touched since 2003, when they were adjusted to $100 per hour (or $125 per hour for capital cases).

That regulatory process has already begun in earnest.

Public defenders need resources equal to what public prosecutors have, said Ryba, who prior to joining DIDS spent 15 years as an attorney at the Nevada State Public Defender’s Office.

“When I look across the aisle, that person shouldn’t be making a larger salary, or having more resources because they are working for the state,” she said. “I think that’s something we’re striving for and making big changes toward.”

‘Still a ways to go’

“The Department of Indigent Defense Services has worked very hard to improve representation for people in rural counties,” said Chris Peterson, legal director at ACLU of Nevada, which is continuing to monitor the state’s progress. “At the same time, we still have a ways to go. As of now the state hasn’t reached compliance.”

Peterson says it’s clear at this point a framework is in place, but he says the state needs to put “flesh on the bones” to get into substantial compliance with Davis. One component of that is making sure indigent defense attorneys in rural counties have ongoing access to resources and training.

“Simply having counsel in name is not the same as having someone properly trained,” he added. “And you can’t rest on your laurels. It’s an ongoing process. The law 10 years ago is not the law today. The expectations today are not those that existed 10 years ago.”

While DIDS has held several statewide conferences in an attempt to provide training for rural attorneys, Eve Hanan, the UNLV law professor who serves as the court monitor for the Davis judgment, noted in her most recent report to the court that DIDS lacks the funding needed to offer comprehensive continued training. 

Hanan also expressed concern DIDS will not be able to complete the “robust assessment and evaluation of both county defense systems and attorneys providing public defense” as required by the judgment. Those assessments require in-person visits to courtrooms.

“It is difficult to see how a robust, annual review of all counties and attorneys could take place without additional staffing for the Department,” she wrote.

Hanan recommended DIDS seek additional funding from lawmakers via the IFC.

Progress on establishing caseload and workload standards was delayed as the state awaited results from a nationwide public defender study conducted by RAND Corporation. That national report was finally released last week and, along with state-specific data that’s been collected in recent years, will be used by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) to make specific recommendations for rural counties in Nevada.

According to the Davis agreement, the state will have a year to get into compliance with the recommendations made by the NCSC.

“Likely we are going to need a lot more public defenders in our rural counties,” added Ryba.

Ryba and her DIDS staff appear confident the state can make good on Davis, saying that state lawmakers and the governor have expressed support for their efforts and understand the importance of ensuring everyone has proper legal representation.

The need for quality public defenders goes beyond the immediate impact it has on defendants facing the criminal justice system, says Peterson, because public defenders are often the first to see patterns across multiple cases.

“When they see something happening over and over again, across their court cases, they can address it systemically,” he said. “If they’re new or not sufficiently trained, they won’t realize there is a problem. They might say this is how we’ve always done it. Or if they’re not sufficiently independent, they would be discouraged from addressing it.”

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A recent study by American Forests found that Black, brown and low-income neighborhoods in Southern Nevada’s cities have significantly fewer trees and shade than wealthier, whiter communities. (Photo: Ronda Churchill/Nevada Current)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Southern Nevada is at risk of losing the few trees it has due to extreme heat, a loss that would only exacerbate how unevenly protective tree shade is distributed across communities in one of the fastest-warming metros in the nation.

As climate change disruption continues at a faster pace than predicted by climate scientists, the region’s little canopy coverage is at risk, said Southern Nevada Water Authority Director of Resources Zane Marshall. 

You only need to look outside to see wilted trees that once tolerated the Southern Nevada summers. 

Several years ago the water authority examined global climate models to project what climate conditions would be like for Southern Nevada in the next century. The agency found that 16% of the 100 most common tree species in the Las Vegas Valley would exceed their heat tolerance by 2025, meaning those trees would not survive climate change. 

Italian cypress, purple-leaf plum, and elm trees will likely be the first to go, said Marshall. 

“In the next couple of years, those trees are expected to exceed their heat tolerance and they’ll be stressed by heat throughout the year,” he continued.

Another 38% of the most common tree species in Southern Nevada is expected to exceed their heat tolerance by 2055, including ash trees, olive trees, pine trees, African sumac, and roses. 

The Las Vegas metro area experienced the hottest July ever recorded this summer, with the last two weeks of July being the hottest 14-day stretch on record, with an average high of 112 degrees. Those temperatures proved too much for some of the most resilient trees.

