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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.

From left to right: April Gorbin Girnus, Hugh Jackson, MIchael Lyle, Jeniffer Solis, Dana Genry, Camalot Todd

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Note: As we do near the end of every year, each writer on the Nevada Current staff took a little time to highlight some of their work from the year, and say whatever they wanted to say about it.

Dana Gentry

An embarrassment of riches. That’s how I’d sum up 2023 for its news value. In case you had trouble keeping up, or just care to revisit, here’s a look at some of the highlights.  

Federal probe of casino companies, executives, said to be widening

A source close to the multi-agency California-based federal investigation of Las Vegas casino companies, particularly Resorts World and MGM Resorts International, revealed in our exclusive story in August and in a  federal subpoena issued weeks later, says the probe has expanded beyond its original confines. The feds are now said to be inquiring about Gov. Joe Lombardo’s relationship with former RW president and COO Scott Sibella. The governor’s office has declined to comment. More on that in the coming year. 

Feds investigating Las Vegas casinos, say sources

Nevada gaming regulators questioned Sibella last year about his relationship with gamblers banned from other casinos. A year later, Lombardo’s newly appointed gaming control board member, George Assad, in an uncharacteristic move for regulators, announced the agency had cleared Sibella of wrongdoing.  

While politically-related federal investigations rarely go anywhere in Nevada, the fact that this probe is being conducted from outside the state adds an interesting twist. 

The A’s have it

When the Oakland A’s went shopping for new digs, they hired a consultant with really close ties to the tourism officials yearning to make the move happen. Only problem is the Nevadans who watched the consultant, Jeremy Aguero, make the case before lawmakers for publicly funding a stadium for the A’s were not advised Aguero was working for the team, not the government-funded tourism agency he also works for in his capacity with the Stadium Authority.    

“No worries,” or words to that effect, said the legislative counsel bureau chief.   

Nonetheless, Aguero, in a position to negotiate the A’s contract with himself in his job with the Stadium Authority, eventually gave up that gig. 

Feeling hot, hot, hot over NV Energy sports team sponsorships

The dreaded arrival of summer electricity bills was preceded by a projection from the state’s consumer advocate that the average power bill for July would more closely resemble a car payment.

Then came the Current’s exclusive report on the costly ads NV Energy purchases (and you pay for) as part of the company’s sports sponsorships, in an effort to apprise sports fans of the savings available via a vague energy conservation campaign called PowerShift. Because sports fans who pretend to be preoccupied with the live action on the field (hockey rink or court) are really pondering how they can cut their power bills.  

NV Energy fought back but eventually canned the customer-subsidized ads after regulators ordered the utility to be more transparent about its sponsorships. 

The Animal Foundation caught fudging the numbers 

Critics of Southern Nevada’s primary government-funded shelter, the Animal Foundation (TAF) contend the non-profit running the shelter is less than transparent about its operation. Our reporting on a government audit of the shelter revealed it was exaggerating its occupancy count to discourage animal control officers and the public from bringing in more dogs and cats. 

By year’s end, local governments were taking steps to increase demands on the shelter as well as the governments’  presence in exchange for an infusion of more public money. 

Jeniffer Solis

A friend of mine recently joked that the parents of El Niño and La Niña need to get these kids under control.

For scientists carefully observing these oceanic and atmospheric weather patterns, there’s a sneaking suspicion that the adults left the room long ago.

November 2023 was the second-warmest November in recorded history for North America, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And global carbon emissions from fossil fuels reached record levels in 2023, according to climate researchers. 

Optimists say the tide is turning. Earlier this month, nations struck a deal at COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels. It’s a non-enforceable agreement, but it’s a solid house rule. Good job adults.

In the meantime, more destructive natural disasters are harming rural communities in Nevada year after year. Wildfires, drought, extreme heat waves, floods, etc. 

Confronting climate change impacts, tribes prepare and persist

From not enough water to too much, flooding in Nevada brought destruction and drought relief this year. In a series made possible by a field reporting grant, we covered some of those dynamics. 

From infrastructure to the environment, the effects of summer flooding on rural and tribal communities in Nevada were formidable.  But so were the solutions. Nevadans are battle born after all. 

Development of lithium mines and renewable energy on Nevada’s open public lands is the only and best solution to these disasters, say important state and federal officials. 

Only time will tell how it all pans out, but we’re committed to reporting on every aspect of that transition. From Nevadans concerns about lithium mining in the least populated county in the state, to the effects of geothermal development on the smallest toads. 

Thank you for reading.

Camalot Todd

Some good things this year: I bought my very first home… well condo, but still. My beloved dog Kush now has a feline sister named Penicillin. And my Fiat finally has four hubcaps. I also had the opportunity to be a grantee of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism Domestic Violence Impact Reporting Fund, which led to stories about how jurisdictional ambiguities make prosecuting non-Natives who commit domestic abuse hard, the shortage of nurses in the state to provide free strangulation exams outlined in state law, and how the state’s narrow domestic abuse law doesn’t include financial abuse.  

