Juneteenth bill veto disappoints organizers, puzzles lawmakers

Growing up in Chicago Deborah Evans – founder of Juneteenth Nevada – didn’t know about the holiday despite living about 10 blocks from one of the largest annual parades in the city. 

“I never happened to be on that street at the time that they had the parade,” said Evans, who moved to Las Vegas two decades ago. 

After learning about Juneteenth Day as a high school computer teacher, she picked up her camera to document her first parade and has been promoting the holiday ever since.

“We are still probably the stepchild of holidays,” Evans joked. “Twenty years later, I’m still picking my own pockets to make things happen.”

Efforts to advance the recognition and education of Juneteenth Day hit a snag last week when Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed Assembly Bill 328, a bill that would have established a Juneteenth Educational and Economic Commission within Nevada’s Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs.

“I’m quite disappointed,” said Evans, who has lobbied for a Juneteenth commission to help educate the public on the history of Juneteenth since 2023, when a previous version of the bill failed to make it out of the Legislature.

A Juneteenth commission would provide a dedicated space to research and preserve the history of Juneteenth Day while spreading awareness about the holiday, said Evans. 

The bill would have created a fund within the treasurer’s office, allowing local governments to voluntarily contribute funding for the development and coordination of formal celebrations for Juneteenth Day.

It has been four years since former President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, and two years since Lombardo signed a bill making it a state holiday. 

Yet, community activists believe that much about the history and meaning of the holiday has been buried.

Juneteenth marks the historic moment that the last recorded enslaved Black Americans were freed by Union soldiers in Galveston, Texas, two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

“We want to expand the information that’s been hidden and written over,” Evans said. “There’s so many names of people that we need to talk about that our children are not aware of.”

Currently much of the work to preserve and promote the holiday in Nevada is done without state-backing by volunteers, like Evans. The Tourism and Cultural Affairs department, which supports yearly cultural events in Nevada like Lunar New Year or Day of the Dead, could help the holiday grow.

Each June, Evans helps coordinate community celebrations and run education campaigns in honor of Juneteenth. On Wednesday, Evans gave a Juneteenth proclamation presentation during a flag raising ceremony in North Las Vegas along with Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown and U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford.

In his veto message, Lombardo argued the bill “creates an implicit obligation that may pressure local governments into making financial contributions simply because they choose to observe Juneteenth.”

“While honoring Juneteenth is a worthy goal, we must approach new spending and mandates with care, especially during a period of economic uncertainty and increasing budgetary pressures.” Lombardo wrote.

No local governments in Nevada spoke in opposition to the bill. 

Lawmakers who sponsored the bill said Lombardo’s concern the bill would create an economic burden for local governments celebrating Juneteenth were meritless.

“There’s no evidence that it would create a local burden,” said state Sen. Dina Neal (D-North Las Vegas), who cosponsored the bill.

Local governments are already committing funds to cultural events for Juneteenth Day, she added. A Juneteenth commission would only formalize those efforts and allow donations and more collaboration for the holiday.

“This was just a furtherance of the local work that had been going on for a long time. Most of the local Black leaders have just been creating and funding and doing everything from scratch,” Neal said. 

“Maybe he’s not in tune with the Juneteenth events, and maybe he should attend one,” she continued.

Assemblymember Reuben D’Silva (D-North Las Vegas), a co-sponsor of the bill, noted that the Juneteenth commission bill wasn’t the only multicultural bill vetoed by Lombardo. 

The governor also vetoed bills to establish observance days for several Asian holidays,  designate July as “Muslim American Heritage Month,” and created a day of observance for labor leader Dolores Huerta.

“There’s probably political reasons for that, I would wager,” D’Silva said. “This falls more in line with the overall broader aim to really veto and mitigate any kind of diversity or cultural inclusion bills that came out of the session. That’s what I really feel. This bill fell victim to that, along with all those other ones.”

D’Silva said he spoke with elected officials from the cities of North Las Vegas and Las Vegas throughout the session who were supportive of the bill.

“The cities themselves have budgets for this,” D’Silva said.

Neal and D’Silva said they plan to bring the bill back during the 2027 session. 

“If you don’t continue to share what has happened to the generation that came before you, then the information is no longer used or available for those groups to understand ‘where did you come from and what have you actually gone through?’ That’s why that bill mattered,” Neal said. 

A Juneteenth commission could help bring together businesses, nonprofits and community groups to educate the public about the significance of Juneteenth Day, Evans said. She hopes a successfully expanded Juneteenth Day celebration will also bring new economic activity and energy to North Las Vegas and other Nevada cities. 

Evans said she was proud the bill got farther during the session this year than in 2023, when it failed to even make it to the governor’s desk. She’s optimistic it can be signed into law next session. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, said Evans. 

In 2011, Nevada lawmakers passed a bill recognizing Juneteenth as a day of observance. It would be 12 years before lawmakers successfully moved a bill through the Legislature to make Juneteenth a state holiday. Evans and Juneteenth Nevada played an essential role in both.

“We are not going to stop promoting this commission, because it is a step towards education, inclusion and economic growth in all directions,” Evans said.