Tag Archives: State: Nevada

Review Journal: A constitutional amendment that would let voters decide whether to legalize gay marriage passed another hurdle Thursday when an Assembly panel voted in favor of Senate Joint Resolution 13.

Washington Blade: The Nevada Assembly on Tuesday gave final approval to a bill that would add gender identity and expression to the state’s hate crimes law.

Kent Harper at Mesquite Local News: Search the U.S. Constitution until both eyes are sore and you’ll find no reference to “the separation of church and state.” What you will find is the beginning portion of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

AP: The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved three of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees for a full Senate vote — including one for the influential D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Engage Family Minute provides a quick summary.

Las Vegas Sun: Following more than an hour of riveting and personal floor speeches — during which one state senator publicly announced for the first time he is gay — the Nevada Senate voted 12-9 to begin the process of repealing the gay marriage ban from the state constitution. Only one Republican, Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, joined with Democrats to vote in favor of Senate Joint Resolution 13 . . .

CBS: The Nevada State Senate is scheduled to vote today on a resolution that allows gay marriage in Nevada. SJR13 . . .

KOLOTV.com: SJR13 was approved Thursday on a 3-2 party line vote by the Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections. It now goes to the Senate floor.

AP: Private investment groups could place sports wagers on behalf of investors under a proposed law in Nevada that would allow the state to reap millions of dollars in untapped revenue.

Las Vegas Sun: The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada filed a lawsuit challenging Nevada’s “infamous crime against nature” statute with the National ACLU Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and AIDS Project. | ACLU press release

AP: Clark County District Judge Elissa Cadish submitted a letter to the senators, made public Friday, saying she asked President Barack Obama to withdraw the nomination after it appeared to have reached an impasse.

World Net Daily: They’re targeting 12 key states: Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Alaska, Arkansas, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia. The strategy was profiled Monday by David Brody of CBN News. Brody said the groups – led by the American Renewal Project – are planning briefings for evangelical pastors, voter-registration drives and other events in an attempt “to restore American to its Judeo-Christian heritage.”

Dale Carpenter at the Volokh Conspiracy: Opponents of same-sex marriage are trying to get the Court to review their recent win against SSM in the district court in Nevada, skipping any consideration of the case in the Ninth Circuit.  In their petition for certiorari before judgment, they argue . . .

The following quote may be attributed to Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Jim Campbell regarding a federal court’s decision in Sevcik v. Sandoval to uphold the state of Nevada’s ability to maintain laws and institute constitutional amendments that protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman . . .

AP on S. Florida Gay News: A federal court challenge to Nevada’s ban on same sex marriage has been turned back in U.S. District Court, but proponents vowed Friday to fight on with an argument that a pair of state laws regarding same-sex unions unconstitutionally make gay couples “second-class citizens.”

William C. Duncan at National Review: In the wake of the Ninth Circuit’s decision striking down Proposition 8, Lambda Legal sued the State of Nevada alleging the state’s marriage amendment was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Yesterday, the trial court issued a decision rejecting the claim and upholding Nevada’s law . . . The court’s holding on the question of whether same-sex marriage advocates are politically powerless is particularly interesting . . .

Catherine Glenn Foster appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss the case. | MP3 audio 12:38 mins

Daily Mail: Lance Gilman is a thriving businessman with dozens of employees. That those workers include a good many prostitutes didn’t faze the people of a rural Nevada county who recently elected him as a Storey County commissioner by a wide margin

One News Now: The legal guardians, acting on the basis of their faith, were in Washoe County Family Court arguing in favor of the life of the unborn child for three weeks. Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Catherine Glenn Foster was pleased when the court finally decided this week in favor of life.

A Nevada court Wednesday refused to force a mentally handicapped woman to undergo an abortion against her and her parents’ will.

LifeNews: Nevada District Court Judge Egan Walker has agreed that a pregnant 32-year-old mentally disabled woman will not be forced to have an abortion against her will.

