As the last day of the 77th session of the Nevada Legislature was coming to an end Monday and the clock ticked closer to deadline, legislators were becoming more and more burned out, as well as the technology they rely on.
The Assembly floor session became a perfect example of this.
The voting board that displays the legislators’ votes and tells whether the bill has passed or failed experienced a technical glitch during a vote on medical marijuana, saying that the bill had failed when it had passed.
Upon seeing that the bill had failed, two Assembly members quickly changed their votes from “yes” to “no” so they could ask for the bill to be reconsidered.
Confusion occurred as Assembly Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas, asked, “Is that the correct vote?” and as many scrambled to figure out why Assembly Majority Leader William Horne, D-Las Vegas, had voted “no” on the medical marijuana bill.
He sent out a tweet to clarify, which said, “Calm down everyone! My no vote on #SB374 was procedural because I thought it failed.”
Another error occurred in the Assembly when moments after the medical marijuana mix up.
The Assembly brought up a vote on SB 521, a bill that authorizes spending for state agencies. It was pointed out by Assembly members that it was unconstitutional to vote on SB 521 until they first voted on another bill, SB 522, which deals with the K-12 education budget.
Once Kirkpatrick realized the error, she quickly asked for a unanimous vote to fix the error, which she received from the Assembly.
Kirkpatrick summed up feelings on the last day of the Legislature stating, “I knew there was a reason I brought three packs of cigarettes today.”
