In Carson City, Nevada State lawmakers worked late into the night over the past week. They were in the final push to get bills passed in both the Senate and Assembly before the legislative session ended.
An increasing number of the bills they were working on were focused on the needs of Nevada’s Indigenous communities.
Keeping an eye on all of them was Assemblymember Shea Backus — a Democrat from Clark County and the only sitting Nevada legislator who is Indigenous. Backus, who was first elected in 2019, says she has seen a rise in the amount of legislation pertaining to tribal issues.
Between hearings, she talked to KNPR about that — as well as her own bill proposing to change the state’s official Indigenous People’s Day, which Republicans oppose. And at the head of the state Republicans is Gov. Joe Lombardo.
“I'm sad to say that I think [Lombardo]’s going to veto every bill that is on his desk that raises up different diversities and celebrates,” Backus says.
Backus’ Assembly Bill 144 received a partisan 27-15 vote in the Assembly and a 14-7 vote in the Senate and made it to the governor's desk.
But there are bills that have already received the governor’s approval, such as a bill that adds protections to tribal judges and acknowledges tribal sovereignty, across party lines.
“One of the things that Assemblymember [Max] Carter wanted to do was make sure that our local governments could be more open to agreements with our tribes,” she says. “And I liked in his bill, he was wanting to reiterate and recognize our sovereignty.”
This session Backus continued her push to acknowledge the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Person’s (MMIP) movement. In the last legislative session, Backus was able to push a bill into law that requires the state to add a state tribal liaison to the Nevada Department of Public Safety, a state website to track Nevada’s cases and for all police departments in the state to accept MMIP cases.
This legislative session she added more protections to tribal members that are associated in domestic violence cases. In the state, there are reservations that do not have a police department and rely on federal agencies, like the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to respond to calls. Often an eight hour drive.
“I went to one of our Te-Moak [Tribe of Western Shoshone] bands and when I went out there they had tribal police officer cars just sitting out there to give the looks that they had local officers but they too had to wait for basically BIA officers to come out for a call of domestic violence.” Backus says.
Now that the state legislative session is over the governor has hundreds of bills on his desk to review. He has until June 13 to veto or approve bills.
Guest: Assemblymember Shea Backus, democrat, Assembly District 37
