BAD BILL ALERT
Immediate attention required-
Call and have your voice heard about SJR8.
We sent out an urgent action alert prior to the committee hearing on SJR8. Unfortunately, this resolution passed in the Senate Legislative Operations and Elections Committee. Now, the resolution will move to the Senate Floor to be voted on by the body as a whole.
Here is some more information on the resolution:
In plain face, this bill appears to be working on “equality for all”. The issue is that the U.S. and Nevada Constitutions already guarantee equal rights under the law to all persons, with no exceptions or carve outs. By specifying sub-groups for so-called “equal” rights, conflict is created because the groups specified in the bill have conflicts with each other – they cannot physically all be equal, and some must be given priority over others.
For example, if transgendered women are allowed to compete in women’s sports, they have advantages as biological males. By necessity, the law must give preference to the rights of transgender women over biological women by allowing transgender women in sport, or must give preference to the rights of biological women by excluding transgender women. Science doesn’t allow equality in that situation – because the definition of “woman” has been expanded to include many different kinds of women with conflicting needs, it is no longer possible to have equality among all varieties of woman, let alone among women and other genders.
Similarly, if a specific category of individuals whose equality is protected under the law because they are LGBTQ, or because they are a woman seeking an abortion or contraceptives from a church or religious group who cannot provide those services without violating their religious beliefs, then either the rights of the LGBTQ individual or the religious individual must be subjugated to the religious individual, or the other way around – it is impossible to equally protect the rights of both parties.
The Legislative Council Bureau can say that their legislative intent is for everyone’s rights to be protected all the time, but the language of SJR8, as well as the physical reality of the world, makes that impossible. To state that your legislative intent is to do something that is, in fact, impossible, is disingenuous to say the least.
It is important to reach out to the Senators who voted “Yes” when this was rushed through without proper consideration in 2019. They were told that this bill was positive for women, and no time was given to educate them on the real damage that it does to women. Damages such as the destruction of women’s sports, the elimination of college scholarships for women, elimination of affirmative action programs designed to assist woman owned businesses, etc. They must hear from women – lots of them – who will be negatively affected by this bill about the damage SJR8 does to women. Particularly suburban mothers of school age female athletes who are training their hearts out to earn scholarships.
It’s important to remind them that this is a Constitutional Amendment, which means that when the negative unintended consequences of this bill are discovered by the voters later on, it will be a five year process to repeal this conflicting law – two sessions of the legislature, followed by a vote of the people. It may feel good for them to cast a “vote to protect women” now, but later when it becomes clear that the vote actually harmed women it will be a very difficult mistake for them to undo.
Please contact every Senator and urge them to vote NO on SJR8:
Buck, Carrie A. (SD-5)
(775) 684-1457
Goicoechea, Pete (SD19)
(775) 684-1447
Hammond, Scott (SD-18)
(775) 684-1442
Hansen, Ira (SD-14)
(775) 684-1480
Hardy, Joseph (Joe) P. (SD-12)
(775) 684-1462
Kiechkhefer, Ben (SD-16)
(775) 684-1450
Pickard, Keith F. (SD-20)
(775) 684-1481
Seevers Gansert, Heidi (SD-15)
(775) 684-1419
Settelmeyer, James A (SD-17)
(775) 684-1470
Brooks, Chris (D-3)
(775) 684-1422
Cannizzaro, Nicole J. (D-6)
(775) 684-1475
Denis, Moises (Mo) (D-2)
(775) 684-1431
Dondero Loop, Marilyn (D-8)
(775) 684-1445
Harris, Dallas (D-11)
(775) 684-6502
Lange, Roberta (D-7)
(775) 684-6504
Neal, Dina (D-4)
(775) 684-1429
Ohrenschall, James (D-21)
(775) 684-6503
Rattie, Julia (D-13)
(775) 684-1433
Scheible, Melanie (D-9)
(775) 684-1421
Spearman, Pat (D-1)
(775) 684-1424
See our original alert sent out before the committee vote below.
