Lawmakers waste time on changing Columbus Day law

Lawmakers have just 120 days every other year to take care of business, and they are always complaining that there just isn’t enough time to get it done.

Perhaps, just perhaps, that is because they spend an incredible amount of time in pointless, posturing, pandering paper pushing.

Democratic state Sen. Richard “Tick” Segerblom, who never misses a chance to cater to the far left wing of his party, has introduced a bill — we are not making this up — to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day. It is Senate Bill 105.

Columbus Day has not been an official state holiday in Nevada for years, but there is a vestigial law on the books that states: “The Governor of this State is authorized and requested to issue annually a proclamation designating the second Monday in October as ‘Columbus Day’ in commemoration of the arrival of Cristoforo Columbo in the New World.”

Segerblom would replace this symbolic immaterial gesture with this symbolic immaterial gesture: “The Governor is authorized and requested to annually proclaim the second Monday in October as ‘Indigenous Peoples Day’ to celebrate the thriving culture and significant value that Indigenous people add to the State of Nevada and the United States of America.”

If they want to repeal the pointless paper shuffling to “commemorate” a day in history, fine. Repeal it. It is still history. But replacing it with pointless paper shuffling is typical Democratic pandering to its paramount platform of identity politics. It is downright Pavlovian.

The Las Vegas newspaper reported: “Segerblom said the bill recognizes the millions of Native Americans who died in conflicts when European settlers moved into the country and claimed land as their own, and shows an appreciation for their contributions to society.”

That account goes on to inform its readers that Columbus is “credited with ‘discovering’ the Americas. But historians have debunked that as myth, saying he sailed around the Caribbean but never came to North America,” paying no heed to the fact the Caribbean islands are part of North America nor the fact he did land in South America. Both locales are part of the so-called New World.

The allegations that Columbus engaged in brutal acts against the natives is never balanced with any reference to wars between tribes or attacks on those evil invading Europeans. Don’t they teach about the French and Indian War any more?

Try reading a bit of history, including the accounts from late in the 19th century when the Plains Indians were actually successfully and brutally, though briefly, pushing back against encroachment by settlers.

These are the same Democrats who want to remove the statue of mid-20th century Democratic Sen. Pat McCarran from the U.S. Capitol because he was a racist during an era when the Democratic Party pushed segregationist laws and policies.

Erase history and change the present and/or the future?

Rather Orwellian if you ask us? History is history. Denigrating or exalting one aspect or another is a frivolous endeavor.

Perhaps our idle lawmakers should change the name of Genoa, since it is named after Columbus’ home town in Italy, despite the different pronunciation.

Apparently having the second Tuesday of February during each regular session of the Legislature designated as Nevada Tribes Legislative Day and recognizing the fourth Friday of September as Native American Day isn’t nearly enough to satiate the Democrats’ desire to curry favor with certain ethnic enclaves.

The current law that authorizes and requests that the governor designate Columbus Day does the same for Tartan Day for Scots, Juneteenth for African-Americans, Cesar Chavez Day for Hispanics, Mineral Industry Week for miners, Veterans Day for veterans, Week of Respect for victims of bullying, plus several others.

The vote in the Senate Committee on Government Affairs to approve SB105 was 4-1.

Someone please wad up this bill and toss it in the nearest unused spittoon. That would be most apropos. — TM