Nevada's women lawmakers

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On a day when most of the country was protesting a move back to the dark ages for women's reproductive rights, Nevada became "the only state that had something to celebrate" by passing Senate Bill 179, also known as the #Trust Nevada Women Act, which decriminalizes abortion and removes several decades-old restrictions on it. The bill passed 27 to 13 in what since the mid-terms has been the country's first majority-female legislature - in contrast, say, to Alabama, where men just banned abortion and women not coincidentally make up just 15% of lawmakers. In Nevada, observers say, the state's old, white, sexist, brothel-owning, sexual-harassing guard are dying off, and increasingly yielding power to more young, racially diverse, Democratic women who once believed "politicians aren't us" and then learned otherwise, in part thanks to newly galvanized political action groups recruiting and training women. The results are startling: Today, more than 17 pending bills deal with sexual assault and misconduct, bills to ban child marriage and study maternal mortality are on the docket, and women's voices have joined policy debates on gun safety and prison reform. A few years ago, says Assembly Majority Leader Teresa Benitez-Thompson, “None of these bills would have seen the light of day.”