“We’re also seeing that a lot of the pine trees — the big Afghan and Mondo and Aleppo pines — are already stressed in many cases,” Marshall said. “There is real concern, and I think our research suggests that yes, in fact, there are certain varieties of trees that are currently stressed by extreme weather conditions like what we had this July.”

Tree equity

The loss of some of Southern Nevada’s most common trees would likely only exacerbate the lack of cooling tree shade for marginalized and disadvantaged communities.

A recent study by American Forests found that Black, brown and low-income neighborhoods in Southern Nevada’s cities have significantly fewer trees and shade than wealthier, whiter communities.

Dubbed the Tree Equity Score, the metric measures neighborhoods using several factors: population density, neighborhood income, average surface temperatures, existing tree canopy, racial demographic makeup, employment and various health statistics.

More than 2,845,109 trees will need to be planted in Nevada to reach “tree equity,” or the number of trees needed so that all residents can benefit from shade, cooler temperatures and reductions in carbon, according to the study.

Data for Las Vegas — a metro area where more than half the population consists of people of color — revealed a stark disparity between the wealthy and affluent majority-white neighborhood of Summerlin and the neighborhoods surrounding North Las Vegas, where a majority percentage of Black and Hispanic families live. 

Neighborhoods in Las Vegas with less than 36% people of color had 2.1% more tree canopy compared to the average tree canopy in city neighborhoods. In contrast, neighborhoods with at least 66% people of color had on average 1.3% less tree canopy than other Las Vegas neighborhoods.

Las Vegas would need to plant more than 18,000 trees to reach tree equity.

In North Las Vegas, where 75% of the residents are people of color, nearly 55,000 trees would need to be planted to benefit from the same tree coverage as the average Nevada neighborhood.

“In the West Las Vegas neighborhood in downtown Vegas—a community of 100% residents of color, 88% of whom are living with poverty—only 2% of the surface area is protected by tree cover,” said Julia Twichell, a cartographer and director of data design at American Forests. “Compare that to the historic and affluent Rancho Circle neighborhood, just a 5 minute drive away… This community is over 75% white with only 14% below the poverty line. With 27% canopy cover, street temperatures are nearly 8 degrees cooler than West Las Vegas during a heat wave.”

That trend of inequity continues in the City of Henderson, where nearly all of the 32,000 trees needed to reach tree equity will need to be planted in neighborhoods along Boulder Highway, a low-income census tract. Green Valley, an affluent majority-white community in Henderson, however, is flush with canopy cover.

In the City of Las Vegas, many tree species commonly planted in Southern Nevada including ash, catalpas, and purple-leaf plum trees are struggling under higher summer heat and watering restrictions, according to City of Las Vegas urban forester Bradley Daseler.

‘Inappropriate species selection’

The city already lost some trees this summer, officials said. While the city can’t be sure heat was the main factor, July broke the record for most days with a day-time high temperature of at least 105 degrees in Las Vegas, beating a record of 25 days, which happened in 2017, 1989, and 1972.

Daytime high temperatures in July reached at least 100 degrees every day of the month. Only four other Julys on record reached at least 100 degrees every day of the month: 2010, 1988, 1971, and 1963.

Daseler said “inappropriate species selection” was also a factor in the loss of tree coverage, meaning some juvenile trees the city hoped could adapt to the heat did not survive after being planted in the fall.

Some alternative trees planted by the city have proved to be compatible with the Las Vegas climate, including some species of acacia, havardia, and Palo Verde, several species of eucalyptus, and oaks originating from dry climates.

Since the beginning of the city’s tree planting program in 2020 close to 3,000 trees have been planted. Those trees have been planted throughout the City of Las Vegas. The city is working to diversify the species and age distribution of the trees in order to make its tree canopy more resilient.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority is now working to increase tree canopy across the region. The agency’s Tree Enhancement Program pays participants a bonus of $100 for every new tree planted, up to 100% canopy coverage. However, planted trees must be from the agency’s approved list of heat-resilient trees. 

Water users must be part of the Water Smart Landscapes rebate program to benefit, which pays $3 per square foot of turf removal.

“While our customers are participating in the water smart landscaping program and in helping our community become more resilient by removing turf, we thought we could also help to address the urban heat island effect by working to enhance urban tree canopy,” Marshall said.

