(Hill Street Studios via Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

As in previous election cycles, the Nevada Current has deliberately focused mostly on down-ballot and especially non-partisan races. Those contests for judges, school board and the like often get little attention and can be the most puzzling to voters. Stories will be updated, and new stories added, as the primary election nears. Share with your friends. And for all the Current’s coverage of the 2024 election please visit our Election 2024 Page.

City of North Las Vegas

• North Las Vegas voters to see two property tax measures on the ballot
• Barbershop chain owner, veteran challenge incumbent for North Las Vegas City Council
  • Ward 2
  • Ward 4

City of Las Vegas

• Berkley, Seaman leading field of 14 vying in Las Vegas mayor’s race

City of Henderson

• Disillusionment leads newcomers to challenge Henderson council incumbents
  • Ward 1
  • Ward 2
  • Ward 4

Clark County Commission

• Political novice out fundraising Bilbray-Axelrod in Democratic primary

Judicial

• Allegations of special treatment surface in race for LV Municipal Court
• Complaint alleges Wolfson violating ethics law by appearing in daughter’s campaign ad
• Deputy public defenders challenge incumbent Sciscento for LV Justice Court seat
• Two seats on Henderson Justice Court in play for primary election
  • Department 1
  • Department 3

Clark County School Board

• Clark County School Board attracts a crowd of candidates
  • District A
  • District B
  • District C
  • District E

Nevada State Board of Education

• Former CCSD trustee among candidates seeking to join Board of Education
  • District 2
  • District 3

Nevada System of Higher Education, Board of Regents

• Board of Regents primary attracts crowd of candidates, despite new shorter terms
  • District 1
  • District 4
  • District 9
  • District 12

Nevada State Assembly

• Can Lombardo break the Assembly supermajority? Here’s a look at the terrain.
• AD10: Coalition of Trump backers attacks Democrat by comparing her to Trump

Nevada State Senate

• Only 1 vote shy of a Senate supermajority, Dems look to flip a seat (or more)
• SD1: Senate Dems pass over assemblywoman, endorse NSHE regent
• SD3: Culinary-backed nurse challenges Democratic incumbent
• SD4: Regent challenges Democratic incumbent
• SD5: Race that could decide control of Senate features testy Democratic primary
• SD6: Republican challenging Senate majority leader has ties to far right Christian group
• SD15 : Race could decide if D’s win veto-proof Legislature, but they don’t want to talk about that
• SD18: Even after district was redrawn to be competitive, Senate Dems give it the cold shoulder
• SD19: Former assemblyman faces GOED grantee, Nye school trustee

U.S. House

• 3 competitive congressional districts attract a crowd of GOP primary hopefuls
• House candidate seeks to be first trans member of Nevada delegation

U.S. Senate

• NV GOP Senate primary: Gunter attacks Brown, Brown woos Trump
• Under pressure from all sides, Brown backtracks, says Yucca ‘should not be revived’
• Brown: Failure to bring nuclear waste to NV is an ‘incredible loss of revenue for our state’
• Brown avoids abortion issue on campaign, but attends anti-abortion rights gala

The post 2024 Primary Election Voter Guide appeared first on Nevada Current.

On One America News Newtwork Christina Bobb made a series of dubious or demonstrably false claims about the 2020 Maricopa County election in a February 2021 special in an attempt to bolster the lie spread by former Donald Trump and others that he didn’t really lose Arizona by about 10,000 votes. (Screenshot via Bitchute)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Less than a week after the Republican National Committee unveiled a “historic” new program to monitor the polls for fraud in Nevada and other battleground states, a top lawyer with the committee was among those indicted for an alleged scheme to use false fraud claims to overturn the results of Arizona’s presidential election.

Indeed, the lawyer, RNC senior counsel for election integrity Christina Bobb, was scheduled to appear April 25 at an online meeting to recruit activists for the GOP’s vote-watching effort, though she didn’t show up. The meeting was organized by fringe conspiracy theorists who, like Bobb, have helped spread lies about illegal voting.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced the indictments on April 24 against 18 people, seven of whose names are redacted. Multiple news organizations have used details in the indictment to identify Bobb and the other six. Mayes on Friday confirmed Bobb’s indictment.

The confluence of events involving Bobb, the RNC and a loose network of anti-fraud activists underscores how the Trump-controlled GOP appears to be laying the groundwork to contest this year’s election using the same false claims about illegal voting — and even some of the same key figures — as it did in 2020.

Asked for comment on Bobb’s reported indictment and whether she remained employed by the RNC, an RNC spokesperson declined to answer on the record.

Bobb did not respond to an inquiry about her failure to appear at the April 25 event.

GOP’s ‘historic’ vote-monitoring program

The Arizona indictments came less than a week after the Trump campaign and the RNC announced a “historic, 100,000 person strong” effort to closely monitor the voting process, calling it, “the most extensive and monumental election integrity program in the nation’s history.”

“Whenever a ballot is being cast or counted, Republican poll watchers will be observing the process and reporting any irregularity,” the RNC declared in a press release.

The committee called the initiative “an historic collaboration between the RNC, the Trump Campaign, and passionate grassroots coalitions who are deeply invested in fighting voter fraud.” That appeared to be a reference to the party’s outreach to anti-fraud activists like those at Thursday’s meeting — many of whom have bought in to lies about the 2020 election.

Multiple lawsuits found no evidence of systematic or widespread fraud in 2020.

The RNC’s vote-monitoring effort has been championed by Lara Trump, former President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, who took over as RNC co-chair in late February. Bobb was announced as an election integrity lawyer at the RNC soon afterward.

Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee for president in 2024.

Lara Trump warned in an April 23 interview that the vote-monitoring program will include “people who can physically handle ballots” at polling places on Election Day. The rules for partisan poll watchers differ from state to state.

17 charged in fake electors plot

Bobb’s failure to attend Thursday’s online meeting, after organizers had promoted her appearance in advance, may have been because she has more urgent matters on her mind.

The indictments filed in Arizona allege a plot to use fake electors to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential vote.

The 11 people named in the indictment are the Arizona fake electors themselves, all Trump allies. The other seven people, whose names are redacted, have been identified by news outlets, including CNN and the New York Times, as Bobb, as well as Trump allies Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Mike Roman and Boris Epshteyn.