This year,  I also did some legislative coverage tackling stories like Nevada criminalizing fentanyl possession at lower quantities than the federal government, and a bill that would’ve given the many substitute teachers who are stepping up during Nevada’s ongoing teacher shortage a small health care stipend. That was one of many health care bills that met the governor’s veto pen.  

Under the category of most interesting policy that wasn’t, lawmakers decided not to address the health care provider shortage. State Sen. Roberta Lange (D-Las Vegas) tested the waters for a bill that would mandate insurance companies to accept any provider who meets their qualifications and applies to be in their network, known as an “Any Willing Provider” law. It’s popular with health care providers, and 35 other states have enacted it, but Lange abandoned it in favor of a far narrower scope, saying she “tested the temperature,” and “it’s not going to pass in Nevada.”

Lawmaker, providers agree reform would ease access to care, but ‘it’s not going to pass in Nevada’

I had the displeasure of being the messenger on some bad things this year (this is my public plea into the void to please please give everyone a much-needed break in 2024): Car insurance in Nevada is going up and up and there’s no relief in sight, and we had the highest Medicaid disenrollment rate in the country for paperwork and procedural causes until the feds stepped in and paused it. The state will resume disenrolling people on procedural grounds in January. Happy New Year, I guess? 

The state tops a long list of bad bad things, including but not limited to: children without health insurance, ambulance deserts, and low lung cancer screening rates. And ER visits for depression and anxiety skyrocketed in the last decade.

We also had our second mass shooting in Las Vegas earlier this month where three UNLV faculty members died.  Within hours, there were resources set up for students, faculty, and those impacted, including mental health resources. If the Oct. 1 mass shooting taught us anything, it was that in these darker moments, Nevadans do truly and deeply care about each other, and I hope that the depth of tenderness continues into 2024. Goodness knows we need it. 

Michael Lyle

I still think about Jada Kirkwood, a woman who was evicted in June after the state’s eviction protection expired. Since 2021, a state law paused an eviction case while rental assistance applications were being processed. The policy was put in place as a sort of exit ramp to a more robust eviction moratorium established during the pandemic to ensure if rental assistance was available, landlords could be paid anything owed to them in lieu of an eviction. Because why evict someone for nonpayment of rent if their rent could easily be paid with rental assistance dollars?

But the law sunset and legislation to extend it was left in limbo for a couple weeks. I wrote about that brief period of time. Kirkwood, who cared for her ailing mother, was among the first tenants to receive an eviction after the law expired.

I haven’t been able to get in touch with Kirkwood to learn what happened next. 

The legislation to extend the protection was vetoed. There were a few articles, in our outlet and others, immediately following that veto. However, I knew there was more to the story. 

For the next several months, I put in data records requests, talked with officials from the county, social services and legal aid groups, and sat in numerous eviction proceedings over several months to fully understand the aftermath of that veto. It is by far one of the most in-depth reporting packages I’ve produced as a reporter.  

For a while, a series of measures protected renters from NV’s harsh eviction laws. Not anymore.

Aside from reporting on the housing crisis, I have to say reporting on a legal clinic for trans and gender nonconforming people was one of my favorites. 

Nevada Legal Services and The LGBTQ Center of Southern Nevada partnered together to offer a free legal clinic to help trans people go through the legal process to change their names and gender markers on documents. 

The trans and gender nonconforming community is experiencing such vitriol and hate. It’s not a new thing, but has intensified in a way that is frightening for that community. At the center of these nationwide attacks are just people trying to live their lives. That includes Emily, who received assistance from the legal clinic. 

I will let Emily speak for herself on what this assistance meant to her: “When I was born, I was given the wrong name and the wrong gender marker. It’s an inconsistency I had to live with my entire life. It’s an error that’s been forced on me that I had to live with my whole life. To be able to easily, efficiently and frankly quickly finally fix that error, it’s amazing.” 

April Corbin Girnus

Remember when Nevada approved hundreds of millions of dollars in tax incentives for a billionaire?

Actually. That happened twice this year!

In June, the Nevada State Legislature approved $380 million in tax incentives for the Oakland Athletics to become the Unincorporated Clark County Athletics and build a baseball park on the famed Unincorporated Clark County Strip. But let us not forget that several months before that, in March of this year, the Governor’s Office Of Economic Development, without any input from legislators, approved $412 million in tax incentives for Tesla, an electric car company whose CEO and biggest shareholder is Elon Musk, a man whose net worth is equivalent to 85 John Fishers, according to the internet.

The outcomes of both of those initial requests for corporate welfare may have been inevitable, but covering it as we did — with a heavy dose of skepticism and a focus on the impact to all Nevadans — was important.

But enough about rich people. Let’s talk about teachers.

Another of my favorite stories from this year was about how Clark County teachers inspired Nevada’s anti-strike law and how they might also upend it. For much of this year, the narrative began and ended at “teachers aren’t allowed to strike.” But in the fall, the teachers union filed a lawsuit attempting to overturn the law, a move that would upend power dynamics in the state.