The program, which started in July, is still in its early stages. The water authority hopes to spur the planting of 100,000 trees through its rebate program, using $10 million funds authorized by its board. 

“I think there’s broad recognition that our urban tree canopy is important to the health and viability of our community,” Marshall said. 

The post Southern Nevada at risk of losing tree shade to extreme heat appeared first on Nevada Current.

“I think people don’t realize how important it is and how liberating it is for individuals to kill their deadname... And now they want their name to match who they are.” (Photo: Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Around the time Emily Ajir began hormone replacement therapy in late 2022, the 23-year-old also started to research the process of legally changing her name and gender marker. 

Ajir knew she wanted to live her authentic self, with a chosen name to match. It was the prospect of paying $270 for court filing fees that stopped her. 

“I knew I wanted to take steps toward transition to live more authentically,” she said. “I saw it was going to be a complicated (legal) process and cost close to $300. I just put it on the back burner and decided to pursue it later.” 

Ajir found out in July that Nevada Legal Services, which has a LGBTQ+ Advocacy Initiative,  recently started offering legal assistance at the LGBTQ Center of Southern Nevada every Wednesday. 

Lawyers with the group help transgender people wanting to legally change their names and gender markers. 

When Ajir sat down with a list of questions, she only thought she would be getting answers on navigating the court process, not free representation to help facilitate court filings. 

“She started asking me for my information, my (birth) name and my chosen name,” Ajir said. “Then she said it wouldn’t be any cost.”

Ajir began to cry when she realized that the clinic wasn’t just answering questions but would complete the court filing to legally change her name and gender marker including paying the costs. 

Heidi Foreman-Toney, the outreach coordinator for Nevada Legal Services, said the process is quick and easy.

“The challenge is knowing the steps,” she said. “The challenge is the filing because we started to get a backlog because we never expected to see so many people who needed this service.”

Because of the backlog of clients, Nevada Legal Services, which provides assistance to low-income residents within the state, is still in the process of filing Ajir’s court documents, but it should be completed soon. 

Once Ajir receives the court order granting the change, she can get all her documents updated. 

“When I was born, I was given the wrong name and the wrong gender marker,” Ajir said. “It’s an inconsistency I had to live with my entire life. It’s an error that’s been forced on me that I had to live with my whole life. To be able to easily, efficiently and frankly quickly finally fix that error, it’s amazing.” 

Nevada Legal Services and the LGBTQ Center began collaborating on the service in March as a way to address the legal needs of the gay and trans community.

“There are no law firms that specifically address the issues faced by people who identify as LGBTQ in our state,” Foreman-Toney said.  

Though people can use private attorneys, the process is expensive.

Nevada Legal Services had already been offering civil legal assistance at the Family Huntridge Clinic, the largest LGBTQ+ centered medical clinic in Southern Nevada, since 2022. 

The group provides legal help to people enrolled in the federal Ryan White Part B assistance program, which provides medical services for people living with HIV. Assistance can vary from landlord-tenant disputes and eviction cases to family law and estate planning. 

“Someone will come in for a medical appointment and say they lost custody of their kids or are trying to deal with getting evicted,” Foreman-Toney said. “Once they finish their medical appointment, we do an intake to address their legal issues.” 

The Huntridge clinic closed in April due to financial constraints but reopened in August. Nevada Legal Services is planning to resume assistance. 

The idea to expand legal help for the LGBTQ community aligned with the Center’s plans to expand programming and resources for the transgender community. 

Talking with clients, Andre Martin, the director of inclusive programming at the center, said it was clear the center needed to do a gender marker and name change workshop.

“I think people don’t realize how important it is and how liberating it is for individuals to kill their deadname,” Martin said. “And now they want their name to match who they are.”

More than 50 people have sought assistance since the service began being offered in March. Since it’s primarily through word of mouth, Foreman-Toney thinks the numbers will only grow. 

Williams Institute out of the UCLA School of Law, which does research on sexual orientation and gender identity, estimates 476,000 trans adults nationwide don’t have identification with the correct gender marker. 

Clients have included both adults and eight minor cases, which require parental approval. 

“Every single child who walked through the door had two parents who agreed,” Foreman-Toney said. “We have not had one parent who has disagreed, which might be a shock to people that parents are supporting their kids.”