One of the seven, the indictment says, “was an attorney for the Trump Campaign” and “made false claims of widespread election fraud in Arizona and in six other states.” That person also “encouraged the Arizona Legislature to change the outcome of the election,” and “encouraged (Vice President Mike) Pence to accept the false Arizona Republican electors’ votes on January 6, 2021,” according to the indictment.

Bobb joined the Trump campaign as a lawyer in the aftermath of the 2020 vote, and was among the campaign officials, led by Giuliani, who organized a scheme to use false fraud claims as justification for submitting fake electors in seven states Trump lost, including Arizona, CNN has reported.

Bobb also tweeted on January 6, 2021: “@VP @Mike_Pence can solve this now by sending it back to the legislators.”

The indictment lists Trump — unnamed but described as “a former president of the United States who spread false claims of election fraud following the 2020 election” — as an unindicted co-conspirator.

The indictment alleges that as part of the scheme, the fake electors voted for Trump to receive Arizona’s electoral votes, “falsely claiming to be the duly elected and qualified Electors for President and Vice President of the United States from the State of Arizona.”

“Defendants deceived the citizens of Arizona by falsely claiming that those votes were contingent only on a legal challenge that would change the outcome of the election,” the indictment continues. “In reality, Defendants intended that their false votes for Trump-Pence would encourage Pence to reject the Biden-Harris votes on January 6, 2021, regardless of the outcome of the legal challenge.”

RNC courts conspiracy theorists, election deniers

The meeting at which Bobb was scheduled to appear Thursday was organized by two Florida activists with ties to leading election deniers, including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and included hundreds of grassroots anti-fraud activists from across the country.

It follows a similar April 4 event, at which the director of the RNC’s election integrity program, Christina Norton, told activists how to get involved with the party’s vote-monitoring program. States Newsroom attended both virtual meetings.

The April 25 meeting featured a parade of speakers, including the former Democratic consultant Naomi Wolf, making claims about illegal voting in 2020 and 2022, predicting that this year’s vote will be similarly rigged, and rallying supporters to take action.

“The current situation is that President Trump will once again win the presidential election just as he did in 2020,” said one speaker, Greg Stenstrom, a Pennsylvania-based conspiracy theorist who co-authored the book “The Parallel Election: A Blueprint for Deception,” which alleged massive fraud in that state’s 2020 vote.

“But it will be taken from him, and all of us, again, unless we restore fair and honest elections in the short time we have remaining before November. He cannot hold onto the presidency unless we act.”

In place of a live appearance by Bobb, Steve Stern, an organizer of the call, played an interview he’d conducted recently with her for his podcast.

In the interview, Stern asked Bobb what could be done about President Joe Biden’s plan to add “a million illegal aliens” to the voter rolls. (There is no evidence that Biden has such a plan, despite frequent similar claims by the far right.)

Bobb agreed there is a “concerted effort to empower the illegals to cast ballots,” adding: “It’s a very, very, serious issue this time around, and it’s something that we’re looking into … Is it something that law enforcement needs to handle, because there could potentially be a criminal component to it?”

“As far as illegals voting,” Bobb continued, “once they have registered, it’s very hard to undo that process. Because the registration is presumed valid.”

Studies have consistently shown that the amount of voting by non-citizens is minuscule. A 2017 Brennan Center analysis found that suspected — not proven — votes by non-citizens accounted for just 0.0001 percent of all votes cast in the 2016 election.

Other connections

In addition to these two meetings, there have been other recent instances of RNC staff courting right-wing activists who have spread election disinformation.

Bobb spoke last month with the far-right podcaster Breanna Morello. And she joined a recent conference call with several Trump-allied groups that have promoted lies about 2020, the Guardian reported.

Both the April 25 and April 4 meetings were organized by Stern and Raj Doraisamy, two far-right Florida activists and Lindell allies who have helped spread false claims about illegal voting.

Last month, Stern spoke with Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser, to promote the April 4 meeting. “We have so many illegal aliens in this country,” Stern said. “They want to vote. We gotta stop them.”

Doraisamy was reportedly outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and went on to found a group, Defend Florida, that went door to door to gather thousands of “affidavits” from Floridians in an effort to show that the state’s 2020 election was corrupted by massive fraud.

At a 2022 event organized by the group, Doraisamy thanked Lindell for his help with the door-to-door effort.

Also speaking at the April 25 meeting call was Joe Hoft, whose Gateway Pundit website, co-founded with Hoft’s brother Jim, has been a key vector for the spread of false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, the covid vaccine, and more.

Joe Hoft’s self-published book, “The Steal,”  is described this way on its Google Books page: “It’s early in the morning of November 4th, President Trump was way ahead in the swing states, but he warned of 4am ballot drops. He was right again. When Americans woke up later that morning, the election had been stolen.”

Another speaker at the meeting, Jay Valentine, used initial funding from Lindell to create voter data monitoring software.

According to documents obtained by the progressive group American Oversight, Valentine has worked closely with Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, a key figure in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, to convince lawmakers in Wisconsin and other states to use his “fractal programming technology” to uncover mass fraud.

“Voter fraud is a nationwide crime perpetrated locally, mostly by Democrats,” Valentine has written separately, promoting the idea of a national election fraud database. “We cannot fight industrial, sovereign, large-scale, election fraud with reports, press releases, and webinars.”

The post Top lawyer in RNC’s 2024 ‘election integrity’ operation charged in Arizona fake elector scheme appeared first on Nevada Current.

Arizona’s 11 fake electors sign a document in Phoenix on Dec. 14 2020, falsely claiming that they were the state’s electors and that Donald Trump won the presidential election in Arizona. (Screenshot via AZGOP)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

A grand jury has indicted 18 people, including two Arizona state senators and the former head of the Arizona Republican Party, in a fake elector scheme that aimed to install Donald Trump as the president after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

The Arizona Attorney General’s Office has not released the names of everyone who was indicted, but all 11 fake electors were charged:

• Kelli Ward, former AZGOP chairman
• Arizona Sen. Jake Hoffman, leader of the Arizona Freedom Caucus
• Arizona Sen. Anthony Kern, member of the Arizona Freedom Caucus
• Tyler Bowyer, Turning Point USA CEO
• Michael Ward, husband of Kelli Ward
• Nancy Cottle, a Republican who’s been active in local politics for a decade
• James Lamon, a failed 2022 U.S. Senate candidate
• Robert Montgomery, former chairman of the Cochise County Republican Committee
• Samuel Moorhead, former chairman of Gila County Republican Party
• Lorraine Pellegrino, former president of the Ahwatukee Republican Women
• Gregory Safsten, former executive director of the AZGOP

There were also seven people indicted whose names were redacted.