Clark County teachers inspired Nevada’s anti-strike law. They might also upend it.

Was it a ruse to pressure the district into settling a contract? Perhaps. Do I expect it to go anywhere in the upcoming year, especially since the teachers union secured most of what it wanted? No, not really. But was it a seed worth planting in the minds of state lawmakers and the public? Absolutely.

My favorite stories from this year, and my favorite stories of all time from the Current, are those that look at the bigger picture, that question previously unchallenged narratives. I think our coverage of the A’s, Tesla and the strike law largely did just that, and I’m so proud of it.

Here are three other personal favorites from the year:

Tracking the state’s attempt to give charter schools money to launch transportation programs. Turns out transportation is super complicated!

State lawmakers approved the use of natural organic reduction of human remains — aka, human composting, or my favorite bill of this year’s legislative session.

Lawmakers also outlawed a predatory title scheme that I suspect a lot of people had no clue was even a thing.

Hugh Jackson

Nevada’s upside-down tax structure means the less you make, the higher the percentage of your income you pay in taxes. And no, being a tourist economy doesn’t make it ok.

‘The tourists pay it’ is a lousy excuse for punishing Nevadans with a regressive tax system

Continuing to disproportionately burden those on the bottom to please those on the top doesn’t bother Nevada governors and lawmakers; if it did they would do something about it.  They never do.

Democrats have a strong chance of winning two-thirds majorities in both houses of the state legislature in the 2024 election. I remain convinced that they’ll blow it, deliberately, because if they had supermajorities they would no longer have an excuse for continuing to ignore a tax structure that punishes working people – a policy choice that the vast majority of lawmakers of both parties refuse to even acknowledge.

So Nevada’s blithe acceptance of an abusive tax structure that makes poor people poorer – that’s one of my main takeaways (a perennial) from 2023.

Another is the state’s ongoing willingness to normalize Trumpism.

To be fair, that doesn’t make Nevada special. Alarmingly large portions of the electorate across the U.S. are showing a disregard of or even hostility to democracy. Nevada movers and shakers and deal makers proclaim Nevada is unique. But when it comes to sucking up to Trump and Trumpism, Nevada Republicans are pretty much the same as Republicans everywhere anymore.

For Republican “leaders” in Nevada and the nation, moral bankruptcy is the new norm, and they’re giving every indication that they’ll burrow even further down the filthy rathole in the new year. 

Good luck

The post Looking back (and a little forward): 2023 selections & reflections from the Nevada Current staff appeared first on Nevada Current.

The Nevada Current staff. From left: Camalot Todd, Jeniffer Solis, Dana Gentry, Hugh Jackson, April Corbin Girnus, Michael Lyle.

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Note: As we do near the end of every year, each writer on the Nevada Current staff took a little time to highlight some of their work from the year, and say whatever they wanted to say about it.

April Corbin Girnus

I wrote one of my favorite stories of 2022 early on. In February, I attended a “poverty simulation” at UNLV where students preparing for careers in health care were given a taste of what it’s like to live paycheck-to-paycheck. I watched participants scamper around a gymnasium trying to avoid eviction, navigate social services, find employment, and deal with curveballs beyond their control. Many had time and resource limitations that made their odds of success impossible. I remember thinking to myself: These are all the things we write about at the Current.

Life isn’t supposed to be easy, but it sure as hell isn’t supposed to be this hard for this many.

Does it have to be this way?

Could we use a rosy financial projection to better fund needed services? Could we build up our child care industry to give more parents the ability to work? Could we shake up the political system that so many are disenfranchised by?

Those are all conversations people have been having in the past year, and I’ve spent a lot of time researching these issues and trying to provide for people the information and context they need and want about them. I look forward to those conversations (and my reporting) continuing, assuming we don’t nose dive into a full-on recession and have to all shift back into pure survival mode.

*knock on wood*

Michael Lyle

The rent is too damn high. 

I’ve been reporting on Nevada’s housing crisis since 2018 and have written about the effects of skyrocketing rents, in particular in the last two years. And 2022 was no different. 

This year, elected officials used federal relief dollars and began to make strides in creating affordable housing, which will take time to actually construct. But, many of them continue to play a game of hot potato over who has the power to prevent rent rates from climbing. The topic of rent control was broached early on this year and pretty much fizzled out. One of my favorite, and more in-depth, pieces on rent stabilization explores the nuances of local and state power on the issue.  

As a journalist, you can only hope that your reporting sheds a light on injustices people face and that elected officials will respond. During the first two years of the pandemic, I reported consistently about evictions and what tenants were experiencing. Time and time again, I would hear, and write about, how weekly motels were trying to exploit loopholes in the eviction moratoria (state and federal). A congressional probe into their practices wrapped up an investigation and validated what was being reported. Siegel Suites engaged in egregious practices to evict people during a pandemic. For tenants like Ashima Carter, who I first interviewed in 2021 and then again after the Congressional report, the damage was already done. 