LifeSiteNews: End this pregnancy and tie her tubes.’ That was the stark advice given by a a court-summoned doctor in a possible forced abortion case involving a mentally handicapped woman in Nevada, according to a transcript of a Nov. 1 hearing obtained by LifeSiteNews.

AP: The Nevada Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a request to block a judge’s hearings into the health risks of a mentally impaired woman’s pregnancy.

LifeNews: The Nevada Supreme Court has been asked by an attorney for the guardians of a pregnant mentally disabled woman not to force her to have an abortion.

Las Vegas Review Journal: The tough question used to be: “Who’s your Daddy?” But now the Nevada Supreme Court has to decide an even tougher question: “Who’s your Mama?”

AP: A Nevada state judge says he’s got the authority to order an abortion for a pregnant 32-year-old mentally disabled woman, even against the will of her Catholic adoptive parents.

Las Vegas Review Journal: Should a mentally challenged adult woman be required to have an abortion over the objections of her parents?

LifeNews: However, today, in Nevada, the life of an 11-week-old unborn baby and the future of his or her 32-year-old mother hang in the balance as a judge considers whether or not to order the woman to undergo an abortion and sterilization against her will.

UPI: Assemblyman Elliot Anderson, D-Las Vegas, will introduce a bill in the 2013 Assembly to overrule an amendment to the state Constitution limiting marriage to one man and one woman, and a November hearing in a Reno, Nev., federal court will address eight same-sex couples who assert every citizen has a right to marry, the Las Vegas Sun reported Thursday.

Las Vegas Sun: A planned visit by conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to a Las Vegas Roman Catholic church for a ceremony seeking divine guidance for legal professionals and to a Las Vegas Strip casino reception afterward was drawing criticism Tuesday from a liberal activist who promised demonstrations to mark the events.

Las Vegas Review Journal: When Leon, 26, checked into Spring Valley Hospital on July 20 with complications in her pregnancy, she assumed that her partner Simonelli, 41, could make any necessary medical decisions if she suffered unforeseen problems. But that’s not what happened, they said. An admissions officer told them the hospital policy required gay partners to secure power of attorney before making any medical decisions for each other.

National Review: Try this thought experiment. Imagine that someone grows up in poverty, works his way through law school by holding the night shift as a Capitol Hill policeman, and spends all but two years of his career as a public servant. Now imagine that this person’s current salary — and he’s at the top of his game — is $193,400. You probably wouldn’t expect him to have millions in stocks, bonds, and real estate.

Wisconsin Gazette: A federal court for Nevada will hear a lawsuit filed by eight same-sex couples demanding the freedom to marry in the state. The couples, represented by Lambda Legal, are challenging Nevada’s law banning gay marriage.

Las Vegas Review Journal: Cafferata and Jenkins, who have been together for 15 years, are among the 3,780 couples in Nevada who have entered into domestic partner­ships under a 2009 state law. This partnership gives them most of the rights and privileges of heterosexual married couples, although it has a few shortcomings. It doesn’t give them something they really want – a legal marriage.

Las Vegas Sun: A local libertarian think tank’s recent email blast to 12,000 teachers encouraging them to drop their union membership has further inflamed tense relations between the Clark County School District and the local teachers union.

AP: The Service Employees International Union . . . Target states include Colorado, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Virginia – each considered crucial for an Obama victory.

Gay Politics: Nevada and Maine could see the number of openly gay state lawmakers triple after Victory Fund-endorsed candidates advanced in primary elections last night.

Mohave Daily News: Of Nevada’s 25 delegates elected Sunday to go to the national convention, 22 openly support Paul and three back Romney. The state’s three other delegates are state party officials.

Anna Cuevas at Huffington Post: Is there a correlation between divorce and foreclosure? Does foreclosure increase the likelihood of divorce, or does divorce increase the risk of foreclosure? The answer is both are probably true.