Richie Taylor, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s office told the Arizona Mirror that the names were redacted because they haven’t yet been served. He said that service should happen quickly and once it is completed, an unredacted indictment will be published.

The identities of some of the redacted defendants were obvious, including Rudy Giuliani, who was described as an attorney for Trump who was often referred to as “the mayor,” former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Mike Roman, the director of Election Day operations for the Trump campaign.

Giuliani was one of the big names who spread false claims of election fraud following the Nov. 3, 2020 election, and he held a hearing in Phoenix in late November where he claimed that Arizona’s elections officials had made no effort to ensure that the results of the presidential election were accurate.

All 11 of the fake electors were charged with conspiracy, fraudulent schemes and artifices, fraudulent schemes and practices and forgery, which are all felonies.

The fake electors were indicted by a grand jury on April 23 for signing bogus documents claiming that Donald Trump won the 2020 election, after Trump’s campaign allegedly urged them to do so.

Trump is identified in the indictment as “unindicted co-conspirator 1.”

In the indictment, all of the fake electors are implicated in an attempt to deceive “the public with false claims of election fraud in order to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency.”

They are accused of attempting to keep “President Donald J. Trump in office against the will of Arizona voters, and depriving Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted.”

According to the indictment, the fake electors forged certificates of Electoral College votes for President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Michael Pence and filed those with the Arizona Secretary of State and the chief judge of the Federal District Court for the District of Arizona.

The group is also charged with pressuring the Maricopa Board of Supervisors, the state Legislature and then-Gov. Doug Ducey to change the election results.

The fake electors are additionally accused of trying to trick Arizonans into believing that their fraudulent votes were contingent on a successful outcome in Trump’s challenge of the 2020 election results, when they were actually trying to urge Pence to reject the votes for Biden on Jan. 6, 2021.

According to the indictment, Ward organized the fake elector vote, and proclaimed that they were Arizona’s “true electors.”

Several of the fake electors, including Hoffman, Kern, Ward and Bowyer, have continued to spread the unfounded claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, even though no evidence of that has ever come to light.

Hoffman sent a letter to then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 5, 2021, asking him to delay the certification of the election results and to check with the Arizona Legislature to determine which slate of presidential electors to use.

Hoffman issued a statement Wednesday evening, shortly after Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes released news of the indictments.

“Let me be unequivocal, I am innocent of any crime, I will vigorously defend myself, and I look forward to the day when I am vindicated of this disgusting political persecution by the judicial process,” Hoffman wrote. “Kris Mayes & the Democrats’ naked corruption and weaponization of government will long be a stain on the history of our great state and nation.”

Hoffman additionally alleged that Mayes made up her mind that the fake electors were guilty before she even began an investigation, saying that the indictments were an effort to go after her political opponents.

The Arizona Republican Party condemned the indictments and called them “politically motivated” and “designed to silence dissent and weaponize the law against political opponents.”

“The timing of these charges—precisely four years after the 2020 election and as President Biden seeks re-election—is suspiciously convenient and politically motivated. This is not justice; it is pure election interference,” the AZGOP said in its statement.

There were multiple fake elector schemes in Arizona, one tied to the AZGOP which included the above-named electors, as well as another one by the Sovereign Citizens of the Great State of Arizona that was not tied to the Trump campaign.

Georgia, Michigan and Nevada have already brought charges against fake electors there, and Wisconsin is still investigating possible charges for its fake electors.

Arizona Senate Minority Leader Mitzi Epstein lauded Mayes for sending the message that attempting to subvert the will of the people and stop the peaceful transfer of power comes with legal consequences.

“I appreciate Attorney General Mayes’ leadership in ensuring that Arizona’s fake electors are held accountable,” Epstein said in a statement. “ The individuals who played into and spread the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump are dangerous to our nation’s democracy.”

This story was originally published in Arizona Mirror, which like Nevada Current is a part of States Newsroom.

The post Arizona grand jury indicts 18 in fake electors scheme, Trump is ‘unindicted co-conspirator 1’ appeared first on Nevada Current.

(File photo)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Nevada lawmakers should consider charging a filing fee to candidates in future presidential preference primaries, members of an advisory committee suggested Tuesday.

The Silver State held its first presidential preference primary election in February. Thirteen candidates appeared on the Democratic ballot. Seven appeared on the Republican ballot. (A “none of these candidates” option also appears on both ballots.)

Theoretically, the list of candidates could have been a lot longer. And not just because the Nevada State Republican Party held its own competing caucus with rules meant to ensure candidates skipped the state-run election.

Nevada does not charge a filing fee to people wishing to appear on a presidential preference primary ballot.

“We were curious what that would result in,” Mark Wlaschin, the deputy secretary of state for elections, told an advisory committee on participatory democracy. If every natural born citizen 35 years or older filed for office, Nevada’s ballot could have more than 50 pages for each party. “That would have been expensive.”

Wlaschin said discussions about requiring a filing fee did take place during the last legislative session but ultimately nothing was included in the bill that established the presidential preference primary.

While candidate numbers for the 2024 presidential preference primary were ultimately “not a problem” for the state, Wlaschin said, lawmakers could consider establishing a filing fee “to ensure Nevadans are not being taxed by excessively large ballot sizes.”

New Hampshire, another early state in the presidential nominating process, charges candidates a $1,000 filing fee in an effort to deter those who are not serious about running for president, said Wlaschin. New Hampshire’s 2024 presidential primary ballot included 21 Democrats and 24 Republicans.

Nevada does charge some presidential hopefuls a filing fee. Independent presidential candidates who want to appear on a November general election ballot must pay $250.

