Latest news with #SandraJauregui
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Once Legislature adjourns, all eyes will be on Lombardo's veto pen
(Photo by Trevor Bexon/Nevada Current) As of late Sunday, 223 bills were listed by the Nevada State Legislature as being in Gov. Joe Lombardo's office, and dozens more are headed his way. So far, the first-term Republican governor has vetoed just one bill and signed 169. For comparison, Lombardo vetoed 75 bills in 2023, setting a single-session veto record. He signed 535 bills. Nevada governors usually have five days, excluding Sundays, to veto a bill after it gets to their desk. Legislative rules extend that timeframe to 10 days in the waning days of the session. That means vetoes could be announced into next week. So what might Lombardo veto this year? Below are the bills the Nevada Current has covered that are now on veto watch. We've organized them by how bipartisan their journey through the Legislature was. That said, Lombardo last session did veto bills that passed unanimously, and he signed bills that the Republican caucuses voted against. Assembly Bill 44 (Attorney General Aaron Ford, D) seeks to crack down on 'knowingly deceptive' price fixing. All Republicans opposed the bill, as did a few Democrats. Assembly Bill 201 (Assemblymember Erica Roth, D) would expand efforts to automatically seal eviction records. Assembly Bill 209 (Assemblymember David Orentlicher, D) would grant sex workers immunity from criminal liability from prostitution-related offenses if they call 911 seeking medical assistance. Assembly Bill 223 (Assemblymember Venicia Considine, D) would give tenants more power to hold landlords accountable for failing to provide livable conditions. Assembly Bill 280 (Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui, D) proposes rent stabilization for seniors. Assembly Bill 283 (Assemblymember Max Carter, D) would restructure the eviction process. Assembly Bill 411 (Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui, D) would allow prescriptions for drugs used for medical abortions and miscarriage management to list the name of the prescribing health care practice, rather than the name of the specific individual providing the prescription. Assembly Bill 441 (Assemblymember Daniele Monroe-Moreno, D) would change how Opportunity Scholarships are administered. Senate Bill 350 (State Sen. James Ohrenschall, D) would extend the time period the state has for carrying out an execution of someone on death row. Assembly Bill 398 (Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, D) would provide additional pay for public school district teachers in hard-to-fill positions and establish a fund for broader charter school raises. Yeager amended the charter school provision into the bill after Lombardo threatened to veto the K-12 education budget over the issue. AB 398 passed the Legislature with broad bipartisan support, with only Democratic Assemblymember Natha Anderson opposing. After its final vote, Lombardo signed the K-12 budget bill, a strong sign he will likely sign AB398. Assembly Bill 555 (Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, D) would prohibit private insurance companies from charging people more than $35 for a 30-day supply of insulin. The bill received broad bipartisan support, with only Senate Republicans John Ellison and Robin Titus opposing. Assembly Bill 452 would ensure customers receive full refunds with interest for overcharges and extend regulatory timelines for rate case reviews. The bill received bipartisan support, with eight of 15 Assembly Republicans supporting the bill. All eight Senate Republicans voted for the bill after an amendment. Assembly Bill 96 would mandate that cities and counties with populations exceeding 100,000 people include 'heat mitigation' as part of their master plans. The bill passed with some bipartisan support. Three of 23 Republicans supported the bill. Assembly Bill 457 (Assemblymember Venicia Considine, D) originally sought to close a potential loophole that can be used by corporate landlords to avoid paying the state's commerce tax. It has now been amended into a study on the issue. Only one Republican, Assemblymember John Steinbeck, supported the bill. Assembly Bill 217 would prohibit school employees from granting permission to immigration officers to enter a school, or provide student records, including information on a student's family, without a warrant. Six of 23 Republicans joined Democrats in support. Assembly Bill 185 (Assemblymember Natha Anderson, D) would bar most HOAs from prohibiting licensed home-based childcare operations within their communities. Fourteen of 23 Republicans opposed. Senate Bill 69 (Storey County) would require companies seeking massive tax abatements to enter into agreements to defray the costs of the government-provided services they would require. Seven of 23 Republicans opposed. Assembly Bill 215 (Assemblymember Daniele Monroe-Moreno, D) would prohibit high school teenagers from working between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. before a school day. The bill received broad bipartisan support, with just three Senate Republicans voting against it. Assembly Bill 502 would boost the state's ability to investigate and enforce prevailing wage violations. The bill received broad bipartisan support,with only two Assembly Republicans opposing. Assembly Bill 112 (Assemblymember Duy Nguyen, D) would allow workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to use their accrued leave to care for family members. The bill passed the Legislature with some bipartisan support. Senate Bill 121 (State Sen. Dina Neal, D) changes what homeowners' associations are allowed to require of new residents. Eight of 23 Republicans supported. Senate Bill 348 (State Sen. Julie Pazina, D) would increase the fee hospitals pay the Nevada State Public Health Lab for a newborn screening panel to expand newborn screenings for rare diseases. Thirteen of 23 Republicans supported. Assembly Bill 241 (Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui, D) would