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No Labels qualifies in Nevada as minor party for 2024 general election
No Labels, a national campaign to field a third-party presidential candidate in 2024, has qualified for Nevada’s general election ballot as a minor party, the secretary of state’s office confirmed to the Current Friday. It marks the first time a minor party has qualified for a general election ballot in the Silver State since the […]
Nonpartisan voters now outnumber Democrats, Republicans in Nevada
Nonpartisans now outnumber both the Democratic and Republican parties in Nevada. Data from the Nevada Secretary of State’s office released this week shows there are now 605,112 nonpartisans (31.86% of active registered voters), compared to 601,882 Democrats (31.69%) and 551,090 Republicans (29%). Nevada is now roughly 900 voters short of 1.9 million. Secretary of State […]
Lombardo, Democrats poised for another battle on private school voucher program
Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo is asking the Interim Finance Committee to direct $3.2 million in unallocated COVID-19 relief funds to the Nevada’s Opportunity Scholarship program. Democrats control the committee, setting up an all-too-familiar partisan battle over the controversial quasi-voucher program. Lombardo says hundreds of K-12 students are at risk of losing the tuition assistance and […]
Charter School Board awards $286,000 in transportation funding to 3 schools
The State Public Charter School Authority’s distribution of $7 million in transportation funding got off to a modest start last week, with just three charters requesting a combined $286,000 to fund bus service for the upcoming academic year. SPCSA Executive Director Rebecca Feiden told the Charter School Board on Friday that “many more” applications are […]
Top election official says new legislation will improve system, expand access to NV voters
Axing Nevada’s embrace of universal mail ballots, implementing voter identification requirements and other highly political proposals may have been dead on arrival, but Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and the Democratic-controlled state legislature found common ground on several pieces of election-related legislation. The 2023 legislature passed — and the governor signed — bills to expand voting […]
Tesla deal frustrated lawmakers, but little will change at economic development agency
Despite many lawmakers starting off this year’s legislative session with the bad taste of Tesla in their mouths, efforts to rein in the executive branch agency that currently has the power to unilaterally approve hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tax abatements without input from elected officials fell short. Instead, the scope of the […]
State prepares to dole out $7 million to charter schools for transportation
Nevada charter schools this week will be able to apply for dedicated transportation funding, the state’s primary authorizer and governor’s office announced jointly Friday. Up to $7 million in dedicated funds for charter school transportation is available for the upcoming 2023-24 school year, with an additional $7 million available the following year. The money was […]
Crisis pregnancy center warning quietly removed from state abortion info website
Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo instructed the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services to remove from its website information warning the public about crisis pregnancy centers. A four-paragraph section with the subheading “Report Misleading Abortion Service Providers” first appeared on an “Abortion Information for Nevadans” page launched by DHHS in October 2022, under the direction […]
Student loan ombudsman offers info, help for borrowers as end of forbearance looms
When Nevada lawmakers in 2019 created a student loan ombudsman, they had no idea a pandemic would throw the country into disarray the following year. Evelyn Castro, who took on the Nevada student loan ombudsman role in December 2019 after previously overseeing the state’s Millennium Scholarship program, had to adapt quickly come March 2020. Not […]
Not quite a home run, but Oakland A’s still manage to score $380m Vegas deal
Wednesday brought to an end an eight-day special session that approved $380 million in public assistance for a proposed $1.5 billion, 30,000-seat, 9-acre baseball stadium for the Oakland A’s on the Las Vegas Strip. Pending a signature from Gov. Joe Lombardo, the Southern Nevada Tourism Innovation Act, as SB1 was dubbed by proponents, marks the […]
A’s move closer to Las Vegas stadium deal as Oakland fans protest team owner
When it comes to sports, a lot happened Tuesday. Cue the highlight reel: In Carson City, Nevada state lawmakers advanced a bill to provide $380 million in public assistance for the Oakland Athletics, whose owner wants to build what would be Major League Baseball’s smallest stadium on a corner of prime real estate on the […]
Nevada extends postpartum Medicaid coverage
Nevada Medicaid will soon extend postpartum coverage to 12 months after birth. Gov. Joe Lombardo on Friday signed into law Senate Bill 232, sponsored by Democratic Assemblywoman Michelle Gorelow and Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro. The bill extends Nevada Medicaid’s postpartum coverage beyond the 60 days required by the federal government to one year after […]