“I would hope that is something that will be rectified in the ‘25 or ‘27 session,” said Doug Goodman, a member of the committee. “We are further subsidizing a private organization.”

Pauline Lee, another member of the committee, agreed that the state should “be fair for all candidates.”

First votes cast for June primary

Votes have already been cast in Nevada’s June primary, despite election day still being roughly seven weeks away.

Nevada’s Effective Absentee System for Elections (EASE), which allows active duty military members, residents living overseas, tribal members and voters with disabilities to cast ballots electronically, went live Monday. Seven people had used the system as of Tuesday afternoon, according to Wlaschin.

EASE accounts for a small fraction of total voters in any election but it marks the start of votes being cast.

Election officials follow myriad deadlines set in federal and state law. Counties are required to send mail ballots to their overseas voters by Saturday, April 27 and to their out-of-state voters by May 2, or 40 days before election day

The deadline for distributing sample ballots to in-state voters is May 8, and the two-week, in-person early voting period will run from May 25 to June 7.

Primary Election Day is June 11.

Goodman expressed concern that Nevadans might not understand that the presidential preference primary is different from the June primary: “My fear is that there are going to be voters who will not turnout for the June primary, thinking ‘I’ve already voted.’’

Speaking of turnout…

Wlaschin provided the participatory democracy committee with some data on the presidential preference primary.

Turnout for the Democratic presidential preference primary was 22.5% and turnout among Republicans was 14.3%. Both figures represent the percentage among voters who were registered to each party on the date of the presidential preference primary.

Wlaschin noted that, because Nevada offers same-day voter registration, the roughly 800,000 voters who were registered to third parties or as nonpartisans had the option of committing to a major political party and participating in a presidential primary.

More than three-fourths — 78% — of voters in the presidential preference primary weighed in via a mail ballot, which they returned either through the mail or in-person at a physical dropbox. Only 11% cast ballots in-person during the one-week early voting period, and 10% voted in-person on the date of the presidential preference primary.

That use of mail ballots is significantly higher than in the last election cycle, where mail ballots represented 51% of turnout. Wlaschin told the committee a number of factors might contribute to that spike, including the timing of the election (in winter), the shorter early voting period (June and November elections have a two-week early voting period), or the nature of the races (the Democratic presidential primary was uncompetitive, while the Republican presidential primary did not include the party’s top contender).

“Suffice to say, it does appear that voters are interested in using their mail ballots,” added Wlaschin.

The embrace of mail ballots differed by political party, according to the secretary of state’s final voter turnout report, but was still widely popular among both parties. Mail ballots represented 80% of Democratic turnout and 49% of Republican turnout.

The post For some Nevadans, voting in the June primary has already started appeared first on Nevada Current.

If we had ranked choice in the presidential election now, fear of a third party candidate and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., running a presidential ticket would dissipate. (Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

It’s primary season in Nevada, and once again our state’s complicated mixture of open and closed primaries is on full display. Candidates for city councils are running in nonpartisan open primaries, while races for county commission and state legislature are closed, partisan elections. Caught in the confusion are now the largest group of voters in Nevada, independents, officially called nonpartisans, who are shut out of many of the elections that matter.  

Who are these independent nonpartisan voters? They are a cross-section of society, but some groups stand out. Let’s start with young people, Hispanic voters, and U.S. military veterans.  Over 50% of millennial and GenZ voters-now the largest group of voters by age- are independent. 52% of Hispanic voters are independent. About half of all U.S. military veterans are independent. 

In Nevada, nonpartisans make up 34% of voters, which is more than registered Democrats or registered Republicans. So why, then, are the political parties allowed to block the largest group of voters from casting a ballot in our taxpayer funded elections? Primary elections cost Nevada taxpayers millions to run, yet these taxpayers are not allowed to participate.  Nothing in the U.S. or Nevada constitutions gives the political parties the right to force membership in their private organizations as a prerequisite to vote, yet we allow this to happen. Do we really care about voting rights?

Polls of Nevadans show increasing support for open primaries as the disconnect between the electorate and the parties deepen. This growing divide helps to explain why Nevadans voted yes in 2022 on an initiative to open the primaries for our statewide races.  Nevadans who voted yes affirmed their commitment to letting all voters vote without barriers.

But to let all voters vote, open primary supporters must vote yes one more time this November. There are no other open primary options.  No legislative candidate is talking about sponsoring an open primaries bill for the 2025 legislative session, in fact, there was a bill in 2021 to open our primaries, yet the Democratic majority refused to even give it a hearing. Ballot Question 3 is the only path forward to elections where any candidate can run without party roadblocks, and all eligible voters can decide which candidates move forward to the general election.  

In 2008, in Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party the U.S. Supreme Court established that taxpayer-funded primaries can be used in this way.  The Court ruled that political parties can nominate and endorse candidates outside of the primary process if voters decide to change the primary election’s purpose. 

Yes, Ballot Question 3 includes ranked choice voting in the general election, but it does so to address the danger of vote splitting and to find candidates who have majority support. If we want stronger voting rights by opening our primaries and to allow more candidates to move forward to help those without deep pockets to compete, we must implement a tool for mitigating the spoiler effect.  

Ranked choice voting allows voters to vote their hearts with their first choice, but then go with the majority with their second choice.  If we had this mechanism in the presidential election now, fear of a third party candidate and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. running a presidential ticket would dissipate. Is ranked choice voting a panacea? No, but as our electorate becomes more ideologically diverse, we need tools that can manage more than two candidate choices without creating a crisis. 

Increasingly, primaries are often the most meaningful elections in Nevada. For example, in the 2022 general election races for the state legislature, only 11% of those races were competitive, so the decisive vote in those races happened in the primary. We simply can no longer accept a status quo that includes winning in a Nevada closed primary after a candidate only courts a small fraction of eligible party voters.  

Ultimately, in the open primary races, candidates are free to reach out to all their constituents, not just the partisan few, and every voter is counted equally and fairly.

Do we know implementing open primaries would make a difference?  Yes, because half our current elections are already open primaries.  In our state’s open primary races it is much harder to “primary” someone or for the political parties to limit who runs. These races are, therefore, much more likely to have multiple candidates which means more choices for voters. In fact, it is not unusual to have ten or more candidates in our mayor and school board races. 

