Special session buzz reflects bipartisan agreement to neglect real problems

Democratic state Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro and Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo seem to be seeing eye to eye on a made-for-campaign special legislative session. (Photos: Richard Bednarski/Nevada Current)

Democratic lawmakers are plotting with Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo to meet for a special legislative session where they will reanimate bills that died earlier this year, Lombardo said in an interview with KTNV this week.

One of the zombie measures, according to Lombardo, would give the California film industry hundreds of millions of public dollars that would otherwise go to Nevada education, health care, and other public services and programs. Except Lombardo phrases it differently.

Another Policy of the Living Dead the governor wants to release into the population is a crime bill Lombardo failed to get enacted during this year’s regular session. That bill met a humiliating demise when Lombardo threw it at state lawmakers instead of talking to them about it.

A special legislative session should address priorities of real urgency facing Nevadans, of which there is no shortage in an economy under siege from Trump’s fatuous whims and whiny fetishes. Myriad concerns, from housing to mental health care to household financial stability to a morally bankrupt tax structure that hits the poor the hardest, and many more, are worthy of urgent legislative attention.

Not among issues warranting immediate attention: Lombardo’s McGruff the Crime Dog bill. The same goes for the braindead Democratic monster that refuses to die, the Hollywood handouts scheme.

Lombardo, who as governor gets to call special sessions, won’t call one without pre-approval of the agenda from Democratic state Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzarro and Democratic Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager. If he called a session and Democrats, who hold majorities in both legislative houses, didn’t pass what he wanted, Lombardo would find himself trundling into his reelection campaign with the stench of impotent futility. 

Lombardo indicated in his KTNV interview that Democratic legislative leadership is receptive to a special session to consider his crime bill and a film tax credit proposal. Legislative leaders confirmed they’re talking with the governor about a special sesh, according to KTNV.

Asked via email Wednesday if they were in fact open to a special session focusing on film tax credits and Lombardo’s crime bill, and if there was anything else they’d like to see considered, the Democratic Senate and Assembly caucuses both failed to respond. 

The line between Nevada Democratic legislative leadership and the Nevada Democratic Party is imperceptible. If Lombardo had gotten out over his skis on on local TV news by promising a special session on film tax credits and a crime bill without some assurances from Nevada legislative leadership that they’d be on board, the state Democratic-industrial complex would have publicly launched rhetorical salvos at Lombardo by no later than 6:47 p.m. Monday, which is to say five minutes after KTNV posted the Lombardo interview online. 

Instead, the Democrats are responding to Lombardo’s session vision with perhaps one of the loudest and most conspicuous silences in recent Nevada political history. It sort of screams they’re all in.

Upside, downside

A candidate for attorney general, Cannizzaro might be eager for the chance to regale voters with the tale of how a shiny new crime bill (the stuff attorney general campaigns are made of) only passed thanks to her political savvy and her willingness to reach across the aisle to work with a Republican governor.

A candidate for reelection, if Lombardo passes a crime bill it might provide him a commodity he has found stubbornly hard to attain: a proactive legislative achievement to campaign on.

It appears Cannizzaro is willing to help make Lombardo look good against his Democratic opponent next year.

And it looks like Lombardo is willing to help Cannizzaro look good against not only her Democratic primary opponent but a prospective Republican opponent in the general election.

The campaign upside for both Lombardo and Cannizzaro of shelving their differences long enough to sing a duet about being tough on crime is obvious.

The campaign upside of giving (more) public money to (more) California corporations is a lot more murky, because maybe there isn’t one.

And maybe there doesn’t need to be. 

Lombardo, Cannizzaro, and a critical mass of the rest of Nevada’s elected officials of both parties have demonstrated they genuinely — ideologically — believe the best way to help Nevada households is to help business, and then prosperity will wash down upon the masses. It hasn’t worked. But long-held economic dogma can be hard to shake.

Plus, when politicians help business, rich people pretend to like and admire the politicians, which must be flattering. And of course people with a lot of money tend to have a lot of power over what politicians say and do.

Besides, if there isn’t a campaign upside to corporate giveaways, there isn’t a downside either. As has been demonstrated repeatedly over the years with stadiums and Tesla and all the other giveaways to deep-pocketed private sector interests that don’t need giveaways, if Democrats and Republicans alike vote for corporate welfare, they can hardly criticize each other for doing so. 

So they hardly ever do.

The special session Lombardo is promising — and that tellingly Democrats are not disputing — is an insult to whatever fraction of the Nevada electorate pays more than casual attention to state policy and its serial negligence.

For more casual voters, inasmuch as they notice a special session (wait, they’re meeting just to do what?!), it will likely reinforce the deep disgust so much of the contemporary electorate feels for both parties.

Portions of this commentary originally appeared in the Daily Current newsletter, which is free and which you can subscribe to here.