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CARSON CITY — Nevada lawmakers will race to amend and vote on hundreds of bills Monday and Tuesday ahead of a deadline to pass legislation out of the chamber in which it was introduced.
The full Senate and Assembly will take up measures likely ranging from plugging certain domestic water wells to lowering the age at which children are required to attend school, to 6 from 7 years old.
Any proposals not passed out of their originating chamber or exempted from the midnight Tuesday deadline will die. Clearing that hurdle symbolizes the halfway point for many bills, which must pass both the Senate and Assembly in the same form before going to Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval.
The future of new and existing state programs are being considered using estimates of the amount of money Nevada will have to fund them in the coming two years. Precise revenue calculations will be released May 1, when budget negotiations between Sandoval's office and legislative leaders ramp up.
At the last legislative deadline on April 15, about 250 bills died after the Democratic majority refused to give them hearings or lawmakers failed to prepare them for a committee vote.
"We had the opportunity to weed through some bills that were maybe great ideas but had issues with implementation or maybe they didn't come out the way a sponsor had hoped that they'd come out," Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson told reporters Friday. "So now we can focus on the good bills."
More than 700 proposals remain, many of which have already passed out of their originating chamber.
Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford said Friday that he was pleased with the progress lawmakers had made.
"We're working through bills at a good pace," he said. "We said on day one that we thought this was going to be a deliberative, thoughtful legislative session, and we're living up to that."
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