In sum, there are many reasons for opening the rest of our primary races and few reasons that can justify stopping voters from voting. Having half-open and half-closed primaries makes no sense. It’s time to make all our primary races open to all taxpayers who are eligible to vote. Nevadans will most certainly support the only option in November that lets all voters vote.  

The post It’s time to make our primary elections make sense appeared first on Nevada Current.

Under the state law that went into effect this year, all county and city jails must have policies and procedures in place that allow detained people to vote in elections. (Photo: Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

The ACLU of Nevada is prepared to file lawsuits against numerous county and municipal jails for failing to comply with a voting access law that went into effect at the beginning of this year.

ACLU of Nevada Executive Director Athar Haseebullah told state lawmakers on the Interim Committee on Legislative Operations & Elections that lawsuits will be filed on April 15 against any detention center believed to be out of compliance with the new state law, which requires all county and city jails to have policies and procedures in place that allow detained people to vote in elections.

The mid-April deadline is designed to ensure that the issues be addressed in advance of the June primary elections.

“We don’t have much wiggle room,” said Haseebullah.

“We had an election that has already happened,” added Sadmira Ramic, a voting rights attorney with ACLU of Nevada, referring to the state-run presidential preference primary held in early February. “Disenfranchisement has already occurred.”

Haseebullah and Ramic did not publicly identify all of the facilities they believe are out of compliance with the in-jail voting law, but they noted that 5 of 12 facilities they formally requested information from had no policies on voting or were “not responsive.”

Mineral County was identified as a county that responded to the ACLU’s requests by stating only they were “monitoring” the new law.

According to the ACLU, 6 out of 12 facilities they contacted did not provide information or have policies on same-day voter registration, and seven did not have information about in-jail voting prominently posted. Both are specific requirements of the in-jail voting law, 2023’s Assembly Bill 286, which passed with wide bipartisan support. The ACLU also found instances of jails sharing outdated information about the voting rights of felons.

Haseebullah said the ACLU’s hope is that detention centers will become compliant with the law and that litigation can be avoided altogether.

“We’re not here to yell or threaten counties or cities,” he said. “We’re trying to ensure compliance with the law, and we’re in a finite time period.”

State Sen. Skip Daly (D-Sparks) called the timeline set by the ACLU “more than generous.”

He added, “I am concerned that some of it is just political and people just want to thumb their nose at the state.”

Detention centers provide details

Prior to the ACLU’s presentation, several law enforcement agencies provided lawmakers with an update on how their in-jail voting worked for the presidential preference primary.

Churchill County Sheriff Richard Hickox told the committee that 43 inmates were in their detention facility on the election day, and that one of them participated.

That individual was not previously registered to vote, he added.

According to the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, 69 inmates requested to vote. The majority, 43 people, could not be confirmed as Nevada residents and therefore did not vote. But 26 did. Only eight had been registered voters before.

In Southern Nevada, 23 people detained at Clark County Detention Center participated in the presidential preference primary, according to Nita Schmidt from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Specific details, such as their voting registration status prior to being detained, were not immediately available.

Assemblywoman Brittney Miller (D-Las Vegas), who sponsored the in-jail voting bill, seemed encouraged by the numbers, saying it was “a solid number” of voters considering that the presidential preference primary was a new concept to Nevada.

Schmidt told lawmakers Metro is working with Southern Nevada’s other, smaller detention facilities (which include city jails for Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas) to set up a system where inmates at those smaller facilities can be transported to CCDC to vote in person at their polling place.

The post ACLU of Nevada threatens lawsuits over noncompliance with in-jail voting law appeared first on Nevada Current.

The new system will be online before the 2024 presidential election, said Nevada Secretary or State Cisco Aguilar. (Photo: Jeniffer Solis/Nevada Current)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Nevada is delaying the launch of a “top-down” voter registration database and election system until after the upcoming June primary, a decision made after 15 county election officials requested the scheduled spring launch be delayed.

On Tuesday, Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar announced the implementation of the Voter Registration and Election Management System, or VREMS, will be delayed until July. VREMS was previously scheduled to launch in April.

Nevada is one of just a handful of states still using what is known as a “bottom-up” voter registration system, wherein counties maintain their own databases and states aggregate that data. Top-down systems offer one centralized database, which elections administrators say improves reporting and will reduce the potential for errors, such as an embarrassing technical issue experienced after the presidential primaries last month.

On Monday, a group of 15 top county election officials, which included the interim registrar of voters for Washoe County and Nevada’s rural counties, requested the delay. The administrators wrote that they “eagerly anticipate the benefits of this project” but “are concerned that the project success in both real and public perception terms may be unattainable under the current implementation schedule.”

A mock election exercise last week revealed “a number of issues” that must be addressed by the vendor of the election system, KNOWiNK, according to the letter. The elections officials expressed concern there will not be enough time to review and test the system after those updates are made.

“Elections are the foundation of our democracy, and when the administrators of those elections express concern we should all listen,” said Aguilar in a statement. “I know that this request from our state’s election administrators was not made lightly, and that it was made with the voters in mind.”

Aguilar emphasized that the new system will be online before the 2024 presidential election.

Nevada’s move to VREMS was legislatively mandated by 2021’s Assembly Bill 412. That legislation set an implementation deadline of January 2024, but state elections officials nearly two years ago raised concerns that the date was unrealistic.

The post Nevada delays launch of statewide voter registration system appeared first on Nevada Current.

A woman inserts her ballot into a drop box on Nov. 2, 2020, in Salt Lake City. Utah, unlike many Republican-led states, continues to embrace voting by mail and has rejected efforts to limit access. (Photo by Rick Bowmer/The Associated Press)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

When it comes to voting by mail, Utah is not your typical deep red state.

In 2020, when many states scrambled to implement mail-in voting so voters had a safe way to cast a ballot during the pandemic, Utah already had a system.

Republican conspiracy theories questioning the integrity of voting by mail in the tumultuous aftermath of the 2020 election never rang true for most Utahns. They’d been testing the system for years and found it trustworthy and convenient.

In Utah, that appreciation has stuck in the four years since, despite several legislative attempts by Republicans to curb residents’ access to mail-in ballots.

