During the two months she took to recuperate from brain surgery, St. Sen. Debbie Smith, D-Sparks, watched with an outsiders eye of what’s been happening in the state Legislature this session.
From her view, it’s not so much that Democrats, who no longer hold majorities anywhere in the Legislature, were silent.
“It’s more about the fact that they haven’t had the opportunity to have a voice,” she said. The Republican majority, she said, has been cutting off debate before opposing views can be heard.
Smith also said Republicans have not even let her proposal to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and stalkers be heard.
“It’s never been heard and my caucus tried to amend some of the language and that was even quashed,” she said. “It’s disappointing.”
Meanwhile, a bill to legalized the carrying of concealed weapons on college campuses just sailed through the state Assembly. Smith thinks it will have a much more difficult time in the Senate.
“And I would be shocked if (Governor Brian Sandoval) supported it,” she added. “There’s been a loud chorus of people who have expressed their concerns … when have a university president and a lot of faculty and students expressing their fear and concerns, I don’t know how you don’t hear that.”
Smith underwent surgery in February to remove a brain tumor at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. The experience heightened her awareness, she said, of the need for better medical care in Nevada. While UNLV has asked Governor Brian Sandoval for $27 million to kick-start development of a medical school in Las Vegas, his budget proposes only $9 million.
Smith said she will fight “to do whatever I can to fund that school because I do see, especially now, how critical it is.”
St. Senator Debbie Smith, D-Sparks
