‘What we’re seeing is fear’: How national issues are affecting Nevada’s budget
CARSON CITY — In the first week of the 83rd Legislature, lawmakers spent time discussing issues specific to Nevada, from holding school districts accountable to reviewing mail ballot deadlines.
But national issues also seeped into the discourse.
GOP legislators highlighted their push for a ban on trans athletes participating in women’s sports — echoing a move President Donald Trump made this week as well. To fight the national avian flu outbreak, Democratic lawmakers are proposing a bill to temporarily suspend the state’s cage-free egg sale requirements.
“I think a lot of legislation this session is in response to some of the things happening at the federal level,” said state Sen. James Ohrenschall, D-Las Vegas.
This session will feature proposals based on what’s happening at the federal level, illustrating an overlap between the ways the federal government can influence — and derail — state politics.
Federal impact on state budget
At a budget hearing Wednesday evening, some Democrats expressed concerns that the Trump administration’s effort to cut federal spending — along with possible freezes to federal grant and loan programs, mass deportation, tariff efforts and downsizing the federal workforce — could drastically affect the state’s economy.
State Sen. Dina Neal, D-North Las Vegas, theorized the “super uncertainty” regarding the economic effects of Trump’s policies and actions could cause people to pull back on spending, which could have a significant effect on revenue in Nevada, where gaming and sales taxes play a significant role.
“What we are seeing is fear,” Neal said at the joint committee meeting of Assembly Ways and Means and Senate Finance. “And ultimately, fear makes you say, ‘I need to keep the money that I have in the bank, because I don’t know if I’m on the chopping block because my money is coming from a federal grant that no longer exists because they have went through 10 to 15 agencies and arbitrarily chopped people’s salary.’”
Medicaid was also on the minds of lawmakers in that meeting.
State Sen. Rochelle Nguyen, D-Las Vegas, asked staff in the Governor’s Finance Office whether the team was calculating “worst-case scenarios” if the health insurance program for low-income earners — which has around 800,000 Nevadans enrolled — received steep cuts. Congressional Republicans are considering cuts to the program, among other areas, to finance Trump’s domestic agenda.
Ryan Cherry, Gov. Joe Lombardo’s chief of staff, told the panel to explore potential cuts but noted that any changes are currently speculative.
Yucca Mountain protections crop up
Ohrenschall is putting forward a joint resolution urging the federal government to recognize the unsuitability of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository.
He decided to sponsor the resolution after reading Project 2025 — which calls to take another look at Yucca Mountain as a possible site — as well as listening to U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., question the new secretary of energy who wouldn’t commit to saying Yucca Mountain is not suitable.
“This is a resolution that just tries to show the federal government that Nevada is steadfast, and we still believe that the science shows that Yucca Mountain is not a safe place to build this nuclear waste repository,” Ohrenschall said.
The Democratic senator still needs to walk the resolution around to other legislators, but he expects to have GOP support, he said.
“It shows the federal government and Congress where we stand,” he said. “This is really not a safe place to store it, and there could be dire consequences to our citizens and to our economy if something were to happen in the transport from around the country of all these different plants to Southern Nevada.”
Congressional limits
State Sen. Jeff Stone, R-Henderson, also is pushing a resolution that urges Congress to call a convention of the states to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution that “Congress refuses to do,” Stone said. Those amendments would include imposing term limits and requiring a balanced budget.
Nevada would be the 25th state to join the call for a constitutional convention, and it requires 38 states to ratify, Stone said.
“It’s going to just give us a voice in how the federal government is being run,” Stone said.
National popular vote compact
An effort to effectively negate the Electoral College in Nevada will be considered once again, following the passage of a joint resolution to join the National Popular Vote Compact.
The resolution would require Nevada’s six presidential electors to cast their votes for whichever candidate wins the national popular vote, regardless of how residents in the state voted.
Former Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak vetoed a bill to add Nevada to the compact in 2019.
Assemblymember Howard Watts, a sponsor of the legislation, did not return a request for comment on the status of the resolution, which passed during the 2023 session. Because the resolution would amend the Nevada Constitution, it must pass the 2025 Legislature and be approved and ratified by voters. The compact would only take effect once the number of states to adopt the measure reaches 270 Electoral College votes.
So far, 17 states and Washington, D.C. — or 209 electoral votes — have enacted the compact into law, according to the National Popular Vote’s website.
Trent England, executive director of Save Our States, said his group opposing the compact will be in Carson City next week to lobby against the resolution.
“It’s just sort of a question of math, right?” England said. “Nevada is a small state, and the Electoral College — because it puts a limit on how much power any one state can have, it limits the power of the biggest states and it pushes that power out. Nevada gets to be sure to have a voice in presidential elections because of that system.”
Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com and McKenna Ross at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah and @mckenna_ross_ on X.
