Leadership roles have been chosen

It didn't take long for the democratic majority in the Nevada Assembly to name the Speaker-elect. On November 3, John Oceguera was elected speaker. The democrats kept control of the Assembly but lost the supermajority required to override an executive veto.
Speaker-elect Oceguera wasted no time naming leadership posts for the upcoming legislative sessions. Marcus Conklin was named majority leader and Debbie Smith was named chairwoman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee and as speaker pro tem. William Horne will be the majority whip, Kelvin Atkinson will serve as senior chief deputy whip and Peggy Pierce and David Bobzien will be chief deputy whips. Whips are high ranking members of the party and their job is basically to count votes and rally support.
Because of the democratic majority, the Speaker of the Assembly gets to appoint the committee chairs, which of course will all belong to the majority party. There will be 20 new members of the 42 person Nevada Assembly meaning that the training classes for incoming freshman will be pretty full. Not all members are new to politics, Maggie Carlton is a freshman Assembly member but was a member of the state senate for 12 years. The number of 20 is a little misleading, it sounds like nearly half of the members were replaced but 10 of those had been termed out and 7 of the 10 were elected to the state senate.
Speaker-elect Oceguera has called for a spirit of cooperation between the parties in the assembly this session and for lawmakers from all counties and regions of the state to continue to work together. It's nice to hear but I feel it's just political, two years ago the democrats took control of the state senate for the first time in nearly a decade and this year the assembly lost it's supermajority and the executive branch stayed in republican control. Nevada has a history of both parties working together, if you look at the make up of our state legislature it's no surprise.