Dana Gentry

Bless the beasts and the builders.

Animals and housing topped my story list in 2023, and sometimes both topics meshed – like in a story about unhoused people and their pets, and another on Nevada’s wild horses competing with homebuilders for space. 

Back in 2020 when COVID was raging, I reported that counterintuitive as it may be with throngs out of work, people who still had jobs were upsizing into homes where they could have it all – room to work, educate the youngsters, and recreate. Thanks to record low pandemic-era interest rates, the phenomenon snowballed into a run up in housing prices that rendered buying cost-prohibitive for many, especially first-time buyers. Housing prices and rents, out of whack with income growth, climbed. 

Home prices finally peaked in March, and the subsequent slide has been steep, but little help to cash-strapped buyers priced out by mortgage interest rates that have ballooned from historic lows of less than 3% to 7% in November for a 30-year fixed rate. Mortgage rates in mid-December were down slightly, leaving room for some optimism in 2023. 

As renters struggle to keep up with inflation, and prospects for rent stabilization (unless imposed locally) appear unlikely under Gov.-elect Joe Lombardo, apartment builders at both ends of the state are focusing on luxury products. 

Also back in 2020, animal shelters in Nevada and the nation reported cages were rapidly emptying, thanks to people being confined to their homes with nothing to do. It was a good idea with an inevitable bad ending. 

The reckoning arrived this year, with a slew of abandoned and surrendered dogs and cats. Southern Nevada’s largest publicly-funded shelter, the Animal Foundation, buckled under the pressure, leaving rescues to pick up the slack. 

A measure aimed at reducing shelter populations, a ban on animal sales from pet stores, won approval in December from the Clark County Commission. The City of Las Vegas, which repealed a pet store sales ban in 2017, has defended its animal services and declined to reinstate the ban.

On the animal entertainment front, the Hard Rock, new owner of the Mirage, announced it will close the resort’s dolphin exhibit, where the dolphins live a fraction of their expected lifespan. 

The Hard Rock is refusing to say where the Mirage’s remaining dolphins will be sent.  

At the northern end of the state, the Current’s story on how climate change is forcing bears into perilous situations prompted national reporting on the bear known by many monikers – from Jake to Hank the Tank. 

Jeniffer Solis

I’m ending the year with a massive cold. Last year, I ended it with my family cat in the animal hospital because he was shot with a bullet. He’s good now. Really, you can’t even tell. 

That is to say, 2022 was a better year for me. It seems like it was a better year for Nevada and the people living here too. 

For one, the Legislature passed a bill late 2021 that allowed tribes to request a polling site or ballot drop box on their reservation, which counties would be required to set up each election cycle.

Several Tribal Nations in Nevada took advantage of that hard-fought right in 2022, including the Fallon Paiute Shoshone Tribe, the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation, and the Yomba Shoshone Tribe.

In the case of the Yomba Shoshone Tribe, however, disorganization and miscommunication in Nye County following the appointment of election denier Mark Kampf as the county’s top election clerk resulted in a botched and chaotic election week for the tribe.

Despite a trail of emails and election forms proving the tribe submitted a request by the statutory deadline and were entitled to a polling site, the tribe was forced to seek out a consultant with Four Directions Native Vote, a voting rights group that successfully sued Nevada and several counties for election violations in the past.

Nye County and Mark Kampf ultimately decided to do the right thing and give the tribe their polling location. Good job fellas. 

On another positive note, Nye County became the first in the nation to offer voting in Shoshone language — a language tribes in Nevada are fighting to preserve.

County officials were required to work something out, because the Voting Rights Act requires all communities with significant groups of non-English-proficient citizens to be provided election materials in that group’s language. Still, good job again fellas.

Nye County wasn’t the only one with election problems. Election clerks in Washoe and Clark — Nevada’s two most populous counties — were flooded with public records requests seeking evidence of election fraud and demanding confidential information on voters and poll workers, adding chaos to important work preparing the November election.

But the New Year is nigh, and we should look to the future now. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act by the end of June 2023. 

Tribal Nations in Nevada say if the court sides with those challenging the 44 year old law, it could dismantle broader tribal sovereignty. Or as Amber Torres, the chair of the Walker River Paiute Tribe, explained the case, it’s “a blatant slap in the face to tribal sovereignty.”

One important New Year’s resolution for the seven states who depend on the Colorado River is to agree on a plan to safeguard the shrinking supply of water the river can supply. Some important people talked about that for three days straight in Las Vegas this month.

A friend of mine who’s gone into mechanical engineering recently told me her mentor said ‘water is the future. It’s where the money will be.’ Imagine a thing like that.

Camalot Todd

I moved back to my home state in May to help with family stuff and anyone who has ever helped with family stuff knows that it’s always heavy and rarely good. 

Early into the “2022 summer reintroducing myself to the Nevada media tour” I connected with my former co-worker, April Corbin Girnus, to freelance for the nonprofit newsroom, Nevada Current.

