A plan for the last weeks of the Nevada Legislature

A little more than two weeks remain in the 2013 Legislature, and as usual, the sprint to adjournment will settle the fate of stacks of bills, some of them good, some of them awful.

More than 1,000 bills were introduced this session, the vast majority of them unnecessary. A lot of them never got a hearing. Most are dead. The bills that are still alive, however, will get lots of last-minute lobbying and scrutiny in Carson City. Here are our recommendations on a handful of remaining bills that are especially worthy of passage and defeat.

Bills to pass:

■ Assembly Bill 161: It would institute a third-grade reading test that can decide whether a student advances to fourth grade. It also requires early intervention and parental notification when students are deemed at risk of being held back. Graduation rates won’t significantly improve unless Nevada halts the social promotion of functionally illiterate students.

■ Assembly Bill 184: This bill would rein in Nevada’s construction defect racket, which guarantees plaintiff attorney fees and encourages frivolous lawsuits that drive up building costs. AB184 would end automatic attorney fees and stop lawyers from suing over easily fixed cosmetic issues.

■ Senate Bill 374: Voters amended the state constitution to allow seriously ill residents to use marijuana for medical purposes. But that vote required the Legislature to make it possible for patients to obtain the drug. SB374 finally honors the will of the electorate by authorizing medical marijuana dispensaries.

■ Assembly Bill 335: Plans for a UNLV campus football stadium are being rethought, but whatever plan takes shape requires the creation of a special taxing district and a Campus Improvement Authority. AB335 is the first step toward executing a bold campus master plan.

■ Senate Bill 311: A true “parent trigger” law won’t get the support of the Legislature’s majority Democrats, but SB311 might be the next best thing. It allows a school’s parents, with a 55 percent majority, to convert a failing campus into an empowerment school. If the school still underperforms three years after that, parents can convert it into a charter school. Fewer students would be doomed to attend a failing school.

Bills to kill:

■ Assembly Bill 166: Nevada has several border communities where significant numbers of workers commute from out of state. AB166 would require anyone who lives in another state but works in Nevada to obtain a permit for their vehicle — a de facto registration fee. That’s some thanks for people who fill the labor needs of taxpaying Nevada businesses. The little revenue this bill would generate isn’t worth longer lines at the DMV.

■ Assembly Bill 407: Assemblyman Andrew Martin, D-Las Vegas, was seated this year even though a judge ruled before his election that he didn’t live in the district he sought to represent. The Legislature has a long history of lawmakers living in one district and representing another. The remedy proposed in AB407? Banning judges from making residency rulings in the four months before an election. That’ll teach those carpetbaggers!