Senate Minority Leader Robin Titus at the 2025 State of the State. (Photo: Richard Bednarski/Nevada Current)
Senate Minority Leader Robin Titus on Monday said the Republican caucus will not file a lawsuit challenging the legality of two resolutions passed by Democrats last month during the waning moments of the 2025 Legislative Session.
Titus, a Republican from Wellington, said there is legal standing to challenge one of the resolutions, but that the second resolution, which is the primary source of the party’s ire, would not likely be invalidated because “the judiciary is unlikely to intervene in internal legislative process and procedures.”
“We will prosecute our case in the public opinion,” she added.
The Legislative Commission, which meets during the interim period between Nevada’s biennial legislative sessions to approve regulations and handle other legislative matters, consists of 12 members, six from each chamber. Senate Concurrent Resolution 8 changed the guidelines for determining the partisan split of the commission, resulting in Democrats strengthening their majority on the powerful interim board.
Specifically, Senate representation on the commission moved from an even split (three Democrats, three Republicans) to favoring Democrats 4 to 2. The Assembly side was already divided 4-to-2 in favor of Democrats and remains so under the new formula.
That brings the overall makeup of the Legislative Commission to eight Democrats and four Republicans. It had been expected, based on a resolution passed in the first days of this year’s session and resolutions from prior sessions, to be seven Democrats and five Republicans.
Senate Resolution 9 appointed specific lawmakers to the newly restructured commission.
SCR8 was introduced in the literal final hour of the final day of this year’s legislative session, which the state constitution required to end on June 2. Titus, reading prepared comments Monday at this interim session’s first meeting of the Legislative Commission, noted that the resolution was voted on in the Assembly before the Senate, “a procedural irregularity that denied minority memberships adequate review and deliberation.”
Titus called the actions “unacceptable in a body committed to fairness, that legislates for an even partisan state.”
Once SCR8 was brought up for a vote in the Senate, Democrats used parliamentary rules to cut off debate and force a floor vote, which led to a series of motions and outcry from Republicans. The resolution passed on party lines. Resolutions are not subject to gubernatorial vetoes, leaving no recourse for Republicans.
The flurry of motions and heated comments on SCR8 amounted to a filibuster for SR9, which appointed specific lawmakers to the commission and was up for vote in the Senate after SCR8. SR9 was not voted on until after midnight — 12:18 a.m. on June 3, according to Titus.
The timing of the SR9 vote makes “a strong legal case to invalidate,” read a Senate Republican Caucus press release recapping Titus’s statements, but “judicial intervention is unlikely on SCR8 due to longstanding precedent against courts intervening in internal legislative matters.”
Under SR9, Titus and fellow Republican state Sen. Ira Hansen were appointed to the 2025-27 Legislative Commission. The four Democrats appointed were Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro and state Sens. Skip Daly, Rochelle Nguyen, and Melanie Scheible.
Cannizzaro, who was running Monday’s commission meeting when Titus made her comments, did not respond to the broader criticism of the 11th hour passage of SCR8. Instead, she said the meeting was an inappropriate venue for a debate on legislative matters and that the commission has rules of decorum that do not allow the “calling out” of other members.
Cannizzaro refuted only one allegation made by Titus: that Republican Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony was “locked out” of the chamber and not able to fulfill his constitutional duty of presiding over the Senate.
“That is 100% untrue,” she said.
Titus, Anthony and other Republicans have publicly claimed that the lieutenant governor was blocked from entering the chamber. Senate President Pro Tempore Marilyn Dondero Loop, a Democrat, presided over the Senate during the stretch of the 11 p.m. floor session where SCR8 was voted on.
At Monday’s Legislative Commission meeting, Hansen briefly spoke during the public comment period about the incident.
“He may not have been locked out,” said Hansen of the lieutenant governor, “but I stood there and witnessed him trying to get into … the chamber and saw the sergeant-in-arms blocking him from entering the chamber.”
Democratic Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui, who earlier in the meeting was selected chair of the Legislative Commission, cut Hansen off after three minutes. Public comment is typically limited to three minutes per speaker.
Partisan power grab?
In the first few days of the 2025 Legislative Session, state lawmakers passed an Assembly concurrent resolution that, among other things, included rules for establishing the partisan split of the Legislative Commission. That resolution mirrored language used in prior sessions and specified that if the minority party controlled at least one-third of seats in a chamber, the commission would be evenly divided between the parties. If the minority party controlled between one-fifth and one-third of seats, the party would have two of the six seats for their chamber.
SCR8 changed those guidelines. Now, the minority party only gets two of six seats if they control at least a third but not half of their chamber’s seats, and the commission is only evenly divided if the chamber is evenly divided.
The Senate Democratic Caucus has not publicly commented on why they sponsored the 11th hour resolution to change the makeup of the commission. The caucus did not respond to the Nevada Current’s request for comment Monday.
Republicans have characterized it as a partisan power grab.
The Legislative Commission gives final approval to regulations established by state agencies. Those can have major impacts across the state, and they can be controversial. For example, onerous regulations drafted by the Secretary of State’s Office and approved by the Legislative Commission were cited as the reason why at least one rural county opted not to attempt to hand-count ballots in the 2024 elections.
The Legislative Commission’s makeup now more closely resembles the makeup of the state’s other powerful interim body, the Interim Finance Committee, which handles money matters while the full Legislature is not in session. The IFC is composed of the members of the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means committees, whose makeup is determined by the partisan split of each chamber.
IFC has 23 members — 17 Democrats and six Republicans. The Legislative Commission, with 12 members, now has eight Democrats and four Republicans.
For comparison, the Nevada State Assembly’s 43 seats are split 27 Democrats, 15 Republicans. The Nevada State Senate’s 21 seats are split 13 Democrats, eight Republicans.
The Legislative Commission has been the source of partisan-driven drama before. In 2017, Democrats appointed to the commission Patricia Farley, a Republican turned nonpartisan who during that session had mostly voted with Democrats. The move drew sharp criticism from the minority party. That year, Democrats also did not appoint the senate minority leader as a commission member, a break of tradition.
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Author: April Corbin Girnus
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