The freelancing gig was short-lived. 

In August, I joined the scrappy and best-dressed newsroom in the Silver State to cover mental health, social services and other issues full time.

Like all who move away from their home, only to return weary-eyed and aged — some things are the same: Nevada’s persistent struggle with mental health especially for youth, and a general apathy toward improving social services.

Other things are different: my middle school downtown is now just another dirt lot. The longstanding health concerns that made headlines in my high school and college days — affordable health care, tackling the opioid epidemic, and access to factual reproductive health care —  are now burgeoning public health crises.

The stories that I am most proud to bear witness to and tell are those that demonstrate how health care policy impacts people. In Anti-abortion centers: Unregulated, misleading, and close as possible to abortion clinics, we see how the lack of regulating crisis pregnancy centers, religious-based nonprofits posing as reproductive health clinics, distressed a young woman trying to get answers to her missed period, and how these clinics impact people in a post-Dobbs decision world. 

But even as things look grim regarding healthcare, there does seem to be some cause for cautious optimism. Nevada rolled out its version of 988 in July, a considerable policy initiative that not only changed the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline to an easy three-digit number but also aims to revamp the mental and behavioral health care system entirely. And smaller mental and behavioral health policies may (heavy emphasis on the may) be common ground for the new, divided Congress.

Hugh Jackson

He wasn’t a celebrity, and Nevada’s a relatively small state, so unlike other Republicans who were patently unfit to be a U.S. senator, Adam Laxalt’s Trump-based and Trump-backed candidacy failed to garner a lot of that thing Laxalt desires most: attention from national media. 

But Nevada voters had his number so it didn’t matter.

If Joe Lombardo’s campaign for governor had a point, it was that Lombardo had a badge and a gun so ergo, ipso facto, and neener neener he must be a stalwart champion of law and order. And yet Lombardo chummed it up with the pathologically lawless Trump anyway. Then Lombardo, in a simpering act of public obeisance, just cold folded for Trump. 

But in Lombardo’s case, Nevada voters didn’t seem to mind, or at least not much. Perhaps it was something Steve Sisolak’s campaign said. Or didn’t. Tuesday Lombardo will be inaugurated, ushering in what promises to be an unremarkable administration.

In an effort to appear to be at least trying to deliver on something resembling a campaign promise – or something within the same general subject area – your new governor is expected to make many noises about taking public money away from public schools and giving it to private ones. The education privatization movement and industry has spent decades crafting soaring, inspirational ways to say c’mon Nevada, let’s get out there and give up on public schools. It will be interesting to see how many, if any, Democratic legislators will sip the privatization KoolAid. (Does your child deserve an education? Let the market decide!)

Democrats by the way had their chances over the last four years to get a lot of stuff done, but on many fronts, they took a pass. While Lombardo is governor, state economic policy, inasmuch as there is any, will be a top-down affair, far more focused on being business-friendly than worker-cognizant. In other words, some things won’t change.

Finally, even though several election-denying Nevada chuckleheads lost their bids for public office in 2022, many of their elections were disturbingly, unnervingly close. A popular narrative in the aforementioned national press as the year winds down is that Trump is no longer the commanding presence he was in the Republican Party, that he is yesterday’s man. Maybe this time that’s true. But that narrative, along with nearly half the Nevada electorate’s willingness to vote for conspiracy-mongering vulgarians, reminds me yet again of spring this year when I was visited by a swarm of bees.

Good luck.

The post Selections & reflections from the Nevada Current staff on a year that … could have been worse? appeared first on Nevada Current.

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Below are links to overviews and other coverage of select Southern Nevada and statewide races that will be on the 2022 general election ballot. We have 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. Share with your friends. And for all the Current’s coverage of the 2022 election please visit our Election 2022 page.

FAQs

• Everything you need to know about voting in Nevada’s 2022 general election

Ballot Questions

• Question 1: Question 1 would put equal rights into Nevada Constitution
• Question 2: What Nevada’s Question 2 means for the state’s minimum wage
• Question 3: Alaska offers perspective for Nevadans pondering open primary/ranked choice voting reform & Question 3 is hated by many and funded by rich out-of-state reformers, but…

Las Vegas Justice Court

• Dept. 6: ‘Gender factor’ could decide Las Vegas Justice court race
• Dept. 7: Wilson gives Berkley a run for his money in Justice Court race
• Dept. 9: Chio winning money race against Bonaventure in LV Justice Court 
• Dept. 13: Baucum faces challenger in LV Justice Court race

Clark County District Court

• Dept. 9: Former NSHE Regent challenging appointed judge in special election
• Dept. 10: Dotson defending appointed seat against prosecutor
• Dept. 11: Appointed judge and private attorney vie for District Court seat 
• Dept. 17: Public defender, prosecutor, and civil attorney vie in three-way special election
• Dept. A: Multiple candidates vying for Family Court seat in special election