In the course of working with clients over the last few months, Foreman-Toney said she realized there is a lot of misinformation about the requirements for legally changing names that has impeded people from pursuing the legal process. 

Some clients think they need to take an ad out in the newspaper and announce a new name, which only applies when the change isn’t connected to gender identity. 

Some worried they need to get documents notarized, when that’s not the case. 

Changing names and gender markers is not only about helping people live their authentic selves, Martin said. 

Without proper documents, trans people face barriers getting employment and housing. 

“We have people who do get through the application process because they have a gender neutral name, then they come in for an interview and there is a problem,” he said. “Or when (employers) see their ID and it says their deadname. It causes a barrier in employment.”  

“The person I actually am”

Despite what everyone in her life told her, Ajir never felt like a cisgender man.

“Since 12, I had an inkling that I’m not like these other guys,” she said. “Until around 18 I didn’t have the capacity to explore that and put words to it.”

Initially, Ajir came out as nonbinary, but realized that was compromising to appease people. In recent years she accepted who she was. 

“I am a trans woman and want people to see me as a woman,” she said.

In the fall of 2022 Ajir was at a local music festival hosted at a dive bar where she was reading a eulogy of another trans woman who died in 2021. Her name was Emily Rose Matview.

Ajir was drawn to Matview and how people would talk about her presence in the community. 

“Even though I never met her, I kind of missed her in a way,” Ajir said. “She just felt like someone I wish I could have met.”

She grew to love the name Emily, and adopted it for herself. 

Ajir didn’t immediately seek to change her deadname – the name given at birth – as she started hormone therapy in December. 

Eventually, she said she “passed the event horizon that passing as a dude didn’t really work.”

Without documentation to match her identity, classes at UNLV, applying for jobs and even going to the bar brought humiliating and terrifying experiences for Ajir. 

“There were times I regretted asserting my real name and identity in the classroom,” she said. “I’ve had instructors ask me way too many questions about it in the middle of the class. Once before class started, one instructor started making suggestions for a ‘better name’ and asked other students that were there early what they thought. It honestly felt humiliating, like my identity was abstracted from my experience and made into a class discussion.”  

Seeking employment wasn’t different. 

Everytime Ajir applied for a job, she asked herself: “should I risk putting down a feminine preferred name or my deadname?”

“It feels dishonest to use my deadname,” she said. “Like I’m lying on my resume about being a cis guy.” 

Even just going to the bar or the gym, whenever Ajir presented an identification with her deadname it made her anxious.  

“I go up to the bar, and how is the bartender going to react to seeing the picture on my ID, which is out of date,” Ajir said. “How are they going to react to the name I’m not using and the face I’m not wearing?”

Ajir graduated from UNLV in May and has been struggling to find a job in journalism or anywhere for that matter. 

She knows the labor pool is tough, but is ready for her legal change to be finished to at least get rid of one barrier. 

“I want to take a big swing when looking for a job, in particular in the field I actually want to work in,” she said. “I want to be able to do that as the person I actually am and not worry about people’s preconceptions.” 

The post Legal group helps trans people file court name change, gender marker documents appeared first on Nevada Current.

The passage of both bills comes as more than 520 anti-LGBTQ bills, including 220 targeting transgender and gender non-binary people, have been introduced in state legislatures across the country this year alone. (Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo recently signed two bills enhancing protections for transgender and gender nonconforming people at a time when Republican-led states have been passing record numbers of anti-LGBTQ legislation.

Lombardo also vetoed a bill that protected providers offering gender-affirming care.

One bill signed Monday prevents insurance companies from discriminating against trans people on the basis of gender identity, while the other measure signed in late May requires prisons to develop regulations to ensure safety of trans and nonbinary people who are incarcerated.

“At a time when states across the country are passing draconian laws to restrict trans and nonbinary people’s right to exist, Nevada is doing the opposite,” Democratic state Sen. Melanie Scheible, who sponsored both bills, said in a statement.

Scheible also credited the policies advancing in Nevada to the work by trans and queer-led organizations like Gender Justice Nevada and Silver State Equality, which have fought for greater protections in past legislative sessions.

The passage of both bills comes as more than 520 anti-LGBTQ bills, including 220 targeting transgender and gender non-binary people, have been introduced in state legislatures across the country this year alone, according to the Human Rights Campaign. 

