State GOP strategy makes them sound like Democrats

Nevada Assembly Minority Leader Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas, left, talks with Assembly Majority Leader Paul Anderson, rear, and Assemblywoman Melissa Woodbury, both R-Las Vegas, on the Assembly floor at the Legislative Building in Carson City, Nev., on Monday, March 16, 2015. Lawmakers worked to meet the deadline to get individually sponsored bills introduced. (Cathleen Allison/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

CARSON CITY — Republicans in control of the Nevada Senate are keeping Democrats on their toes, slipping ideas historically pushed by the Democratic Party into bills backed by the GOP. It’s a ploy commonly seen in the halls of Congress, forcing lawmakers into a tough choice: hold their nose and vote in favor of a bill they don’t like because of minor provisions they support, or vote against it and — come election time — explain to voters why they opposed popular measures.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen it here,” said David Damore, political scientist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “You also have to understand you have a unified government, so they can get away with this.”

For the first time in decades, Republicans control the Senate, Assembly and the governor’s office, making it less likely provisions inserted by the GOP in one chamber will be stripped out in the other.

It’s a tactic being used more and more by the GOP in this year’s Nevada legislative session, and the GOP so far is racking up issues to crow about come next year’s election.

“I think it’s a combination of the Republicans taking advantage of a rare opportunity where they have both houses and the governor’s office as well as a chance to play offense on policy,” said Robert Uithoven, a GOP strategist.

School construction bonds. Raising the minimum wage. Increased education spending and reforms. Keeping guns out of the hands of mentally ill and domestic violence offenders. And yes, tax hikes. Once issues near and dear to the Democratic agenda, they are being pushed, tweaked, embraced and touted by the GOP Senate leadership.

“The most striking thing of the session is how effectively they’ve been getting their bills done,” said Eric Herzik, political scientist at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Republicans, he said, are “making it very uncomfortable for the Democrats.”

The latest example came during a recent committee vote on Senate Bill 193, which would remove a requirement that low-wage earners be paid time-and-a-half if they work more than eight hours in a 24-hour period. Small business owners argued the change in overtime law would give them more flexibility in juggling staff and would benefit workers, allowing them to put in extra hours to compensate for taking time off for family or other matters. The bill still requires overtime for hours worked in excess of 40 per week.

Sen. James Settelmeyer, a Minden Republican and chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Labor and Energy, began a discussion on possible amendments when freshman Sen. Patricia Farley, R-Las Vegas, suggested one to raise Nevada’s minimum wage to $9 an hour, a 75-cent hourly raise for workers who do not receive employer-paid health insurance.

“There’s an opportunity here to move it along and do the right thing,” Farley said.

Democrats on the committee were flummoxed and accused the Republican majority of trying to box them in.

“You guys are throwing out an arbitrary number,” said state Sen. Kelvin Atkinson, D-Las Vegas, noting other proposals were pending addressing the minimum-wage issue. “This is crazy. I don’t know what we’re doing.”

The measure passed out of committee and was pending on the Senate floor.

“I thought Sen. Settelmeyer did an excelleet job today and so did Sen. Farley,” Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson, R-Henderson, said later that day when asked about the move. “And what you just saw under this Republican-controlled Legislature is a bipartisan vote to raise the minimum wage.”

It was a golden opportunity and a GOP spin-weaver’s dream.

“For Republicans, it’s a pretty simple political message,” Uithoven said. “We’re supporting employers and employees in the same bill. Typically that’s been difficult for Republicans to articulate in a campaign.”

The GOP has been painted as a party for the rich: elites who look down their noses at the downtrodden and regular working folks.

Democratic operatives are trying to keep that image in focus and are being aided by outrage from labor groups, who vow to take their revenge at the ballot box next year over Republican moves to change prevailing wage laws, overtime rules and collective bargaining measures.

“I think it’s going to be a very clear choice in next year’s election based on the priorities you’ve seen from Republicans … big corporations, campaign donors and special interests,” said Zach Hudson, spokesman for the state Democratic Party.

Despite Democrats’ 62,000-voter registration advantage, apathy by the party’s voters and organized labor in the 2014 election led to the “red wave” of GOP dominance playing out in Carson City.

Early in the session, a bipartisan measure to extend school district bonding authority to jumpstart school construction was folded by the GOP into a divisive measure to abolish prevailing wage requirements on school projects. It passed along party lines.

Senate Minority Leader Aaron Ford, D-Las Vegas, has tried to downplay the GOP interception of long held Democratic ideals, though he’s critical of the regularity of “poison pill” legislation being brought this session.

“The truth is the Democrats have the good ideas and the Republicans recognize that, and so they co-opted our ideas and they put in their extreme ideas that make it divisive,” Ford said.

“We’ve always had our priorities,” he said. “Just because our political power has shifted doesn’t mean that Democratic priorities have.”

“It’s interesting to watch,” UNR’s Herzik said. “The Republican leadership has been very effective on bills that Republicans can coalesce around. The tougher lifting comes later in the session.”

Indeed, the battle over taxes — not whether to tax but how to tax — will dominate the session’s end-game maneuvers. With popular Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval pushing a $1.1 billion tax package to increase school funding and reforms, some type of tax measure is almost assured despite protestations from a conservative contingent, especially in the Assembly.

Passage would dull the campaign barbs often lobbed at Republicans by Democrats over who cares more about children and education.

“As they advance these bills, it’s very clear that the Republicans are tired of playing defense in political campaigns,” said Uithoven, the GOP strategist.

The message of a kinder, caring GOP could also help sway the hundreds of thousands of nonpartisan Nevada voters who will play a large role in the outcome of next year’s elections.

“So long as Republicans continue to be outnumbered in voter registrations, they need to find policies that the independent voters in this state and swing voters will grasp on to,” Uithoven said.

“I think that’s a big part of this effort: finding policy measures they can advance that will not only win over Republican voters but conservative Democrats and independent voters as well.”