Nevada Court of Appeals

• Four of five statewide appeals court races unopposed

North Las Vegas Mayor

• No-show candidate doesn’t stop NLV mayor debate, which focuses on housing crisis

Las Vegas City Council

• Former assemblywoman and former councilman compete in LV City Council Ward 4
• Two political newcomers running for LV City Council Ward 6

Clark County School Board

• District D: School Board president faces challenge from community organizer
• District F: Opinion of Jara key difference between trustee and the former state legislator challenging her
• District G: Former rural superintendent challenges incumbent

Clark  County District Attorney

• Challenger hopes to unseat Wolfson

Nevada State Legislature

• ‘Red wave’ and redistricting may play role in Nevada State Senate races
• 2022 general election will bring fresh faces to Nevada State Assembly

NSHE Board of Regents

• Board of Regents races pit neighbor against neighbor, educator against educator
• A former Clark commissioner and political family connections dot Southern Nevada regent races

State Treasurer

• Treasurer faces Trump acolyte for seat ‘managing $50 billion of other people’s money’

Secretary of State

• Democratic secretary of state candidate warns election denying opponent ‘will tear down the system’
• Ad campaign warns Marchant seeks to end early voting, vote by mail
• Democrats feel pressure to ‘save the republic’ in campaigns to run state election systems

Attorney General

• Chattah, Ford make closing arguments in contentious battle

Lieutenant Governor

• Sisolak appointee faces long-time officeholder in lieutenant governor race

Governor

• Sisolak, Lombardo trade barbs over abortion rights and who loves businesses more
• Sisolak weighs lifting property tax caps, cutting sales tax rate, broadening base

Congress

• Nevada candidates hope to help Republicans retake House
• Three Democratic incumbents fight to retain seats in competitive races
• Horsford, Peters debate abortion, inflation in race for CD4

U.S. Senate

• Cortez Masto, Rosen call out Laxalt for ‘failure to condemn’ antisemitism
• Cortez Masto slams Laxalt for inspiring Jan. 6: ‘It is unforgivable’
• Adam Laxalt, Trumpism and the Big Lie: An (updated) chronology

The post 2022 General Election Voter Guide! appeared first on Nevada Current.

(Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Below are links to overviews and other coverage of select Southern Nevada and statewide races that will be on the June primary ballot this year. We have 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 may be added, as the primary election nears. Share with your friends. And for all the Current’s coverage of the 2022 election please visit our Election 2022 page.

Las Vegas Justice Courts

• Department 6
• Department 7
• Department 9
• Department 10
• Department 16

North Las Vegas Mayor

North Las Vegas mayoral race features state senator, councilwoman, 5 others

Clark County School Board

• Crowded field of 10 vie to represent Clark County School Board District F
• Social issues divide and drive candidates in Clark County School Board District G
• Clark County School Board president to defend seat, voting history against four challengers

Clark County Sheriff

Civil rights groups hope to put police reforms on agenda in sheriff’s race

Clark County District Attorney

• Justice not blind in Clark County DA’s office, says Wolfson’s primary opponent
• Wolfson gone but not forgotten at DA forum
• Civil rights group, former lawmaker speak on bringing change to DA’s office

NSHE Board of Regents

• Nine candidates vie for two open Board of Regents seats in Districts 8, 11
• Regents races in Clark County bring both newcomers and familiar faces (Districts 6, 7, 13)

State Treasurer

First-time candidate goes up against high-visibility firebrand in GOP treasurer primary

Secretary of State

• GOP primary for secretary of state highlights increasing partisanship of a once moderate office
• Nye’s planned switch to hand-counted paper ballots for general election raises alarms

Attorney General

Chattah, Black spar in Republican AG primary

Lieutenant Governor

Race for lieutenant governor features primaries on both sides

Governor

• Lombardo declares Nevada gubernatorial primary over
• And in this corner… Joey Gilbert 
• Lombardo skates on the GOP’s hard-right edge in primary
• GOP governor hopefuls have met the enemy and it is … Brian Sandoval
• Despite rocky relationship, Heller ‘would love to have’ Trump’s endorsement
• Trump backs Lombardo for Nevada governor
• Column: Trump-endorsed candidates snubbed & drubbed at NVGOP convention

Congress

• CD1: Amy Vilela makes case to Democratic primary voters to replace Dina Titus
• CD3: Attorney leads in fundraising, endorsements in Republican primary
• CD4: Far-right Republicans compete in primary before facing a well-funded Horsford

U.S. Senate

• Adam Laxalt peddles ‘great replacement theory’ on GOP campaign trail
• In an odd early morning debate, Brown says Laxalt’s efforts to save Trump were too late

The post 2022 Primary Election Voter Guide appeared first on Nevada Current.

(Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Note: Each writer on the Nevada Current staff was asked to highlight some of their work from the year, and say whatever they wanted to say about it.

April Corbin Girnus

The other day I scrolled upon a lie-laden Facebook post attempting to discredit the polio vaccine, presumably because the polio vaccine is proof of the effectiveness of vaccines. The top comment was someone pointing out the post’s many, many factual inaccuracies. To that, the original poster responded, “You are free to believe whatever you want.”