The organization declared a national state of emergency for LGBTQ people earlier this month in response to increased attacks,  both legislative and physical, on the community. 

Sy Bernabei, the executive director of Gender Justice Nevada, said the legislative wins in the state are all the more important considering the increased amount of anti-trans rhetoric nationwide. 

“Most of us know we’re under attack and the rhetoric out there is strong and will only get worse,” Bernabei said. “When we get these victories, we have to enjoy it and savor it.”

This session saw multiple proposals enhancing the rights of trans people. Not all survived. 

Lombardo vetoed Senate Bill 302, which would have prevented the governor from surrendering a person charged with a criminal violation in another state for receiving gender-affirming services in Nevada. 

The bill also sought to prohibit health care licensing boards from disqualifying or disciplining a provider who gave gender-affirming services.

In his veto message, Lombardo wrote that the legislation prevented his office from having “the ability to be certain that all gender-affirming care related to minors comports with state law.”

His statement doesn’t specify what part of state law he was referencing. 

“It also decreases the Executive Branch’s authority to ensure the highest public health and child safety standards for Nevadans,” he wrote.

Gender-affirming care for minors, which refers to a range of health care including mental health services, is supported by numerous national medical groups including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The Nevada chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Nevada Psychological Association also supported SB 302.

“There is a lot of misinformation regarding gender-affirming care,” Nevada Psychological Association’s president Claudia Mejia, said in a letter to lawmakers. “A decade of research shows gender-affirming care reduces depression, suicidality, and other devastating consequences of trans young people who are forced to undergo puberty in the sex assigned at birth.”

Bernabei decried Lombardo’s veto message. 

“You’re not protecting trans children” they said. “Full stop. Trans children need access to affirming health care just like trans adults.” 

Senate Bill 163, which was signed Monday by Lombardo, requires certain health insurers to provide coverage for medically necessary treatments. 

Scheible called the bill’s passage “one of the highlights of my career.”

The legislation had been opposed by conservative groups, including the Nevada Republican Party that falsely claimed the bill allows for minors to get surgical procedures

“This bill does nothing to change the types of care available to children and the types of parental notification and parental consent that is needed for a child to receive any type of medical care in the state of Nevada,” Scheible said during a hearing in May.  

Bernabei said signing the bill prevents the state from potentially dealing with costly lawsuits. 

“If this bill didn’t go through, (the state) was facing a ton of litigation from trans and nonbinary people because you’re being discriminatory about their health care,” they said. “We’ve already seen how this goes through the court system and big health care providers pay out a lot of money.” 

Senate Bill 153, which was signed by Lombardo on May 31, requires the Nevada Department of Corrections to set up regulations around housing, custody, medical care and mental health treatment for trans and gender nonbinary treatment of people incarcerated in Nevada’s prison system.

The department of corrections, which testified in neutral, said there were already policies in place to protect trans inmates. However, several people housed in Nevada prisons, who provided letters during the bill’s first hearing in March, argued there weren’t nearly enough protections. 

“Folks assume predators are other inmates,” wrote Deidra, who is currently being housed at Lovelock Correctional Center. “Sometimes they are corrections officers.”

Unlike other bills offering protections for trans and gender nonconforming people, SB 153 received Republican support in the Senate. Republican Sens. Carrie Buck and Lisa Krasner joined Democrats in advancing the bill in April. 

Scheible had brought similar bills in 2021, but both failed to advance due to fiscal notes.  

The post In contrast to red state anti-LGBTQ push, NV’s Republican governor signs 2 trans protection bills appeared first on Nevada Current.

Original documents will be archived "so we are not erasing the history of the existence of this language,” said state Sen. Dallas Harris, who is sponsoring legislation to ease redaction of racist covenants in legal documents. (Photo: Trevor Bexon / Nevada Current)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

History researchers at UNR estimate Washoe County alone has at least 11,000 racist covenants, legal property documents that once restricted anyone not white from purchasing or living in the home.

While the covenants, a relic of the Jim Crow era, are unconstitutional and unenforceable, Democratic state Sen. Dallas Harris is proposing a way to redact the racist language from documents. 

Senate Bill 368, which was heard Friday in the Assembly Judiciary Committee, would allow for a petition to be filed with district court to remove the language. The judge would then issue a court order to county recorders to redact the language from future documents.

