EDITORIAL: Nevada Democrats prefer politics over action on housing

The legislative session revealed many things, not the least of which is that Democrats aren’t serious about addressing Nevada’s housing issues.

Lawmakers adjourned last week after a chaotic final few hours in Carson City. Among the late casualties was a joint resolution promoting efforts to free more federal land in the state for development. The proposal was symbolic, but its fate highlighted that Democrats have little interest in embracing real solutions to soaring housing costs.

The federal government controls about 85 percent of Nevada’s land, the highest percentage of any state. This has created a shortage of property for additional housing development in Clark County. The laws of economics prevail: Squeezing supply drives up costs. And so it is that the average home in Southern Nevada costs $475,000 — more than double what it did a decade ago.

Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo has been outspoken in calling for Washington to unlock more Nevada real estate. In February, he asked legislative leaders to draft a resolution decrying “the lack of developable land” and asking the federal government to release more property within Nevada’s borders to help alleviate the “unbearable strain” of high housing costs.

In response, Assemblywoman Sandra Jauregui, D-Las Vegas, introduced Assembly Joint Resolution 10, which supported a congressional public lands bill proposed by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. That legislation, which has been mucked up repeatedly to gain support from myriad special-interest groups, has made little headway, but it’s better than nothing at all.

Yet even this tepid resolution couldn’t survive the gantlet of progressive politics. AJR10 cleared the Assembly 36-6 but never got a vote in the Senate after the Democratic leadership bowed to pressure from greens. Many environmental groups have no interest in promoting the release of any federal lands, preferring instead to characterize such proposals as efforts to allow developers to plunder Red Rock Canyon or other protected sites.

This is nonsense. The extent of federal land holdings in Nevada makes it less challenging to balance protection of sensitive lands with the need for additional housing.

Majority Democrats did, however, find the time to pass a handful of housing-related measures that feature discredited policies such rent control while further burying private landlords under a mountain of regulation. These bills, which the governor should veto, will make the affordability problem worse.

The most promising way to address the state’s housing “crisis” is to build more housing. That majority Democrats in Carson City sided with green activists who believe that releasing even a minuscule percentage of federal land is unacceptable indicates they’re more interested in scoring political points than actually attacking the problem.