Nevada Legislature reaches midpoint

The 2003 Nevada Legislature reaches its midpoint during the upcoming ninth week of the session, with lawmakers starting to close budgets -- and run out of pay.

Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means will both start closing budgets on Monday, although they'll be dealing with the smaller and least controversial spending plans. The big ones won't be finalized until May.

The 120-day session will be half over on Thursday -- and the 60th day is the last one the lawmakers will get their $130-a-day pay. But they also get $85 in daily pay for expenses for the entire session, plus other allowances.

The Assembly has scheduled floor votes Monday on several major bills, including AB15 which bars the executions of mentally retarded criminals, and AB118, which prohibits executions of minors.

Criminal history records will be discussed in Senate Judiciary; and Medicaid measures will be up for debate in Assembly Health and Human Services, Assembly Ways and Means and Senate Human Resources and Facilities.

Ways and Means also is reviewing AB25 and AB482, dealing with child welfare and foster care services.

Also Monday, Senate Government Affairs is considering SB342, dealing with complaints against police officers.

The agenda for Tuesday -- April Fools' Day -- includes a batch of tax bills in both Senate and Assembly Taxation committees. Among them is Majority Leader Bill Raggio's SB308, to make counties split growth in property tax revenues with the state.

Millions of dollars worth of capital improvement projects will be considered in a joint budget subcommittee hearing. The biggest is a $32.2 million psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas.

Another budget subcommittee will look at spending plans of the Office of the Military, Department of Public Safety and Department of Corrections.

Also Tuesday, Assembly Judiciary will review AB441 and AB462, homeland security measures that require, among other things, monitoring to see who has access to lists of explosives permits.

Assembly Government Affairs will take up AB428, a Douglas County-spawned proposal that would make it tougher for citizen groups to use the initiative process to impose growth controls or other county master plan changes.

Election laws and campaign finances will be discussed in Assembly Elections, Procedures and Ethics. Lake Tahoe is on the agenda in Senate Legislative Affairs and Operations. And Senate Transportation will discuss a proposed magnetic-levitation train linking Las Vegas with Southern California.

On Wednesday, Assembly Education considers bills that require libraries in public high schools to be open to the general public when classes aren't in session.

Also at midweek, Assembly Health and Human Services considers AB503, which modifies the state's medical marijuana laws.

On Thursday, the last day the lawmakers get their regular pay, Assembly Government Affairs will discuss AB464, establishing a commission that would review lawmakers' salaries.

Senate Judiciary deals with SB430, which would let ex-felons who've completed jail sentences, parole or other penalties to petition courts for the right to own and use a gun.

More tax measures are up for discussion in both Assembly and Senate Taxation. And more election law changes are up for debate in Assembly Elections, Procedures and Ethics.

Also Thursday, Senate Finance takes up SB191, a massive bill introducing federal No Child Left Behind reforms and revising state school testing procedures.

And Assembly Judiciary reviews AB460, the cigarette crackdown bill giving merchants new powers to prevent minors from trying to buy smokes.

On Friday, Assembly Constitutional Amendments reviews AJR7, which proposes to amend the Nevada Constitution to allow for limited annual legislative sessions. Now, lawmakers meet every other year.

Also Friday, Assembly Judiciary studies AB320, a bill designed to lower medical malpractice insurance and speed up reimbursements for doctors.