The sad thing is, she is right.

We live in a post-truth society. That was true before this year. (The term was Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year in 2016. Thanks, Trump, for The Big Lie and myriad middle and little lies!) But 2021 brought this sad reality to dizzying new heights. The blatant disregard of science and the weaponization of public health has been disheartening and infuriating to witness.

It has also strengthened my belief in the type of journalism I strive to do. It’s not enough to include a parenthetical about how these anti-vax and anti-facts voices are a minority whose views are shaped by misinformation campaigns. We must call out anyone perpetuating these views or allowing them to normalize.

Two of my personal favorite stories from 2021 did just that. The first focused on Joe Lombardo, who as a private citizen and sheriff appears to understand the importance of the COVID-19 vaccine but as a gubernatorial candidate wants to stay silent on the issue. The second focused on Adam Laxalt, who continues to peddle The Big Lie in his Senate campaign.

The majority of my other favorite stories focused on labor issues across the state. Working conditions matter just as much as the unemployment rate. This year I reported on crisis-level standards within the county’s children’s shelter, a state loophole that allows charter schools to hire dozens of unlicensed teachers, and frustrations from rideshare drivers, a troubling area of the “gig economy” that I suspect we’ll hear more about in the years to come.

I also explored the popular but short-sighted narrative of blaming expanded federal unemployment benefits for the “labor shortage.” (In that same vein, I hope Dr. Bruce Dow, the rural dentist who’s been looking for his successor for more than a year now will be able to retire without creating an oral health desert.)

My greatest wish for 2022 would be for my well of story ideas to dry up because all the GOP politicians worried about their primary start putting public health first and all employers stop taking advantage of their workers. Since neither of those will realistically happen, I will settle for a holiday break and another year of reporting.

See you next year!

Dana Genty

We have this primeval practice every year at the Current of choosing favorite stories – akin, if you ask me, to choosing a favorite child. When asked by my own children who is my favorite, I say I don’t like any of them.  

That’s kind of how I feel about my stories after they’re filed and published. Be done with them! So it was a momentous first-world struggle to look back in the annals of a really horrible year and dredge up some equally troubling stories. But I managed.  

Here’s a cheery look at how Southern Nevada is growing far beyond our means, with a drought, global warming, and vulnerable wildlife. Hope you enjoy! 

If nature is your thing, check out how trophy animals in Nevada have about the same chance of survival as me at a craps table.  

Speaking of craps, that game and other casino betting can be highly addictive and responsible for a litany of social ills that cost a lot of money to fix. But in Nevada, we do things the hard way.  So it wouldn’t be prudent to invest in treatment before those gambling addictions cost everyone a lot of dough.  

Finally, it’s good to know your way around the courts, so you can circumvent them at will. Let’s give Metro Sheriff and Republican gubernatorial hopeful Joe Lombardo the benefit of the doubt.  Securing arrests is his forte, not navigating the legal process. But you’d think Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson would have told him about filing motions, affidavits and all that stuff that’s required to get what you want from a judge. Hear the two explain their actions on audio tape.    

Interesting tidbit – when the Nevada Democratic Victory folks sent out a news release about this story, as they do with any story that makes Lombardo look like a guy you wouldn’t vote for, they failed to mention Wolfson’s involvement. In case you’ve forgotten, Wolfson is a Democrat. 

Michael Lyle

And just like that, the year is over. 

It is honestly a great privilege of my life to be able to meet an array of people and then tell their stories. By the nature of the subjects I often report on, I meet many people who are at their most vulnerable moments and ask them to share the hardest aspects of their lives. 

The idealist in me will forever believe sharing their stories, giving readers this inside glimpse, can shape the policies being discussed. At the very least, it elevates their voices and invites the readers to have a moment of empathy.  

Among the stories I was privileged to tell was Tayanna Herrell, a mother of four who experienced homelessness during the pandemic. Her story helped highlight the struggles around housing and helping people exit homelessness. The story also showed because of Nevada’s low housing stock and high rent prices, there is a backlog in helping people exit homelessness.  

Writing about prison policy, corrections and inmates can be extremely challenging. But, it has been worth it to be able to give a glimpse into how prisons are run and give some perspective of how incarcerated individuals are treated. 

One story that sticks with me is Terry Clark, who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer in 2020, and his struggle to be considered for compassionate release, a policy that allows the Nevada Department of Corrections a chance to consider releasing medically vulnerable, sick and dying inmates. 

I never met Clark, but I got to learn about his life talking to his family and told his story through the medical grievances he filed over a painful year of health issues related to his cancer. His personal, and at times heartbreaking, struggles underscored the gaps in the compassionate release policy. Sadly Clark died a few months after my article was published. His story will stick with me for a long time. 

Jeniffer Solis

For more than three years our news outlet has delivered local journalism for the great state of Nevada. It’s honestly hard to believe. Not because we haven’t put in the work but because thousands of journalism jobs were lost during the pandemic and economic downturn, even as news readership surged. Local news outlets struggled the most. 