Mesquite Citizen: Millions will answer the call to prayer on May 3 and organized events will be held in thousands of public venues throughout the nation from Washington, D.C. to Hawaii. Nevadans in large and small communities create their own events led by volunteers who share information and post unique events on the website provided by the National Day of Prayer Task Force www.NationalDayofPrayer.org

Las Vegas Sun: Lambda attorneys in the suit highlighted what they suggested was a contradiction in which the state’s Constitution limits marriage to couples composed of a male and a female, while at the same time the Legislature in 2009 created Nevada’s Domestic Partnership law. | Lambda Legal press release and documents

Las Vegas Sun: Organizers of one of two competing anti-abortion petitions decided Tuesday to pull their initiative, hoping to present a united front behind the so-called personhood initiative being circulated for signatures now.

Rasmussen: Incumbent Republican Dean Heller holds a seven-point lead over his likeliest Democratic challenger, Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, in Rasmussen Reports’ first look at the U.S. Senate race in Nevada.

Religion Clause: As previously reported, the Nevada Republican Party yesterday scheduled an evening caucus to accommodate Orthodox Jews who could not attend Saturday daytime caucuses for religious reasons.

Religion Clause Blog: In Martinez v. Clark County, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5313 (D NV, Jan. 18, 2012), a Nevada federal district court, while dismissing claims against the state attorney general, refused to dismiss claims against the county and county officials challenging the constitutionality of Nevada’s statutes limiting who may perform marriage ceremonies

Judge James E. Wilson granted an injunction to stop a group called Personhood Nevada from going forward with its initiative petition, the so-called personhood amendment. Wilson said he expects his ruling to be appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court.

A district judge today ruled against pro-choice advocates seeking to stop an initiative petition that proposes to outlaw abortion by declaring that life begins at conception.

Reno Gazette-Journal: ackers and opponents of two proposed ballot initiatives in Nevada to ban abortions were resolute Wednesday in their efforts a day after voters in conservative Mississippi defeated a similar ballot measure there.

The Hill: The Iowa Republican Party officially set its caucuses for Jan. 3, guaranteeing a standoff between New Hampshire and Nevada for timing of their early primary elections and pushing the primary season up against the holidays for the second consecutive presidential campaign.

American Civil Liberties Union: A group of registered Nevada voters today filed the first of two lawsuits this week challenging two proposed ballot initiatives that could ban vital health services by granting legal protections to fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses. | Related Personhood USA press release

Christian Post: The ACLU brought suit in March on behalf of two members of the American Humanist Association, Raul Martinez and Michael Jacobson, who said they were denied certificates to perform marriages because they are not affiliated with a religious organization.

The Hill: Republican Mark Amodei coasted to victory Tuesday, delivering an all-out defeat to Democrat Kate Marshall in Nevada’s first special House election since the state entered the union, according to election results compiled by The Associated Press.

NPR (includes audio): The latest episode in Sister Wives is playing out in the courtroom, not on cable. On Wednesday, the Brown family — the husband, four wives, and 16 children who star in the reality TV show — plans to file a lawsuit in federal court in Utah. The family members say the state’s anti-bigamy law is unconstitutional and that Supreme Court precedent backs them up.

WSJ.com: —The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday unanimously upheld a Nevada state law barring local lawmakers from voting on matters in which they are judged to have a conflict of interest.

AP: A Nevada judge ruled Thursday that political parties can pick who will represent them on the ballot for the Silver State’s first special election to fill a vacant U.S. House seat.

AP: The Nevada Supreme Court is hosting an interactive Law Day Live forum linking courtrooms in Las Vegas, Carson City, and Winnemucca around an American Bar Association theme honoring the legacy of the nation’s second president, John Adams.

BBC: The Republican governor of Nevada has appointed Congressman Dean Heller to replace a US senator resigning over a probe into his affair with an aide.

Las Vegas Review Journal: Senate Bills 368 and 331, which would outlaw transgender discrimination in housing and public accommodations, were approved on votes of 13-8 and 11-10.

