CPB and Steve Sanchez: We Need Lawmakers, Not Placeholders

Members who write and read the bills

Chris Brandlin and Steve Sanchez discuss what they see missing from the Nevada Assembly: members who actually draft legislation and read what they are voting on.

The structural point underneath this is specific to Nevada. The Legislature meets in regular session only every other year, for 120 days, and members are part-time and lightly staffed. That compresses an enormous volume of bills into a short window and makes it entirely possible to vote on legislation nobody in the room has read closely. Their argument is that the format rewards members who arrive prepared and quietly punishes districts whose members do not.

Whether an individual legislator clears that bar is checkable rather than rhetorical — bill sponsorship, committee work, and every recorded vote are published by the Nevada Legislature. That is the premise behind the voting record page.

Related: the earlier conversation with Sanchez and the nine commitments. More at podcasts and television.