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Senate approves snack-food legislation, other bills
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU
CARSON CITY -- Candy, chips and soft drinks that many students love would be prohibited in Nevada public and charter schools under a bill approved 12-9 Friday in the Senate.
Republican Joe Hardy, a physician in his non-legislative life, joined the 11 Democrats voting for Senate Bill 230, which outlaws foods and beverages containing trans fats in vending machines and in school lunches, except those provided through school lunch programs. Trans fats are unsaturated fats that increase cholesterol levels.
Hardy also joined Democrats in approving Senate Bill 144, Sen. Mike Schneider's measure to require garages and oil changing businesses to check the air pressure in customers' tires.
Both bills move to the Assembly for hearings, where Democrats hold a larger majority and there is less chance of a close vote.
Sixty-four bills were passed in the Senate as members worked past 6 p.m. Friday, instead of heading home early for Easter weekend. Both houses of the Legislature now will hold long floor voting sessions to beat a self-imposed Tuesday deadline to pass bills out of the house of origin. Bills that miss the deadline are dead.
The deadlines help legislators manage time as they consider 1,069 bills during a 120-day session that must adjourn by 1 a.m. June 7.
During Friday's session, senators agreed by voice vote to amend Sen. Shirley Breeden's cellphone bill to conform to the Assembly proposal. Under both Senate Bill 140 and Assembly Bill 151, drivers could not use a handheld cellphone or text while operating a vehicle. The fine would be $50 for the first offense, $100 for the second and $250 for third and subsequent offenses.
Breeden, D-Henderson, originally sought fines of $250 to $1,000.
If it becomes law as expected, the cellphone and texting ban would begin Oct. 1. Law enforcement officers, however, could not cite violators until Jan. 1.
While there were no floor debates Friday, Republicans did question Schneider's tire pressure bill as an unnecessary intrusion into a private business matter. Schneider, D-Las Vegas, countered with reports that showed properly inflated tires save gasoline and prevent accidents.
Similar Republican objections were made to Sen. Mo Denis' trans fat bill. During a hearing, Sen. Greg Brower, R-Reno, called it micromanagement of schools, although health advocates testified it would improve nutrition. Denis, D-Las Vegas, has been president of the Nevada PTA and now chairs the Senate Education Committee. There is also a move to remove trans fats in foods provided through federal school lunch programs.
In other votes:
■ Senators unanimously approved Senate Bill 277, which clarifies that juveniles who possess or transmit nude, pornographic and sexual pictures are not considered sex offenders subject to community notification and registering with police agencies.
■ Testimony during the hearings was that young people sometimes use cell phones for "sexting," or transmitting sex-related pictures of themselves and others. Judges still could find the juveniles delinquent and impose sanctions.
■ Senators also on a 21-0 vote backed Hardy's SB256 that specifies felony sentences, punishable by one year or greater prison sentences, apply in cases where people are caught growing more than seven marijuana plants. Seven is the maximum number of plants that people registered in Nevada medical marijuana program can grow as medication. But there have been recent arrests of people growing hundreds of plants who contended it was to supply medical marijuana patients.
Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900.
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Big Julie, your comment is well received by many of us and the First Lady has been asked to support her fight on obesity with something within her husband's power with Congress. Eliminating premade and high fat low nutrition foods that can be bought with food stamps. We haven't heard anything about her obesity fight since she went to Haiti and Mexico to reveal her plans. Much of what is bought with food stamps is very unhealthy and to switch the benefits to the basics like rice, powdered milk and vegetables plus similar inexpensive products will help to make our kids more healthy by cutting off the sources of the problem. Along with this correction to welfare and food stamp benefits, school lunches and/or all meals provided by school systems need to be analyzed for what they really are. Great idea Julie, let's see if they really care about the kids.
Well,there goes my stock in Frito-Lay. If they wanted to really do something useful they could ban junk food purchases with food stamps but I Imagine that would P.O. their voter base.
Now our great government wants to control what we eat!?!? Where does it stop? Where do we draw the line?
Egads.. The govt has no right stepping into at I eed my child.. If it is what I want my child to have and I give that child permission to sink their teeth into something they want that is sweet and no good for them.. gosh darn it.. then so be it.. i dont need the dang govt to tell me what is good or not good for my child.. i remember when i was a kid.. how we at school had home cooked meals for lunch.. why dont you start hiring people that know how to cook to cook for the kids their lunches instead of what they eat now a days.. i would much rather prefer a home cooked meal cooked by farmers wives.. kids now a days never get this kind of nutrition but.. i still would let my child drink or eat whatever it was they wanted as long as it would be my decision to m ake for them.. and if nobody likes my decision.. not my problem.. its their problem.. and meanwhile.. one more thing.. MIND YOUR OWN PS AND Q'S AND STAY OUT OF MINE!!!
The Nanny Nation strikes again. Thanks to all the immigrants from California who vote for these sissy's
"Judges still could find the juveniles delinquent and impose sanctions." ... Bad idea! A judge should NEVER be allowed to apply a law arbitrarily. This only leads to favoritism, and cronyism. And why the distinction between the number of pot plants a person can grow? Are they only protecting the profits of the big pot producers in Mexico?
I'll show you mine if you show me yours is going to be a crime? Lock up all the nudist? Next it will be the evil kids who are just going to do it until they need glasses?
[junk food] would be prohibited in Nevada public and charter schools ...
Except the junk cooked up by those RD-certified cafeteria workers.
Charter schools are PUBLIC schools. Like the dinosaurs they're meant to replace, they deserve to be ABOLISHED.
Democrat bill to remove energy reserves (trans fats) micromanagement. Republican bill to remove bond reserves not.
Golly, Gee Senators; while I am "Surplus" as a CCSD employee you think about kids and soda pop machines. I can't thank you guys enough for getting to these more important issues, specially while those kids are "Jonesing" for an education when they have to seek employment. Perhaps we will have "Job Machines" by then? Oh, I forgot to offer my gratitude for the forbidden sodas that will keep me from cleaning sticky messes if I am lucky enough to get a job as Custodian in the School District now. Keep up the good work, I need the health insurance to stay alive.
America is the 15th richest nation and has the 11th freest economy, and she is sinking fast. Between taxes & regulations we are the most enslaved nation in world history.
Lady Liberty needs to find a battered women's shelter and get free of murderous abusive Uncle Sam.