require counties to speed up the process to rezone land currently designated commercial use into residential or mixed use. Three Republicans supported. Assembly Bill 121 (Assemblymember Venicia Considine, D) would require all non-optional fees, such as sewer and water, be listed in advertisements for rental properties. It would also require landlords to offer a way for tenants to pay rent without added processing fees. Three Republicans voted for the bill. Assembly Bill 211 (Assemblymember Venicia Considine, D) would allow a third party to take over the property until repairs are made and living conditions improved. The bill passed with broad bipartisan support, with only Republican state Sen. Robin Titus opposing. Senate Bill 88 would discharge medical debt from those incarcerated once they leave prison. The bill received broad bipartisan support. Senate Bill 54 would require the state's Department of Health and Human Services to apply for a federal waiver and amend the state Medicaid plan to cover medical respite care for people experiencing homelessness. Assembly Bill 321 (Assemblymember Jovan Jackson, D) seeks to establish a pathway for formerly incarcerated people to work as firefighters with the Nevada Division of Forestry. Assembly Bill 104 would establish the Nevada Voluntary Water Rights Retirement Program, which would allow willing landowners to sell their water rights back to the state through the year 2035. Assembly Bill 277 (Assemblymember Rich DeLong, R) would make the Net Proceeds of Minerals Bulletin public again. Assembly Bill 176 (Assemblymember Selena Torres-Fossett, D), known as the Right to Contraception Act, would strengthen protections against a state or local government burdening access to contraceptive measures. Senate Bill 353 (State Sen. Marilyn Dondero Loop, D) would increase Medicaid reimbursement for mental health providers.
Associated Press
29-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Nevada film credit expansion backers still confident despite critical reports
Backers of the two bills to significantly expand Nevada's film tax credits remain confident in their proposals even after recent state-commissioned reports cast doubt on their likelihood of being financially sustainable. In correspondence shared with The Nevada Independent, Sen. Roberta Lange (D-Las Vegas) criticized an independent report commissioned by the Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED), saying the analysis of her bill ( SB220 ) had 'flawed and misleading conclusions.' Meanwhile, the proponents of the bill sponsored by Assm. Sandra Jauregui (D-Las Vegas) and led by Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. Discovery ( AB238 ) did not push back against the report's findings, but provided additional context as to why the third-party analysis differed from their own fiscal estimates. The responses reflect the confidence that each side has in their own proposals heading into the home stretch of the legislative session. Given the state's precarious financial situation, legislators are skeptical about whether the projected economic benefits are enough to offset the massive tax credit expansion. Lange has proposed a merger of the two proposals that would decrease each project's allocation of film tax credits but increase the overall price tag to about $2.2 billion over 18 years, The Indy reported Wednesday. The GOED-commissioned reports, first reported by The Indy and conducted by the Arizona-based firm Applied Economics, cast doubt on both proposals' long-term economic viability. Though they expected a significant economic return on investment — meaning ripple effects in the economy of (which they acknowledged was difficult to predict), the analyses estimated that the amount of recouped direct tax revenue would fall far short of breaking even with how many tax credits were invested. In other words, the bills could benefit the economy at large even though they would bring a negative return on investment when looking at just the public funds involved. But is that deterring the lawmakers who may soon decide the idea's fate? Several prominent legislators — including Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) and Senate Finance Chair Marilyn Dondero Loop (D-Las Vegas) — told The Nevada Independent on Tuesday that they were still assessing the proposals. Jauregui and Assembly budget chair Assm. Daniele Monroe-Moreno (D-North Las Vegas), the two primary sponsors for the bill backed by Sony and Warner Bros, said Tuesday they had not read the state's report. However, Assm. Brian Hibbetts (R-Las Vegas), one of several members to vote the Sony-backed bill out of committee while reserving his right to change his vote on the floor, said while he had not read the full report, the initial reporting 'does not bode well, in my opinion, for either one of those measures.' Progressives have pushed back on the film tax credit measure, with the Executive Director of Battle Born Progress Shelbie Swartz saying that the analyses from the Governor's Office of Economic Development prove that expanding film tax credits is unsustainable. 'These tax credits are and always have been an unprecedented corporate handout,' Swartz said. 'Now, lawmakers and Nevadans everywhere deserve transparency and the full release of this analysis to see just how bad this deal really is.' Lange's bill The state-issued report brought particularly negative news for Lange's bill, which has not yet received a hearing in a pivotal money committee. Her proposal calls for $1.6 billion in film tax credits across an 18-year period (the current film tax credit program would instead set aside $180 million during that same time frame) and the creation of a nonprofit supporting a UNLV-affiliated research center. The independent report's estimate of state and local tax revenues on Lange's proposal came in 341 percent and 169 percent lower, respectively, than the analysis by the firm hired by Birtcher Development and other backers. It acknowledged that these differences were likely attributable to differences in modeling and methodology. The analysis also expected a significant decrease in the fiscal (taxpayer dollar) return on investment in Lange's bill. In a response shared with The Nevada Independent, Lange pushed back on the independent report's economic impact model, which is based on historical assumptions and is one that the state frequently uses for economic analyses. When the bill's proponents commissioned an economic analysis, it relied on a model that used real-time market data, she said. 