Again this year, members of the Republican supermajority in Salt Lake City joined Democrats in rejecting attempts to curb the state’s universal vote-by-mail system. The failed bills would have added a new deadline for turning in ballots and required voters to request mail-in ballots rather than having them sent automatically.

There’s a different story playing out nationally. Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee, has — without evidence — lambasted the voting process as being rife with fraud and has blamed it for rigging elections for his opponents. Republican lawmakers around the country have listened to him.

Republican-led states have restricted access to voting by mail through tighter deadlines, limiting who can request a mail-in ballot and eliminating drop boxes. Utah, though, continues to back its approach to ballot access, as bipartisan opponents turned aside efforts to restrict mail-in voting.

The mistrust of an unfamiliar voting method that dominated other red states’ politics never landed fully in Utah, said TJ Ellerbeck, executive director of the Rural Utah Project, a group that advocates for Native American and rural voters.

“Most average voters in Utah don’t think that there’s anything wrong that needs to be fixed,” Ellerbeck said. “The ideas that are put forth by a handful of legislators in states across the country just really don’t reflect what people actually think about our voting system.”

Some of the Republican lawmakers behind proposed mail-voting restrictions in Utah concede that point, even as they try to navigate the prevailing mood in their party. In order to restore confidence in elections, the argument goes, voting rules must be tightened.

Republican state Rep. Norm Thurston, for example, proposed a measure that would have required that mailed ballots get to county clerks on Election Day, instead of merely being postmarked by Election Day. That would have cut into potential voters’ time to make their decisions and added uncertainty in rural areas with slower mail service.

“In Utah, I don’t know that we have a particular problem,” Thurston said in an interview.

“But one of my concerns is making sure that our voters have confidence that our voting process is not flawed or vulnerable,” he said. “We want people to know our process is solid and that people can have trust in how things are going to turn out.”

In Utah, though, voter confidence is high.

According to a January poll commissioned by the Sutherland Institute, a Utah-based conservative think tank, 76% of likely 2024 voters in the state think the vote-by-mail process produces fair outcomes.

“There’s a political momentum on the Republican side to put more restrictions on it,” said Derek Monson, chief growth officer at the Sutherland Institute. “But it’s up against this experiential reality that people like it, they’re familiar with it, they’re confident in it.”

In the large, rural state, whose southeastern end includes a slice of the Navajo Nation, voting by mail allows remote voters who may be hours from a polling place to conveniently cast their ballots. Even before the pandemic, Utah was one of four states (Colorado, Hawaii and Oregon were the others) where nearly all voters used mail-in ballots, keeping only a handful of vote centers open for people to drop them off in person. Today, Utah is the sole Republican state among the eight states (plus the District of Columbia) that send mail-in ballots to every voter.

“We have a very vibrant voting system in Utah,” said Katharine Biele, president of the League of Women Voters of Utah. “We have been able to prove that we are a model for the nation on mailed ballots.”

So far, Utah has resisted attempts at making major changes to its vote-by-mail system. But voting rights advocates are not breathing easy.

“Utah is not immune,” said Ellerbeck. “It’s a fight we’re winning, but we haven’t won.”

There are some members of the legislature who, like Thurston, want to add limits in the name of improving accuracy and integrity of elections. Utah wouldn’t be alone among states that have tighter rules around voting by mail, even in states led by Democrats.

He got the idea for his legislation, he said, during a National Conference of State Legislatures summit. There, he heard that blue Colorado, which also has a vote-by-mail system, requires that ballots be received by county clerks by 7 p.m. on Election Day.

“We were trying to figure out if there is a way that we can accelerate the finalization of the election with the goal of giving more people confidence that our election processes is safe,” said Thurston, who added that he returns his ballot early through a drop box, not trusting the mail.

Hundreds of supporters of voting by mail showed up at the committee hearing for his bill in January; they argued that a change in long-standing procedure could confuse and potentially disenfranchise voters who have slow mail in rural areas.

After the bill was held in committee by a unanimous vote, including by Thurston, committee leaders didn’t take up another bill that would have limited voting by mail.

Thurston said he understood the concerns local election officials and voters voiced about changing deadlines, acknowledging that it might require a “massive” voter awareness campaign, which could be expensive and difficult.

Similar objections were raised in 2022, when one Republican lawmaker attempted to scrap the state’s vote-by-mail system and return to in-person voting. That bill also failed to advance out of committee, with several Republicans joining Democrats to defeat it.

Voting by mail remains at risk in many other states.

Last month, the Republican-led Arizona House passed a bill that would limit mail-in voting to people with disabilities, military members and older people, with limited exceptions for people temporarily out of the state. The bill is awaiting a committee hearing in the state Senate.

Meanwhile, at least two dozen other states are exploring further limits this year, though few if any have been signed into law. Last year, 14 states enacted 17 restrictive voting laws that included banning ballot drop boxes, requiring more information to receive mail-in ballots and shortening deadlines for turning in absentee ballots, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a New York-based voting rights advocacy organization.

Even in Utah, new hurdles to voting have emerged in recent years.

In 2022, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed into law a measure that requires 24-hour video surveillance of ballot drop boxes. Voting rights advocates opposed the bill, arguing it would limit some locations for drop boxes in heavily rural areas, especially on the Navajo Nation, where there is sporadic electricity, said Ellerbeck, of the Rural Utah Project.

And in Utah County, the second most populous in the state, County Clerk Aaron Davidson, a Republican, decided the county would no longer pay postage for mail-in ballots.

The move aims to encourage voters to use ballot drop boxes, instead of relying on the mail. It will also save the county $110,000 a year, he said. Nineteen Utah counties don’t provide postage for mail-in ballots, Davidson pointed out, while 10 others do, including Salt Lake County, home to more than a third of Utahns.

Davidson made the announcement while speaking in favor of Thurston’s legislation during the committee hearing in January. He told Stateline, though, that he had softened his position on mail-in ballot deadlines after hearing testimony from clerks in smaller, more rural counties who worried delays in the mail could make it harder to make an Election Day deadline.

“Society has just got more complex, and people need that ability to vote by mail,” Davidson said. “But I do believe it needs some more restrictions.”

This article was originally published in Stateline, which like the Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

The post Deep red Utah wants to keep voting by mail appeared first on Nevada Current.