The county recorder would keep “the original instrument as a public record for historical purposes” according to the bill.

“The original document will stand,” Harris said. “This will be just for documents moving forward so we are not erasing the history of the existence of this language.”  

The bill unanimously passed out of the Senate on April 19.

At Friday’s hearing, Harris introduced a conceptual amendment to allocate $150,000 to UNR and UNLV to aid in researching and identifying racist covenants in the state. 

Jacob Dorman, a UNR history professor who is part of a team currently researching documents, said while the team estimates “there are 11,000 property deeds with racist covenants in Washoe County alone,” they are still working to identify all of them. 

“It takes quite a bite of research to find these documents,” he said.  

While no data was presented on how many are estimated to be in Clark County, Democratic Assemblywoman Shondra Summers-Armstrong said when she purchased her home she discovered one. 

“When we bought the land in 1997, we found we had restrictive covenants,” she said. “It’s quite startling to read the language and quite offensive.”

SB 368 builds on legislative efforts in 2019 from Harris and then-state Sen. Julia Ratti, who introduced legislation that allowed homeowners to disavow racist covenants in their legal documents.  

Kent Ervin, a UNR professor, said the issue came to light when he purchased his Reno home in 2015 and read the fineprint in the legal documents. 

“The covenant started out sounding quaint,” he said. “We can’t make moonshine. We can’t run a funeral parlor. Then I read the property can only be owned and occupied by white people. Obviously offensive. Even though such restrictions are long illegal, we still had to sign the covenant to close the sale.”

Ervin said he worked with Ratti and Harris to find a legislative fix but the bill “turned out to be insufficient.”

“Where we ended up was a document you could essentially file that would be recorded with your other housing documents lodging, essentially, your displeasure with the language,” Harris said of the 2019 bill. 

She said only about 19 have been filed in Washoe County since the bill was passed.

“It’s not the type of participation I hoped for,” Harris said. “I thought we could do better. There has to be a way to get this language out of these documents. It’s not operable and frankly offensive, it’s still there.”

In addition to a homeowner filing a petition with the court, under SB 368 Harris said HOAs and other groups, such as the UNR researchers, could also file a petition. Homeowners would be notified and have a chance to object. 

Harris and the researchers speaking Friday said it’s important not to erase the documents completely. 

“I find history is important to preserve and not just erase but redact them and amend them and ensure history is not erased,” said Fernando Melendez, a student working with the UNR research team. Failing to preserve the documents would be a “terrible” loss of the historical record, depriving future Nevadans of “understanding Nevada and all its past.”

The committee took no action on the legislation. 

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The Clark County Clerk issues approximately 80,000 marriage licenses per year. (Photo Courtesy of Las Vegas News Bureau)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

The Wedding Capital of the World wants to make it easier for people who have changed their legal name to amend their marriage certificate to reflect their chosen name.

Senate Bill 211 passed the Nevada Senate on Monday with bipartisan, near-unanimous support. Only state Sen. Robin Titus (R-Wellington) voted against the bill. It now heads to the Assembly for consideration.

The bill, which is backed by the Clark County Clerk’s Office, would allow a person whose name has been legally changed by a court to present that documentation to a county clerk or recorder and have their marriage certificate amended to reflect that name. The original marriage certificate would be kept on file as public record.

Myriad reasons exist for why a person might change their name. But the proposed legislation is seen as especially relevant to trans people who married prior to legally replacing the name they were given at birth.

Trans people (and others who have legally changed their name) already have the ability to have those names reflected on other government-issued identification and documents, including driver’s licenses, passports, social security cards, and even birth certificates. Marriage certificates have been “a holdout,” said state Sen. Dallas Harris, who is sponsoring the bill.

“It should not be easier to change your name on your birth certificate than your marriage certificate,” she added.

California and Illinois in 2021 became the first two states to allow people to amend the names that appear on marriage licenses and certificates.

Nevada’s SB 211 would also repeal the authority of county clerks and rural recorders to directly authorize a name change after marriage. That authority was given to the issuers of marriage licenses by state lawmakers in 2017, but Clark County Clerk Lynn Marie Goya told lawmakers during a March bill hearing that having the option has only led to “consternation.”

