It’s the last week of the legislative session. Here are 4 things to watch.

The Nevada State Constitution requires the Legislature pass the K-12 education budget bill before other budget bills. But that doesn’t seem to stop lawmakers from bickering about education policy until the very end of each session.

This year may prove no exception.

Education. Of course.

Legislators must end the 120-day session — sine die, they call it — on Monday, June 2. In this final week, two major education bills backed by two major political players are still in play. Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, a Democrat from Las Vegas, is pushing Senate Bill 460. Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo is pushing Assembly Bill 584.

Both bills span more than 100 pages and cover myriad components of the education system, including oversight of school districts, charter schools, and the quasi-voucher program known as Opportunity Scholarships. Both bills have received hearings — in Senate Education and Assembly Ways and Means, respectively — but no action has been taken.

That status isn’t surprising given the partisanship of education policy. Amendments can almost be assumed.

Meanwhile, as of late Tuesday, the status of the state’s K-12 education budget was also unknown. Senate Bill 500 was passed by legislators and has been delivered to the governor. Lombardo had previously threatened to veto the bill over concerns about charter school teacher pay.

Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager’s Assembly Bill 398, which attempts to address the concerns that prompted the veto threat, passed the full Assembly nearly unanimously last week. Democrat Natha Anderson cast the sole vote in opposition.

Film tax credits

One of the two bills proposing a massive expansion of the state’s film tax credit program is administratively ready for a vote by the full Assembly, though whether the support is there is still unknown.

Democratic Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui’s Assembly Bill 238 was advanced out of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee over the weekend. Five of the 14 committee members opposed — Democrats Howard Watts, Natha Anderson and Selena Torres-Fossett, and Republicans Jill Dickman and Gregory Hafen. Several others disclosed that they would be voting to advance the bill but were reserving their right to oppose during the floor vote.

Two days after that committee vote, The Nevada Independent reported that a study commissioned by the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development found that neither film tax credit expansion proposal is financially sustainable.

AB 238 would provide $1.8 billion in tax breaks to the film industry over 15 years to support the build out and operation of a 31-acre film hub currently referred to as the Summerlin Production Studios Project. Sony Pictures, Warner Bros, and Howard Hughes Holdings are attached to the project.

An economic analysis presented by a firm hired by the Sony Studios project developers acknowledged that the direct return on investment per tax credit is low — for every $1 in tax credits the state gives, the state would receive 20 cents in tax revenue. However, their analyses included much rosier projections about the indirect and induced impacts. Indirect financial impact includes things like the drycleaners and caterers used by productions, and induced impact includes things like the assumed household spending based on employee’s labor income.

Veto watch

Lombardo vetoed a record 75 bills during the 2023 session, including some bills that had received bipartisan support in the Legislature.

How this year’s session will compare remains to be seen. As of late Tuesday, the legislative website showed the governor as having vetoed only one bill: Assembly Bill 306. The bill would have expanded the number of ballot dropboxes in the state.

In his veto message, Lombardo called the bill “well intentioned” but said it fails “to guarantee appropriate oversight of the proposed ballot boxes or the ballots cast.” He added that he believes election reforms should be considered “as part of a larger effort to improve election security, integrity and allow Nevada to declare winners more quickly.”

Nearly 200 bills are now listed as in the governor’s office awaiting a signature or a veto. The governor has five days to sign or veto a bill, meaning some vetos may happen after the session ends.

Nonpartisan voters

Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager over the weekend introduced Assembly Bill 597, which would allow nonpartisan voters to participate in either a Democratic or a Republican primary without having to register to that political party.

To do so, the voter would have to request from their county clerk a mail ballot for one of the major political parties. Or they would have to vote in person.

Nevada voters last year rejected a proposal to open the state’s closed political primaries and create a ranked choice voting system instead. Question 3 was approved by voters in 2022 but defeated in 2024. It needed to pass on the ballot twice because it involved amending the state constitution.

Both major political parties opposed that ballot measure. Several party leaders suggested their problem with that proposal was with the ranked choice component, not the open primary. A third of all registered voters in the state are nonpartisan — if they were a political party they would be the state’s largest — and those wanting election reform have long argued those voters are being disenfranchised because they cannot participate in the partisan primaries.

Yeager’s emergency bill is a big policy discussion to have with only a week left, but the Legislature can move quickly when it wants.