'While we welcome analytical rigor, we reject the suggestion that historical assumptions from unrelated employment categories should dictate future opportunity for Nevada and its citizens,' Lange said in her response. Lange said that the analysis 'grossly understates the job creation and income effects for local workers' by expecting that 25 percent of the jobs created would be sourced locally, while proponents project that number to actually be 75 percent. That delineation is not specifically outlined in the report. Lange also criticized the report for not addressing a three-year ramp-up period, which she said in an interview would have increased the estimated job and revenue numbers. Her bill's proponents also said they believe the report mischaracterized the kinds of jobs that would be created under the project, which resulted in lowballing estimated wage numbers. And she criticized the report for doubting the verifiability of tourism related to film production 'despite strong industry precedent and recent global benchmarking studies,' citing a study on Nevada's film tax credits conducted last year. Sony, Warner Bros. bill AB238, sponsored by Jauregui, proposes appropriating $95 million in annual transferable film tax credits for 15 years beginning in 2028, an 850 percent increase from the amount that would be set aside under the state's existing film tax credit program. An amended version would also create a special entertainment district to funnel revenue from certain local taxes related to the film production toward the Clark County School District (CCSD) to build up pre-K programs. There are different estimates on how many pre-K seats it would fill, ranging from 2 percent to 5 percent of current need. The independent report on Jauregui's bill showed a fiscal return on investment ($0.52 for every dollar invested) higher than what proponents of the measure projected ($0.46 for every dollar). However, the independent analysis stated that this 'does not ensure that sufficient new tax revenue will be generated for this type of incentive to be sustainable.' In response to the report, proponents of Jauregui's bill told The Indy that although the analysis expected slightly lower economic return across the 15-year period, this was likely because of different types of calculations, such as the monetary amount of sales per square foot of land. Supporters also acknowledged that their own report might have been 'overly conservative' on sales and use taxes related to construction that 'may warrant future reevaluation.' ___ This story was originally published by The Nevada Independent and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Democracy at gunpoint: Why Nevada needs Assembly Bill 105
(Photo: Ronda Churchill/Nevada Current) Imagine this: a scorching sun baking the dusty air as armed militia stand guard outside a polling station, rifles at the ready. Families lingering at the edges, wary of being turned away – or worse. The heat only intensifies the tension that crackles in the breeze, while the sight of people with guns near the voting booths imparts an unsettling sense of danger. Here's the thing: you don't have to rely on your imagination here. This scene isn't unfolding in a distant war-torn landscape; this was Phoenix, Arizona, during the 2022 midterm election, where armed Americans in tactical gear stood next to a ballot drop box. A similar scene unfolded in Las Vegas, Nevada, where two armed men paced outside of a ballot tabulation center. The presence of firearms in close proximity to voters has become a troubling reality here at home, a reality we often think only happens far from American soil. Such intimidation tactics can sow fear and deter citizens from exercising their most fundamental democratic right: the right to vote. Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui is addressing this problem in Nevada by introducing Assembly Bill 105. This legislation aims to ensure that Nevadans can cast their ballots without fear of violence or harassment. Specifically, this bill would: Prohibit the possession or presence of firearms within 100 yards of election sites, which include any polling place or central counting place. Create exceptions for law enforcement officers carrying out official duties, security personnel, firearms stored in cars, and people whose homes or businesses are within 100 yards of election sites. Establish a gross misdemeanor for individuals who violate this prohibition. Upgrade to a felony any knowing violation of the prohibition when it is done with the specific intent to disrupt, interfere with, or monitor the administration of the election, the counting of votes, or any person who is voting or attempting to vote. In 2023, Jauregui introduced similar legislation (AB 354), which passed along party lines and was subsequently sent to Gov. Joe Lombardo, who vetoed it as part of a trio of other common-sense gun laws. Assembly Bill 105 recognizes the simple truth: voting is safer when firearms are not present. In fact, many states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Washington – already regulate the carrying of firearms at polling places. Additionally, firearms are prohibited in courthouses and other sensitive government buildings, reinforcing the principle that certain environments necessitate stricter standards for public safety. By keeping polling places free from the intimidation factor that firearms can present, Nevadans will be able to vote with confidence, free from the looming threat of violence. After all, polling places are where Americans exercise their most powerful democratic privilege: the freedom to cast a ballot and have their voice heard. AB 105 is a measured, necessary step toward safeguarding that right for everyone.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Democrats' gun bills advance, but face likely veto by Lombardo
