Daylight saving no more?
Nevada could stay on Pacific Standard Time year-round instead of advancing the clock each spring if lawmakers pass AB81. The bill’s sponsor, Assm. Selena La Rue Hatch (D-Reno), said she hasn’t heard any “formal opposition” against the measure.
Here’s a few key details from the bill’s first hearing:
Legislation to institute year-round Pacific Standard Time has been introduced in Nevada before, but many of those bills were tied to other states, such as 2021’s SB153, which would have only allowed Nevada to change its clocks if California did.
La Rue Hatch said that her bill was the “only option” for enacting the change.
“We are the Nevada Legislature, and I don't think we can wait on anybody else to do what's right for our constituents,” she told the Assembly Committee on Government Affairs on Monday.
Doctors and medical professionals have said permanent standard time is tied to better health outcomes and aligned better with human circadian rhythms.
“This bill is a way for us to immediately have positive impacts on our public health without us having to spend any money,” La Rue Hatch said.
Since 1966, it has been against federal law to enact permanent daylight saving time but states can enact permanent standard time if they lie entirely within a time zone.
Nevada is in the Pacific time zone, but several rural communities — most notably West Wendover on the Utah border — use Mountain Time.
Arizona and Hawaii currently have year-round standard time. California voters also approved it via a 2018 ballot measure, but are waiting for state lawmakers to pass the required legislation.
If passed, AB81 would become effective on July 1, 2025, but a proposed amendment would change that to Jan. 1, 2026.
Universal free school meal bill is back
Assms. Sandra Jauregui (D-Las Vegas) and Shea Backus (D-Las Vegas) last week introduced AB268, an effort to revive a pandemic-era universal free school meal program. The bill would appropriate $43 million to the Department of Agriculture in each of the next two fiscal years to run the program.
Context: Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed similar legislation in the 2023 session, saying in his veto message that it should be addressed at a district level and would contribute to food waste. On the heels of Democrats’ announcement last year that they would bring back the legislation, the governor condemned “partisan attacks” over free school meals and said existing state programs ensure “every student in need can receive free school meals.”
The DMV “infamous housekeeping bill”
Nevadans filled a hearing room to overflowing on Thursday to protest a bill (AB20) from the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles related to imprinting codes on driver’s licenses to indicate if a person has a certain medical condition.
Opponents raised fears about the agency collecting private medical data, but according to Sean Sever, deputy administrator at the DMV, putting medical codes on IDs isn’t “something new” and has been done since the 2000s.
In 2023, lawmakers unanimously passed SB362, which allowed the DMV to create and put a symbol on the front of agency-issued ID cards indicating that a person had a medical condition. DMV officials said that legislative legal staff told them this preempted the practice of printing medical codes on the back of licenses, so AB20 was an attempt to fix that.
Sever said adding the medical code is optional and “it’s a benefit to alert [first responders] if you have a certain condition you want them to know about.” He also said the medical code will be numerical and only first responders have access to what those codes mean.
Can press register as lobbyists?
Reporters covering the Legislature received a curious email from the Legislative Counsel Bureau (LCB) on Feb. 4 informing them that based on the passage of Assembly Concurrent Resolution 1, they needed to register as a journalist with the LCB in order to “be granted the privilege of accessing areas designated for such persons on the floor or in the chambers of the Senate or Assembly.”
The registration process isn’t new — but codifying the previous rules on the accreditation of journalists at the Legislature is. Why?
The answer appears to stem from a federal lawsuit filed by unsuccessful Assembly candidate and businessman Drew Ribar, who last Friday sought a court order to force the Legislature to allow him to register as both a lobbyist and press corps member. The rules adopted in ACR1 prohibit a person from being accredited as a reporter if they apply to become a lobbyist or engage in lobbying activities.
Here’s what we know about the lawsuit and Ribar:
Ribar, who describes himself as a “staunch conservative,” unsuccessfully ran against Assm. P.K. O’Neill (R-Carson City) in a GOP primary. He was also temporarily suspended from Washoe County libraries after being accused of disrespectful conduct and harassment of library staff at drag queen story hour protests.
Ribar told The Nevada Independent he’s bringing the lawsuit because the denial of press credentials prevents him from covering the legislative session and hinders his lobbying efforts, thereby silencing his free speech.
“Historical precedent is obviously there,” Ribar said when asked if he thinks it’s not a conflict of interest to be a member of the press and a lobbyist. “If you’re lobbying and pushing a bill and you’re recording and documenting what you’re doing, and then putting it out there for the public to see so the public can judge you, how could there be a conflict of interest?”
Emails shared by Ribar show the general counsel for the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau’s (LCB) legal division, Kevin Powers, writing that under the state’s Lobbying Act, Ribar cannot register as an unpaid lobbyist and obtain media credentials.
Powers declined to comment on the litigation, but a letter from LCB Legal to Ribar outlines the reasons for not issuing credentials for both positions.
It would be “unreasonable and absurd,” the letter says, for a person to be both a registered lobbyist and exempt from its provisions as an employee for a news medium.