Betrotheds sometimes show up to the clerk’s office not having had a discussion on name changes, she said. Other times, a person changes their mind between the time they filed for the marriage certificate and the time they visit the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles to change their identification.

That can lead to issues, as the Nevada DMV is required to use the name listed on the marriage certificate, which prompts the person to return to the county clerk’s office. Tourists who travel to Nevada to get married might similarly run into hiccups when they return home because the processes for changing your name varies by state.

Goya told lawmakers that removing that authority from Nevada clerks and recorders will streamline the process of issuing certificates, ultimately saving money and time.

The Clark County Clerk, which actively markets Las Vegas as a premier wedding destination, issues approximately 80,000 marriage licenses per year.

The post Nevada Senate advances bill to make it easier to change name on marriage certificates appeared first on Nevada Current.

Some of the legislation being considered failed last session. (Photo: Alejandra Rubio)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Nevada lawmakers have formed an LGBTQ+ Caucus and plan to bring back legislation bolstering rights for transgender and gender-nonconforming people. 

Democratic state Sen. Dallas Harris, who was elected Monday to serve as the first chair for the caucus, said legislative priorities for the group include bills that increase protections for trans inmates within the Nevada Department of Corrections and a gun violence prevention bill to ensure people who’ve committed hate crimes against the LGBTQ community can’t access guns. 

Some of the legislation being considered previously failed last session but Harris said the caucus is committed to seeing “if we can get it over the finish line.” 

Two failed bills carried in 2021 by Democratic state Sen. Melanie Scheible have been reintroduced.

Senate Bill 153, which is also sponsored by Harris, would require correctional facilities to adopt regulations addressing housing and security for transgender inmates. It is scheduled for its first committee hearing Feb. 22.

During the bill hearing in 2021, attorneys representing trans clients detailed allegations of abuse and assault in the absence of those protections. The bill died after receiving a $1.3 million fiscal note from NDOC.

Similarly, Scheible has brought back legislation, Senate Bill 163, to ensure trans and gender-nonconforming people can use health insurance to cover gender-affirming procedures such as “top surgery,” which includes breast reduction or removal.

During the previous session, Nevada modernized HIV criminalization provisions and repealed state law that made it a category B felony for a person who tested positive for HIV to “knowingly or willfully engaging in a manner intended to transmit the disease.” 

Laws criminalizing HIV transmission were passed around the country in the ‘90s amid the HIV/AIDS epidemic prior to scientific innovations that prevent the spread of the disease.

Harris said she is working on legislation “to continue the HIV modernization work that we did last session.” A bill hasn’t been introduced yet. 

The creation of the caucus, Harris said, is a long-time coming.

Democratic Assemblywoman Sarah Peters, the caucus’ vice-chair, said in a statement Monday the group will “ensure that LGBTQ+ Nevadans are given a strong voice in the legislature and that our needs are heard and prioritized.”

Peters came out as pansexual in a 2021 Assembly floor speech during LGBTQ+ Awareness Week.

Harris credits the formation of the caucus to past openly out legislators, like former state Sen. David Parks, and for the legislation they brought forth that won advancements for the LGBTQ made in the state. 

Parks, who served in the legislature from 1997 to 2020, was Nevada’s first openly gay man elected into the legislature. He’s known for his work on legislation to prevent LGBTQ discrimination in housing and employment as well as protecting same-sax marriage. 

“Parks quietly did a lot of the work to make it so that people like me who grew up in Nevada felt welcome,” Harris said. “It wasn’t until I reached college that I recognized not everybody had that same experience.”

The formation of the caucus also comes as other Republican-led legislatures across the country are considering bills targeting the LGBTQ community, specifically transgender individuals.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, there were 315 anti-gay and anti-trans bills – a record number – introduced in 2022 that sought to restrict access to gender-affirming care, ban LGBTQ curriculum and prevent trans athletes from playing sports. 

And 2023 is no different.

During a national press briefing Tuesday, HRC said it was tracking 340 anti-LGBTQ bills this year.   

Bucking national trends, Nevada passed a ballot measure in 2022 codifying equal rights into the state constitution to ensure people can not be discriminated against based on “race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, ancestry, or national origin.” 

“We are so lucky to live in a state like Nevada that currently has a legislature that will not be considering any of those types of legislation,” she said. “For us, it’s about coming together and seeing how we can continue to move our state forward.”

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