Vote Nevada Supporters,

As we near the end of the 2022 election cycle, now is a good time to review what happened and begin planning for the 2023 legislative session.

Election Takeaways:

You can access numbers for races state-wide from the Secretary of State’s website: https://silverstateelection.nv.gov/

Many races were very close, and some races had high numbers for the None of These Candidates option.  Our electorate was almost evenly divided in many races, and many voters split their tickets between the two political parties.  

You can read an early assessment of the election cycle overall by Dr. Dave Damore, from UNLV and Brookings Mountain West, here: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2022/11/16/blue-metros-red-state-politics-in-the-2022-nevada-midterm-elections/

Tomorrow, each county’s registrar or clerk will present the final vote totals to their respective county commissions, and then, when the county commissions accept the final tallies, the certified results will go to the Secretary of State.  The Secretary of State will then present all the results to the Nevada Supreme Court.

We had three ballot questions before us this year and all three passed.  Questions 1 and 2, the Equal Rights Amendment and the Minimum Wage constitutional amendments, will go into the constitution immediately after certification.  Question 2, however, does not go into effect until July 2024.

Ballot Question 3 is a citizen petition constitutional amendment, so it must pass again in 2024.  Ballot Question 3 passed with close to 53% of the vote. 

Fortunately, Alaska adopted a similar election reform in 2020, so, the state implemented the reform this year.  Here are the Alaska totals right now: https://alaskapublic.org/2022/11/16/alaska-election-results-live/

Alaska has a law similar to Nevada’s that requires election officials to wait to receive and tabulate their mail-in ballots, so, when that time period ends on November 23rd, any races without a candidate who has a majority of the votes will enter into an instant runoff.  

In those races, the candidates with the fewest votes are eliminated and the voters who selected those candidates as their first choice have their second-choice votes transferred to their second-choice candidates.  A second runoff tabulation then occurs, and the runoff process continues until one candidate in each race has at least 50%+1 votes.

Currently, it looks like Mary Peltola will win the election to the House of Representatives as the first indigenous woman to represent Alaska at the federal level.  And it is likely that Lisa Murkowski will win re-election to the U.S. Senate.  Both women will likely win after one round in an instant runoff.

Congresswoman Peltola sent Nevada a message: https://twitter.com/MaryPeltola/status/1593014322716119042?s=20&t=xKTu6r1JiUVTJgmTQrMjbQ

After our election results are certified, we will pivot to the next session of Congress and the 2023 legislative session.  

The federal House of Representatives will have a Republican majority, so the leadership and committee chairpersonships will change.  The U.S. Senate currently has a 50/50 membership, which gives the Democrats a majority due to Vice President Harris’s tie-breaking vote.  

Because no candidate received 50%+1 in Georgia’s U.S. Senate race between Senator Raphael Warnock and challenger Herschel Walker, there will be a runoff election on Tuesday, December 6, 2022. 

Legislatively, at the state level, the Democrats have the majority in both houses, but only have a supermajority in the Assembly, so, they do not have the votes needed to override a veto.  With a new Republican Governor, this may become an issue if there is conflict over bills and budgets.

Over the next few weeks, each party will select members to serve in legislative leadership roles, and then leadership will appoint members to committees.  When the election ends, you will be able to see each chamber’s members and leaders here https://asm.leg.state.nv.us/  and here https://www.leg.state.nv.us/Senate/

You can access additional information about the legislative session, which starts February 6th, here: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/Session/82nd2023/

In December, the Economic Forum, the commission of economic experts who estimate how much tax revenue will be available over the next biennium, will meet to release their estimates on Monday, December 5th, at 9:30.  You can access the hearing and the hearing materials here: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/InterimCommittee/REL/Interim2021/Meeting/24289

You can also watch past Economic Forum meeting recordings here: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/InterimCommittee/REL/Interim2021/Committee/1906/Meetings

After the tax revenue estimate is set, the Governor’s Budget must not exceed that amount unless tax cuts and/or tax increases are included to account for the additional spending.  Governor Sisolak’s team has already created the state budget, so, we must wait to see if incoming Governor Lombardo decides to make any changes to that budget.

The Governor’s State of the State Address will be in the middle of January.  And there will be two weeks of agency budget hearings with the Interim Finance Committee before the legislative session begins.  During these hearings, our state agency heads provide an overview of their budget requests.

Vote Nevada will offer our Advocacy Training Workshops in early January to prepare for the legislative session.  In these workshops, we will review the many features of the legislature’s website and discuss legislative processes.

One very good piece of news: Member of the Vote Nevada Mental and Behavioral Health Committee, Dr. Sara Hunt, successfully presented her proposal to have Nevada adopt a mental health workforce development program similar to Nebraska’s program to the Rural Regional Behavioral Health Policy Board! 

The Board agreed to sponsor the proposal, so we have a Bill!! https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/82nd2023/Bill/9566/Overview

AB37 will put Nevada on the path to address our severe shortages of mental and behavioral health care providers, so, KUDOS to Sara! 

Thank you for being Nevadans with me,

Sondra

Vote Nevada: Solving Problems with Civics

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