Update on two key bills: Bond rollover/prevailing wage and voter ID

Here's what's happening on two GOP bills driving Democrats batty:

►SB 119: The bill to allow school bonds to automatically roll over and remove prevailing wage requirements from school construction is in limbo in the Assembly after passing the Senate on a party-line vote. Why? Here's what sources tell me:

Democrats are hung up on the prevailing wage provisions, as they were in the Senate. But the real problem is that some of the Republicans consider the automatic bond rollover a tax increase and want to send it to the locals to enact.

This is the same kind of cowardice that last year's session used to kill the Washoe County school repair bill. If that were to happen again -- I am told it won't -- Clark County's Democratic board would kill it because of the prevailing wage and Washoe County's GOP board would entomb it because of the bond rollover.

I'm also told some geniuses in the GOP Ass. Caucus want to simply remove the bond rollover provisions to make it a prevailing wage bill, perhaps being obtuse enough not to get why the issues were linked in the first place. (Anyone notice the Democrats are now on record voting against school construction?) Sources say Clark County officials have informed lawmakers they need the bill to pass by March 1 -- that's the end of next week -- or they can't get buildings erected in time for the next school year.

I hear GOP leaders are close to having the votes, but it's not soup yet. That could be a familiar refrain this session.

►The Washington Post's Reid Wilson picked up on the voter ID bill introduced in the state Senate this week. But what I didn't notice was that the Senate leaders changed the rules on the floor to refer the measure to the Finance Committee, a signal it is not a priority for them or the governor. It is a tried and true tactic to refer a bill to a money committee to kill it.

Yes, it's still alive, and Democrats will worry. But Gov. Brian Sandoval indicated in an interview with me last month that he thinks voter ID is a solution in search of a problem, and this tweet by the AP's Riley Snyder indicates what is really happening.

My sense is voter ID is like redistricting: Republicans will keep them in their back pocket in case the Democrats don't play ball on other issues. Bottom line: It's good to be in the majority.

 

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