Workers at the Washoe County Registrar of Voters counting early ballots in 2020. The process was live-streamed online. (Screengrab via YouTube)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

WASHINGTON — Senators on the U.S. Senate Rules Committee expressed concerns Tuesday that poll workers may need protection and that artificial intelligence could interfere in the fall elections.

Leading members of the committee said AI has already been used to promote disinformation that has interfered with elections, while elections workers have for years experienced intimidation. Both issues seriously threaten election integrity, the senators said.

“We are very concerned about what we have seen in just snippets of ads and videos that have gone out that attack candidates on both sides of the aisle, but they are complete deep fakes and not the actual candidate and you can’t even tell it’s not the candidate,” Rules Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar said.

Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, said AI is already being used to interfere with elections, noting voters in New Hampshire received a robocall in the voice of President Joe Biden telling them not to vote in the state’s presidential primary.

Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who also chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he is concerned that intelligence agencies have indicated that “we are potentially less protected as we go into 2024 in terms of the security of our elections than we were during 2020.”

“That’s a pretty stunning fact,” Warner said.

Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet expressed similar concerns and said he’s not surprised by the threat to democracy that AI can pose, especially on social media platforms.

“Every single one of these platforms, I think, virtually, has been used to spread … disinformation,” he said.

Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, said Michigan is focused on two things for the upcoming election: “fighting deception and misinformation about our elections and protecting the people who protect democracy.”

Benson expressed concern about how AI could be used to spread disinformation.

“I am also worried AI will make it easier to create and distribute hyperlocal disinformation that misleads voters about the voting process or conditions at their specific polling site,” she said.

The top Republican on the committee, Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, asked Brian Kruse, the election commissioner of Douglas County, Nebraska, what unique challenges he faces in preparing for elections.

Kruse echoed concerns about disinformation, saying AI could be used to impersonate him or generate an incorrect polling location.

He said having trust in the community and with voters is important so that “when issues do occur, you can contact them and get the correct information out.”

Worker safety

State and local elections officials also told the committee they struggled with threats to election workers.

Benson advocated for Congress to make it a federal crime to harm an election worker. She argued that many jurisdictions can’t afford private security to protect election workers who are threatened.

“They are regular people, our neighbors and community members, civil servants who drive themselves to town hall meetings, who go back and forth to their offices and homes, often dropping off or picking up children and groceries along the way,” she said.

Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia asked Benson how threats to election workers impact their work.

“Not only does it cause us to fear going to work… it takes us away from the actual work of administering elections every time we need to issue protections or think about our own safety,” Benson said.

Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said he’s been hearing from officials in his state about the difficulty to recruit election officials. He asked Benson if she was seeing that in Michigan.

“Yes, and it has (been difficult) since the 2020 election cycle,” Benson said.

Isaac Cramer, the executive director of the Charleston County Board Of Voter Registration and Elections in South Carolina, said that more than 70% of the state’s election directors have left their posts since 2020.

Cramer said that as Charleston County prepares for the 2024 election, his office’s main concerns are protecting election workers, the security of polling places and the assurance of reliable federal funding.

He said that during the June 2022 primaries, “our polling places became battlegrounds for disruptive elements seeking to undermine the electoral process.”

He said one local group traveled to the various polling locations on Election Day and harassed pool managers and “called law enforcement to come to polling places and demanded they arrest our poll managers.”

Paper ballots

Several witnesses from GOP-led states touted their states’ use of paper ballots and voter identification laws.

Wes Allen, Alabama’s secretary of state, advocated for senators to change federal law to require voter ID. He also approvingly noted Alabama passed a law to use paper ballots and ban voting machines that connect to the internet.

Kruse also said Nebraska uses paper ballots so voting machines are not connected to the internet.

“There is a paper trail,” he said.

Kruse, of Nebraska, added that his state has increased the number of poll workers by creating a system to draft workers from a pool in a process similar to jury duty.

“Some advantages to drafting poll workers are increased community awareness of the election process, less difficulty in securing election workers, and a younger workforce with an average age in the mid-50s while the majority of poll workers nationwide are over 60,” he said.

Voting rights

Earlier Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a separate hearing about protecting voting rights in the U.S. The first panel of witnesses included GOP Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas and Democratic Sen. Raphael  Warnock of Georgia.

The chair of the committee, Sen. Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said the hearing needed to be held because of the “ongoing assault of voting rights,” and he advocated for the passage of a bill named for late U.S. Rep. John R. Lewis, which would establish a new formula to require all states to get permission from the Department of Justice before making changes to voting laws or putting in place new voting requirements.

Lewis, who died in 2020, was a champion of voting rights and known for his advocacy during the civil rights era. He nearly died on “Bloody Sunday,” marching with other advocates from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol in Montgomery in 1965.

With Republicans in control of the House, the bill is unlikely to receive a vote in that chamber, even if the Senate manages to garner the 60 votes needed.

The bill, which would restore a requirement of the Voting Rights Act that certain states receive preclearance from the federal government before changing voting laws, has failed to pass several times.

The Supreme Court stripped the preclearance requirement in a 2013 decision.

Republicans, then-Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III blocked an attempt in 2022 to change Senate rules to allow the bill to pass with a simple majority vote.

There are currently no Senate Republican co-sponsors of the bill.

“Across the country the right to vote is under assault,” Warnock said.

He pointed to his own state of Georgia, which overhauled its voting laws after the 2020 election that sent two Democratic senators – Warnock, the state’s first Black senator, and Ossoff, its first Jewish senator – to Congress and the state’s electoral votes for President Joe Biden.

The top Republican on the committee, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, pushed back, arguing that states should be allowed to pass their own voting laws.

He added that while Republicans “admire the name John Lewis and his heroic efforts during the 60s,” GOP lawmakers view that bill as an attempt to rewrite the Supreme Court decision in 2013 – a ruling that gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. 

“You won’t find much support on this side of the aisle,” Graham said of the John Lewis bill.

The Brennan Center for Justice, a left-leaning think tank, published a report in 2022 on how strict voter ID laws disproportionately impact voters of color.

Hunt, who is also Black, disagreed with Democrats and argued that voter identification laws don’t disenfranchise Black voters. He pointed out that he has several forms of government IDs.

