The recent special session in Carson City included consideration of several high-profile bills, including a vast expansion of the state film tax subsidies (failed) and Gov. Joe Lombardo’s “tough on crime” legislation (passed). But one of the most important pieces of legislation to emerge from the gathering was a little-noticed bill offering a much-needed rebuke to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Schoolchildren are taught — or at least used to be — that the U.S. government consists of three branches: the executive, the legislative and the judicial. Each branch exerts certain checks and balances over the others. The 50 states, including Nevada, modeled their governments after the federal system.

Yet in a decision last year, the state Supreme Court brushed aside more than two centuries of precede

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