Difference between nightmare and reality? One election

CARSON CITY — Hey, Democratic voters: Remember when those activists told you that elections have consequences, that if you failed to show up at the polls on Election Day, bad things would happen?

Hey, organized labor: Remember when you took a pass at campaigning for all but a few Democratic candidates, and joined the campaign against the Education Initiative, which could have energized the Democratic base?

Yeah, this is what happens: During the very first week of the Republican-controlled 2015 Legislature, debates broke out over bills that would allow people to keep guns in their cars on school campuses and repeal prevailing wages on capital projects for educational facilities. Oh, and a majority adopted a rule that could allow a rare mid-decade redrawing of legislative district boundaries.

Democrats were just south of apoplectic this week as Republicans made the most of their newfound control of both houses of the Legislature. A usually unanimous vote on joint rules in the state Senate turned into a party-line standoff because Republicans managed to include redistricting language. A hearing over the gun bill saw Democrats barely containing outrage over the idea of guns on school campuses.

And when Republicans rolled their anti-prevailing wage language into a popular bill to roll over school construction bonds, things got downright nasty, with Democratic senators cross-examining Republican colleagues Ben Kieckhefer, R-Reno, and Becky Harris, R-Las Vegas. When state Sen. Kelvin Atkinson, D-North Las Vegas, demanded to know why Republicans wouldn’t just put forward a “clean bill” for the bond rollover (an idea supported by Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval) instead of marrying it to the prevailing wage exemption, committee chairman Pete Goicoechea, R-Eureka, replied that he and many others wouldn’t support one without the other.

He may as well have said, “Because we can. Any other questions?”

Again and again in the first week, Republicans reminded frustrated Democrats that GOP-backed ideas introduced in previous sessions never even got hearings. (Kieckhefer, for example, said majority Democrats had ignored his prevailing wage idea in the 2013 session.)

Official message: We’re in charge now, and things are going to be done differently. Unofficial message: Payback’s a total … bear. And while many Democrats showed up feisty and ready to rumble, at least one privately acknowledged a simple truth: “It sucks to be in the minority,” he grumbled.

Oh yes, it does.

It didn’t necessarily have to be this way. In state Senate District 9, Democratic incumbent Justin Jones lost to Harris by about 2,300 votes in November, resulting in Democrats losing control of the upper house. If just 1,181 people had voted differently, Republican Michael Roberson would not be in charge of the Senate floor, and Harris wouldn’t be the target of angry questions from her colleagues.

In the Assembly, 10 districts formerly held by Democrats flipped to Republicans, including seats held by veterans Jason Frierson, Andy Eisen, James Healey and Paul Aizley. Frierson lost by just 40 votes, Eisen by 451, Healey by 745, and Aizley by 1,197. If between 21 and 600 people had voted differently in each of those districts, Marilyn Kirkpatrick would still be speaker, and Democrats would not have to worry about Republican bills.

And this is just the beginning. Republicans have yet to uncork proposals to allow people to carry guns on college campuses; reform construction defect laws; make changes to the Public Employees Retirement System; address public-sector collective bargaining, teacher tenure and voter ID. In the past, all of those ideas might not have received a hearing, much less a committee vote or — the horror! — final approval and a governor’s signature.

But this year, those things are not just campaign-trail bogeymen designed to get complacent Democratic voters to the polls. They’re the actual agenda of the majority party.

So, life lesson for the future, Democrats and labor folks: The next time you hear somebody say that staying home on Election Day could result in bad things happening, take heed.

Steve Sebelius is a Las Vegas Review-Journal political columnist who blogs at SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 702-387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.