“We don’t need a new solution to a problem that doesn’t exist,” Hunt said.

The post AI disinformation, threats to poll workers top U.S. Senate panel list of election worries appeared first on Nevada Current.

Last year, Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed more legislation than any Nevada governor during a single legislative session, a distinction he has welcomed. (Photo: Richard Bednarski/Nevada Current)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

While he is not up for reelection, Gov. Joe Lombardo will hardly be a bystander in this year’s election cycle, and political observers believe his influence could play a role in the handful of races that decide whether he maintains veto power over the Nevada State Legislature.

The Republican governor has largely embraced the narrative that he is Nevada’s last line of defense against unfettered Democratic control. Last year, he racked up the most gubernatorial vetoes issued during a single legislative session, a distinction he has welcomed.

Lombardo told Nevada Newsmakers in November he is doing what he can to stop Democrats from gaining supermajorities in both chambers. Two-thirds supermajorities would allow Democrats to override any gubernatorial veto.

Democrats currently hold 13 of 21 Senate seats — one shy of a supermajority. This year, 10 of the seats are up for reelection. Democrats could gain a supermajority by maintaining the six of those seats they currently control and flipping one of the four Republican seats.

Democrats currently have the bare minimum for a supermajority in the Assembly — 28 of 42 seats. If Republicans can maintain their existing 14 seats and flip one Democratic seat, they will break the supermajority.

“The super-majority has to be prevented, whatever partisan side of the aisle you’re looking at,” Lombardo told Newsmakers. “And so we’re proactive as a campaign and as me, personally, as the governor, in identifying candidates, supporting candidates and helping them be successful in their election time.”

The result has been a slate of Republicans who announced their candidacies early, well before the start of candidate filing this week, and immediately became the frontrunners in their primary races. Many of the candidates have also been boosted by the well-funded pro-Lombardo political action committee Better Nevada PAC.

For many, the effort feels better coordinated than in previous election cycles and more reminiscent of Democratic campaign operations. And it hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“They’re trying to take pages from our playbook,” said Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno (D-North Las Vegas), who also chairs the Nevada State Democratic Party. “Because we have a winning system.”

Monroe-Moreno said she’s not threatened by it and referenced an old political adage about elections: either run scared, or run unopposed.

“They certainly have more money than they’ve had in the past,” said Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas). “Governor Lombardo has been raising a lot of money. But I’m not particularly worried. We are going to do what we always do. I think as Democrats we win at the doors because we actually have ideas.”

The Republican party is divided, continued Yeager, adding that the days of moderate, broadly liked Republicans like Brian Sandoval are gone.

“Whatever candidates they’re putting forward, they still have to be able to win primary elections, and so far the Republican party here in Nevada has shown that they are clearly on Donald Trump’s side of the line.”

Through his spokesperson, Lombardo declined to comment on his efforts to boost fellow Republicans this election cycle.

Better Nevada PAC declined a request for an interview, but in a statement Ryan Erwin said the governor has “personally made it a priority to recruit stronger candidates for the state legislature.”

He continued, “Nevada needs a more transparent, and less partisan, legislature that begins with serious candidates dedicated to policy over partisanship and to more accountability and transparency in the legislative process. Governor Lombardo will continue to do everything he can to advance those goals.”

Candidate filing begins

The filing period for non-judicial candidates opened Monday and runs until 5 pm on March 15. After the filing period ends, there will be a withdrawal and challenge period. The secretary of state’s office expects the official list of candidates to be released no later than April 3.

The unofficial list of candidates is available online.

As of Tuesday night, nearly 400 candidates had filed, according to the SOS website. That number includes candidates who have filed for the state’s numerous judicial offices, whose candidate filing period was held in January.

In Clark County, Assembly Democratic Caucus members and their endorsed candidates met midday Monday with supporters to file.

Assemblywoman Britney Miller, a Democrat whose District 5 in Las Vegas is considered competitive, said she was proud of the diversity of her caucus.

“Our legislature should look like the people we represent,” she said. “We know how extremely diverse we are here when it comes to race, religion, color, ethnicity, income, profession — all the different ways that humans are beautifully diverse.”

The Assembly Republican Caucus similarly gathered its Southern Nevada members and endorsed candidates on Monday to file as a group. On social media, the caucus highlighted the event, saying, “our incumbents and candidates showing unity and leading right out of the gate.”

Lombardo has endorsed all of the caucus’s returning incumbents, as well as several new candidates.

“Secure the veto, secure Nevada,” reads an image shared by state Assemblyman Toby Yurek, a Henderson Republican running for reelection, on social media this week.

Republican Brittany Hausle, who is running for an open seat in Assembly District 35, said on social media that the party will flip the seat red “to protect” Lombardo’s veto power.

Democratic Assemblywoman Michelle Gorelow, who currently represents AD35, announced she would not run for reelection. Her announcement came after Republicans, and especially the Lombardo-aligned Better Nevada PAC, publicly attacked her for taking a job as director of a disability advocacy nonprofit that months earlier had received $250,000 in funding through a bill she voted on.

The Nevada Ethics Commission ruled that Gorelow did not commit an ethics violation by taking the job or when voting for the bill, which also gave funds to dozens of other nonprofit organizations.

Yeager, who has also been criticized by Republicans for excessive traveling and perceived conflicts of interest, defended Gorelow and the nonprofit funding bill.

“I won’t apologize for allocating money to nonprofits that do things like feed hungry seniors, make sure kids have child care and tutoring,” he said.  “I would challenge anybody who wants to make that argument to spend a day or two with some of the nonprofits that we funded and see the work they do. Then tell me who is going to do that work if the nonprofits don’t? Because the answer is nobody. We don’t have the state capacity to do it because we’re one of the leanest state governments in the country.”

He added, “And a reminder, there’s only one constitutional officer who was found to have intentionally violated ethics provisions. That’s the governor himself. So there’s a bit of irony that his henchmen would attack us.”

The Nevada Ethics Commission last year found Lombardo willfully violated Nevada’s ethics laws by repeatedly wearing his Clark County sheriff’s badge and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department uniform in advertisements and promotions for his gubernatorial campaign.

[Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect that Lombardo has not endorsed a candidate in Assembly District 35.]

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