VICTOR JOECKS: Lombardo stopped taxpayer-funded abortions

Abortion proponents have long hidden their support of murdering pre-born babies behind euphemisms. Purposefully opaque language almost led to Nevada taxpayers funding abortions.

Despite Gov. Joe Lombardo calling the recent special session and setting the agenda, he didn’t boost his standing with voters. The Hollywood handouts bill failed. Ironically, that was probably the best outcome for him politically. Members of the Republican base strongly opposed the bill. Lombardo won’t have to endure their full fury because he didn’t sign it.

Lombardo’s crime bill includes some marginal improvements. One notable provision in Assembly Bill 4 is an effort to remove criminals from the Strip. That’s good. Southern Nevada’s economy is in deep trouble if tourists don’t feel safe.

The retail theft provision, however, is quite weak. Currently, someone who steals less than $1,200 worth of goods is guilty of only a misdemeanor. Democrats raised that threshold in their terrible 2019 crime bill. That’s more lenient than California and has contributed to a shoplifting surge. It’s one reason retailers have put so many items behind glass.

This new bill would make it a felony to steal items worth $750 or more while intentionally damaging property at a store. That would encourage retailers to put more items behind lock and key.

Democrats also slipped a poison pill into the bill. It prohibits schools from giving certain law enforcement agencies access to school property. That is aimed at ICE, as it doesn’t apply to local police and some other federal law enforcement agencies.

On the surface, this runs afoul of the memorandum of understanding Lombardo signed two months ago with the Department of Justice. Lombardo did that in order to remove Nevada from the DOJ’s list of sanctuary jurisdictions. In that memorandum, Lombardo listed his veto of a bill containing a similar provision as a reason Nevada isn’t a sanctuary state.

As of Friday, Lombardo hadn’t signed the bill, although his team is already downplaying this concern. If the DOJ puts Nevada back on its list of sanctuary jurisdictions, Lombardo will have major political problems.

There was one thing Lombardo did right, and it hasn’t received much attention. Senate Bill 5 was supposed to be a noncontroversial effort to attract more medical providers to Nevada. The original bill, however, directed more than $1 million in funding to “entities described in section 71113 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025.”

As it turns out, those “entities” are abortion providers. As the bill was originally written, abortion providers could have received funds to expand abortion access. Instead of debating that openly, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro tried to sneak it through. An eagle-eyed reader deserves credit for noticing this. Shortly after I exposed this on X, Sen. Ira Hansen raised the issue on the Senate floor. Cannizzaro admitted her duplicity.

Because of this provision, most Republican senators initially opposed the bill. That is not an easy vote to make when legislators learn about a hidden provision like this on the fly.

As an aside, one of those brave senators was Carrie Buck, who is running for Congress. It can be hard to tell if GOP candidates are as conservative as they claim to be. Buck stood against both taxpayer-funded abortion and Hollywood handouts. Republican voters can support Buck confidently in her primary.

In the Assembly, the bill was amended to prevent money from funding abortions. That’s a credit to Lombardo because Republicans didn’t have the legislative votes to force the change. His veto pen matters.

Of course, this all could have been avoided if Lombardo hadn’t called this unnecessary special session.

Contact Victor Joecks at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.