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A gun bill passed by Democrats in the Nevada Legislature has advanced to Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo's desk, where it faces a likely veto. Assembly Bill 245 (AB245) would raise the age limit to own a semiautomatic shotgun or rifle to 21 years old. The bill passed on party lines in the Assembly (27-15) and the Senate (12-8, with one excused). Nevada governor vetoes bill to expand mail drop boxes before Election Day The bill was sponsored by Democratic Assembly Majority Leader Sandra Jauregui. Another bill, Senate Bill 89 (SB89) would take away the guns of someone convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime. That bill has passed in the Senate (12-8, with one excused), and is expected to pass in the Assembly. Democratic State Sen. Julie Pazina sponsored the bill. Democrats passed the same bills in 2023, but Lombardo vetoed both pieces of legislation. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Lawmakers forge ahead with film tax credits bill, precarious economic outlook notwithstanding
'This has no impact on the current budget,' said Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui, noting the tax credits wouldn't kick in until 2028. (Photo: Richard Bednarski/Nevada Current) Lawmakers appear open to advancing a proposal that would greenlight $1.8 billion in tax breaks to the film industry over 15 years because the proposal would give nothing away in the upcoming two years. Assembly Bill 238 would massively expand Nevada's film tax credit program to support the build out and operation of a 31-acre film hub currently referred to as the Summerlin Production Studios Project after the Las Vegas neighborhood where it would be located. Sony Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, and Howard Hughes Holdings are attached to the project. Largest public subsidy in state history makes legislative debut The bill, which received a policy hearing in early February, was heard by the Assembly's finance committee on Friday. AB 238 would set aside $120 million in film tax credits annually for 15 years — $95 million for productions at the Summerlin studio and $25 million for productions not tied to the studio. That's a twelvefold increase over the state's current film tax credit program, which is capped at $10 million annually. But the increase wouldn't kick in until July 2028. That means the Legislature does not have to consider the $95 million in tax credits as part of the biennium budget it is currently working on Lawmakers would only have to consider a relatively small $206,000 fiscal note submitted by the Governor's Office of Economic Development, whose Nevada Film Office wants additional staff to administer the program. 'This has no impact on the current budget,' emphasized Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui, who is sponsoring the bill with Assemblymember Danielle Monroe-Moreno. But at least one lawmaker raised the possibility that economic uncertainties may linger beyond the upcoming biennium cycle. 'Let's say that we get yet another Economic Forum with a similar outlook that we had last week,' said Assemblymember Natha Anderson, referring to a $151 million reduction in Nevada's expected revenue forecast amid sharp economic volatility driven by Trump administration economic policies. 'Is this date set in stone? Or will there be discussion about possibly pushing it back again?' Jauregui responded that an amendment is currently being drafted proposing 'additional guardrails.' She did not elaborate, saying the language is still being finalized. Legislative staff noted that $110 million, the amount the $10 million program would expand by, represents about 1.8% of the state general fund after tax credits. As lawmakers mull massive expansion of program, WWE offers glimpse of how film tax credits work Lawmakers in the hearing discussed WrestleMania 41 and related events, which last month was approved to receive $4.2 million in transferable film tax credits. As the Nevada Current reported last month, Wrestlemania's application illuminates how the program currently operates. Assemblymember Shea Backus asked legislative staff what the WWE would have received under the provisions of AB 238. The bill, in addition to raising the annual cap, also changes the calculations used to determine the amount of transferable film tax credits each production can receive. Chief Principal Deputy Fiscal Analyst Michael Nakamoto calculated that Wrestlemania would have qualified for $8.3 million in transferable film tax credits, nearly double what it received under the program as it exists today. Backus noted that $8.3 million exceeds the amount WWE estimated it would spend on local labor and businesses. On its end, WWE estimates that its Wrestlemania events generate $200 million in economic activity for the host city. Jauregui pushed back on the narrative of the bill as a giveaway, saying it requires investment of private dollars into the state and is a job creation bill. 'The legislation will generate $3 billion in annual economic activity,' she claimed. 'That is Wrestlemania 15 times a year.' Added Monroe-Moreno, 'We have a responsibility to find ways to diversify our revenue streams in the state of Nevada. As the fiscal leader of this committee, I would have never put my name on a bill if I didn't believe it provided a pathway for us to do that.' AB 238 is one of two film tax credit expansion bills introduced this legislative session. The other is Senate Bill 220, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Roberta Lange. SB 220 received a policy hearing last month and was referred to the Senate Finance Committee where it has not been scheduled for a hearing. Lange could not be reached for comment on the status of her bill.
