Friday, May 14, 2021 | 7:20 p.m.
CARSON CITY — Bills tackling police reform, multiparent adoption and a ban on “ghost guns” were sent through their second committees this week, priming lawmakers for long floor sessions as the Legislature enters its final three weeks.
The deadline was today for bills to pass through their second legislative committee — Assembly bills through Senate committee and vice versa.
One bill of contention didn’t make it through the week, as legislative leadership and Gov. Steve Sisolak announced that a proposal to ban the death penalty would not move forward. It is the third session in a row, and the second with a Democrat trifecta in power, that a death penalty ban failed to pass.
Here’s a few of the measures that survived the week.
Police use of force reform
A large-scale bill dealing with police use of force passed through the Assembly Judiciary Committee Friday on a party-line vote.
Senate Bill 212, sponsored by Sens. Dallas Harris, D-Las Vegas; James Ohrenschall, D-Las Vegas; and Pat Spearman, D-North Las Vegas, requires police to use de-escalation techniques and only use force that is “objectively reasonable under the circumstances” to bring a situation under control.
The bill also restricts the use of restraint chairs to no more than two hours at a time in most cases and bans them entirely for people who are pregnant.
It also bars police from “indiscriminately” firing nonlethal rounds into a crowd or to directly target vital areas like the head or spine unless the person poses an immediate threat to others. The bill now goes to the full Assembly.
Ghost guns
The session’s most consequential gun legislation passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
Assembly Bill 286 would ban “ghost guns,” firearms that are often built at home through kits or through 3D printers and lack a serial number. Their prevalence allows felons and others who would not pass a background check to surreptitiously obtain guns, proponents of the measure said.
Opponents of the measure like Sen. Ira Hansen, R-Sparks, downplayed the need for the bill in Wednesday’s hearing, calling it a constitutional issue and taking umbrage with the lack of data on how many “ghost guns” exist in Nevada.
“It seems to me this is a feel-good measure — it has limited, if any, actual impact on reducing crime or keeping guns out of the hands of felons,” Hansen said.
It’s difficult to correctly estimate the number of “ghost guns” currently circulating due to their untraceable nature, but data presented by proponents of the bill stated that 30% of the guns the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives recovers in California are “ghost guns,” along with 40% of the guns recovered from the Los Angeles Police Department.
The bill passed out of committee without the vote of any Republican on the committee. It now goes to the full Senate.
Ban on some decorative grass
The Southern Nevada Water Authority’s effort to ban nonfunctional grass in places not zoned for single-family housing passed out of the Senate Committee on Natural Resources Thursday afternoon.
The bill, Assembly Bill 356, has been touted as a measure that would save 12 billion gallons of Colorado River water annually by phasing in a decorative grass ban over the next five years.
Assemblyman Howard Watts, D-Las Vegas, cited upcoming potential water cuts due to drought in an earlier hearing on the bill.
“I think now is the perfect opportunity for us to advance another innovative, leading initiative in terms of water conservation,” Watts said. “That’s what this bill seeks to do in looking to phase out the use of nonfunctional turf in nonresidential developments.”
The bill passed unanimously out of committee, and now goes to the full Senate.
Multiparent adoptions
Assembly Bill 155, which would allow more than two parents to be listed as legal guardians, passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee early Thursday afternoon with Republican opposition.
The measure, led by Assemblywoman Rochelle Nguyen, D-Las Vegas, has the backing of organizations including Silver State Equality, Family Equality and the Children’s Advocacy Alliance. It was passed on a bipartisan measure through the Assembly Judiciary Committee in March, but did not receive any support from Republicans in the Senate committee.
The bill now goes to the full Senate.