AP: Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada is turning in his official resignation letter Friday, a day after announcing he would step down amid a developing ethics probe he feared would result in further “wear and tear” on himself and his family.

Washington Post: The question is whether Carrigan should even have participated in an application for a new casino in this boomtown near Reno. It has turned into a major constitutional showdown with national implications for how states may police public officials who face a potential conflict of interest in conducting the people’s business.

Las Vegas Review Journal: “Members voted 29-13 for Assembly Bill 211, which would prevent discriminating against people based on their gender identity or expression.”

AP: epublicans have moved quickly to convert November election gains to legislative advances in the states. A look at some GOP successes, and setbacks, in the first months of the new order . . .

Las Vegas Review Journal: Senate Commerce and Labor Committee members voted 4-3 for Senate Bill 331 that would make it unlawful for hotels and motels to discriminate on the basis of one’s gender . . . The committee also backed Senate Bill 368, which forbids discrimination through refusal to rent, lease or sell a home, apartment or property to a transgender person.

Religion Clause Blog: Yesterday’s Las Vegas Sun reports that the ACLU of Nevada has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the state of Nevada and Clark County (NV) challenging the constitutionality of the state law that limits the issuance of state certificates to perform marriages to clergy, judges and commissioners and deputy commissioners of civil marriage.

AP: “Some Nevada lawmakers want the state to be the first to regulate the multibillion dollar, quasi-legal Internet poker industry.”

Washington Post: “Ensign, who was first elected to the Senate in 2000 after two terms in the House, is the third Republican to announce his retirement in this year. He follows Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas) and Jon Kyl (Ariz.) to the sidelines. Four Democrats, as well as Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who caucuses with Democrats, are also retiring in 2012.”

AP: “Burbank and her husband, John Clark, epitomize the dreadful economic situation these days in Nevada, where a once-mighty construction boom has given way to a historic recession and a record 14.9 percent unemployment in Las Vegas.”

Breitbart (AP): “U.S. Sen. Harry Reid took aim at the world’s oldest profession Tuesday, telling state lawmakers the time has come to have an adult conversation about Nevada’s legal sex trade if the state hopes to succeed in the 21st century.”

AP: “The court on Tuesday refused to hear an appeal from two newspaper companies, the American Civil Liberties Union and a Nye County brothel called the Shady Lady Ranch.”

Boston Herald: “Nevada union members plan to rally in Las Vegas and Carson City to show their support for public workers in Wisconsin fighting to keep their collective bargaining rights.”

“The Nevada Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by a group seeking a constitutional amendment to ban abortions. The court rejected the arguments of Personhood Nevada, which wanted a question on the election ballot this past November.”

OneNewsNow: “The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) is trying to encourage two locales that anti-religious groups have no constitutional standing to remove Christian aspects from Christmas . . . ‘Teachers can’t wish students “Merry Christmas;” they have to use the generic “Happy Holidays.” All religious displays or Christmas displays that say “Merry Christmas” have to be taken down, and even Christmas trees have to be referred to as “holiday trees,”‘ the attorney reports.”

Gather: “Virgin Valley High School won’t be having a Merry Christmas this year. Alliance Defense Fund Attorney [David Cortman] said an agreement was reached between the school and the Nevada ACLU disallowing Christmas activities. Employees and teachers are banned from saying “Merry Christmas”, but are they?”

Fox News Radio: “‘Employees, including teachers, can’t even say the words, “Merry Christmas,” in the school,’ [David Cortman] told Fox News Radio. Students, however, are still permitted to use the traditional holiday greeting.”

Charisma Mag: “‘It’s ridiculous that people have to think twice about whether it’s OK to publicly celebrate Christmas. An overwhelming majority of Americans celebrate Christmas and are opposed to any kind of censorship of it,’ says ADF Senior Counsel [David Cortman]. ‘The misguided attacks on Christmas by the ACLU and its allies expose an even larger, more aggressive attack on anything and everything Christian.’”