Special Session of the Legislature is Coming

The Nevada Independent

The governor is calling a special session of the Legislature; could guns be on the table?

On the surface, no. The state constitution is quite specific that special sessions can only deal with the matter they were convened for, which would be coronavirus relief.

Art 4. Sec. 2A.  Special sessions of Legislature: Procedure for convening; precedence; limitations on business and duration; void actions.
      1.  The Legislature may be convened, on extraordinary occasions, upon a petition signed by two-thirds of the members elected to each House of the Legislature. A petition must specify the business to be transacted during the special session, indicate a date on or before which the Legislature is to convene and be transmitted to the Secretary of State. Upon receipt of one or more substantially similar petitions signed, in the aggregate, by the required number of members, calling for a special session, the Secretary of State shall notify all members of the Legislature and the Governor that a special session will be convened pursuant to this section.
      2.  At a special session convened pursuant to this section, the Legislature shall not introduce, consider or pass any bills except those related to the business specified in the petition and those necessary to provide for the expenses of the session.

Art 5. Sec. 9.  Special sessions of Legislature: Authority of Governor; limitations on business and duration; void actions.
      1.  Except as otherwise provided in Section 2A of Article 4 of this Constitution, the Governor may, on extraordinary occasions, convene the Legislature by Proclamation and shall state to both houses, when organized, the business for which they have been specially convened.
      2.  At a special session convened pursuant to this section, the Legislature shall not introduce, consider or pass any bills except those related to the business for which the Legislature has been specially convened and those necessary to provide for the expenses of the session.

The state constitution requires two votes, in separate sessions, so a 2020 special session would be the first vote and the second vote would be in the 2021 regular session. Following that, the income tax must be approved on the ballot by the voters before it becomes law.

As for any details about guns, that's unknown. Special sessions can only deal with the reason they are called, the COVID-19 crisis, and it would be difficult to work a gun control bill in, but not impossible. We've seen the Legislature ignore constitutional provisions before.

Right now, it depends on how the need for the session is worded on what can be proposed. A narrow financial need due to COVID-19 would be hard to stretch against guns.

The one thing they could do is argue that coronavirus related to states of emergencies and target the law protecting the Second Amendment during a state of emergency, but the federal court battle to protect that might be too high of a hill to climb. Like I said, Sisolak is already unpopular enough. Secondly, a repeal of that law would just confirm why it was enacted in the first place.

​One thing is clear: taxes are going to go up.