January 2023
The Legislative Session Ahead
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s we begin a new year, I would like to express our gratitude to our members for their participation in the year 2022 both in supporting RAN and for their political involvement. There’s the old saying, “get involved with politics or it will get involved with you”, and it certainly still holds true. We appreciate the fact that we get communications of concern, compromise, and support, and I hope you had an amazing Christmas and New Year’s holiday. Last year’s election was very tense and either held peoples’ attention captive or pushed them away from candidates and their platforms. The viciousness of the campaigns turned many voters off too. The press jostled back and forth between a Republican tsunami to a Democrat wave, but in the end, many of the elections continued the status quo and the turnout was not what was expected by any party. I had to go back and remind myself not to use the term “either party” because the independent nonpartisan voters in Nevada are growing stronger as evidenced by registration and turn-out. As a result of the 2022 election, we have a new Governor, Joe
By Mary Lau, RAN CEO their legislative numbers declined further. The Senate only needs one Republican to side with the Democrat leadership to push bills through. It has been more years than I can remember since Republicans have held firm and been able to parlay an advantage where they can also represent their constituents. Too many times our Republican friends have considered their own advantage before good policy. Republicans will also be charged to work in concert with the new governor.
Mary Lau Lombardo, a new Lieutenant Governor, Stavros Anthony and a new Controller, Andy Matthews (all Republicans the remaining Constitutional Officers remained the same and are Democrats). The Assembly is guided completely by the Democrats who hold a supermajority of the seats, and the Republicans, with a superminority, will have truly little to say as far as policy and positions go. In the Senate, the Democrats ended one seat short of a super majority, leaving the Republicans with one leverage point for many important debates. What was projected to be a Republican tsunami never manifested, and
It will be interesting to see if Democrat leadership is interested in drafting good legislation and Continued on page 2
INSIDE Don’t Let a Budget Surplus Turn into a Budget Deficit... 3 State Budget Overview...... 4 Nevada Board of Pharmacy Update............... 5 Key Legislative Committees...................... 6, 7 Nevada News..................... 11