Legislature

By Richard Karpel The first truly horrendous bill of 2019 is barreling our way. Senate Bill 224 would hide the names of all members of Nevada’s Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) from public scrutiny. Anonymized information about the PERS system would still be subject to public records requests, but there …

By Barry Smith The Nevada Supreme Court has upheld a strict reading of the state’s open-meeting law in a case that began with wildlife traps set by a Nevada state legislator five years ago and transformed into an ethics complaint. It all began when Assemblyman Ira Hansen, a plumber, outdoorsman, …

by Barry Smith In one case, a city council paused its meeting for a three-minute recess and huddled in private before the mayor announced, “We’ve got this figured out.” In another, the board’s policy on public comments advised its members “not to respond to even the most ridiculous statements.” And …

With the action last week by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, rescinding a memo from the Obama administration that had made federal prosecution of marijuana a low priority in states where recreational or medical use had become legal, the uncertainty of advertising again became an issue. We have described the situation …

Two changes went into effect recently on public notices involving name changes because of bills approved by the 2017 Legislature. No notice is required at all if the name change is for purpose of conforming to the person’s gender identity, according to Senate Bill 110. It went into effect upon …

(Updated with additional information on the emergency regulations adopted this week. A second update adds a warning about mailing permits.) Recreational marijuana is set to go on sale legally in Nevada on Saturday, which means we can also expect more advertising for dispensaries. How much, though, remains to be seen. …

In Gov. Brian Sandoval’s explanation of why he vetoed SB384, which would have specified some open records for the Public Employees Retirement System while closing others, he accurately hit on key points we had argued in our opposition to the bill. “SB384 has merit,” the governor wrote. “Protecting public employees …

With just three days to go, the 2017 legislative session has reached the critical stage where most of the work is done, but major pieces of legislation still hang in the balance and the specter of a special session hung over the building on Thursday when a budget deal fell …

By Steve Ranson New Voices emerged to counteract a Supreme Court decision in the 1980s involving the Hazelwood School District v. Khulmeier. Essentially, this ruling allowed educators to censor student-written articles, stop newspapers from being distributed to the student body and retaliate against journalism advisers who dared promote reasonable free …

Below is a list of many of the bills and bill drafts that we were tracking at the Nevada Press Association during the 2017 session, which concluded June 5. We have two primary interests — open government (meetings, records and public notices) and the newspaper industry, when it may be …