We hope that our outlet — and our affiliated network of state-based outlets — served as some sort of balm for those thousands of gaps in coverage. However, even in Nevada there are still beats that must be more thoroughly covered. There is still space for more reporters and more stories.

One corner of the state I covered this year is the growing conflicts between clean energy development and locals. From conservationists to rural Nevadans to Tribal Nations, clean energy development in Nevada’s vast public lands is not so clear cut.

In June, the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony sent a letter to the BLM Winnemucca District Office asking the federal agency to halt the construction of a planned lithium mine. In the tribes oral history the area is the site of a massacre. “To disturb this massacre site Peehee mu’huh would be like disturbing Pearl Harbor or Arlington National Cemetery,” read the letter.

The tribe also presented written records and two eyewitness accounts of federal soldiers massacring at least 31 Paiute men, women, and children at Thacker Pass in 1865. One eyewitness account of the Thacker Pass Massacre includes a Paiute man named Ox Sam, whom many local Paiute members opposing the mine say they are directly descended from.

The case, has put a spotlight on the role federal and state governments played in the murder of Indigenous peoples in Nevada’s history.

The Fort Mojave Indian Tribe — along with business chambers and rural towns — have also opposed the development of a wind farm near an area known to the tribe as Avi Kwa Ame, a geographical area that is culturally significant to of the tribe’s spiritual ideology and is featured in their creation beliefs.

Thanks for reading and thanks for supporting our work here at the Current.

Hugh Jackson

“Congratulations, Nevada GOP ‘leaders.’ It’s folks like you who built this,” I wrote on January 6. That headline holds up fine. Alas, my (typically) optimistic expectation that January 6 would force the GOP to rethink their fealty to all things Trump and Trumpism was misplaced. My mistake became clear pretty quickly, as a mere a week later I wrote a column headlined “The calibrated cowardice of Mark Amodei.”

Blockchains was a farce from the start, hence “Take Blockchains LLC seriously? You first, governor.” But the murky project was more than just a fish in a barrel for columnists and a punchline for late night TV shows. The gimmickry, the perpetual hunt for some game-changing quick big score — the utter Nevada-ness of it all — was humiliating to the state and its people. So when the governor backed away from the flop, I wrote a Blockchains obituary which included this suggestion: “Stop wishing trickery will deliver some visionary economy of the future and start fixing structural failures undermining the real economy we have now.”

Speaking of fish in a barrel, and things that hold up fine, “Laxalt makes it official, asks Nevada voters to send him home to Washington” was my first column on the conspiracy-mongering wannabe Westerner after he officially announced his Senate bid. There would be more. There will be more.

One of my favorite columns of the year, however, was about the politician Laxalt hopes to replace, Catherine Cortez Masto: “Senator assures industry Nevada will remain a mining colony.” Go to see mining reforms gutted from federal legislation, stay for the billions of dollars worth of minerals on which no Nevada mining taxes were paid.

Finally, a word about the short American attention span. The year started with the aforementioned violent assault on the U.S. Capitol. By the end of the year a large segment of the public appears poised to give the man and the party responsible for the attack another chance, because, you know, gas prices went up. So I wrote about that: Why won’t that mean Joe Biden just snap his fingers and lower gas prices?

Good luck.

The post Selections & reflections from the Nevada Current staff on a year everyone hoped would go better appeared first on Nevada Current.

“Apply for rental assistance, respond to all eviction notices by filing an 'Answer' with the court, include that you have a pending rental assistance application and elect mediation. You shouldn't be evicted." (Nevada Current file photo)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

“Nevadans should not panic,” a legal aid advocate said after the U.S. Supreme Court late Thursday struck down a Centers for Disease Control moratorium on evictions that had been scheduled to last through Oct. 3.

“Apply for rental assistance, respond to all eviction notices by filing an ‘Answer’ with the court, include that you have a pending rental assistance application and elect mediation. You shouldn’t be evicted,” Bailey Bortolin, policy director for Nevada Legal Aid Services said on social media shortly after the court’s ruling was announced.

The Nevada Legislature and courts “forged a path forward to ensure that families have a route to stay and resolve eviction proceedings until they are able to connect with rental assistance that is then paid directly to landlords,” Bortolin said.

She urged renters who fear eviction to apply for rental assistance from the CARES Housing Assistance Program.

“We encourage everyone to take action immediately and apply for rental assistance from the county they reside,” echoed Tiara Moore, Housing Justice Organizer with the Progressive Leadership of Alliance, in a statement Thursday night.

At the end of July, when the federal moratorium was set to expire and before it was known the CDC would issue an extension on August 3, Gov. Steve Sisolak announced there would be no additional state moratoriums to fill the gap.

But Sisolak said Assembly Bill 486 — the “path forward” Bortolin was referring to — which he signed into law earlier this year, will help tenants who are waiting for their rental assistance applications to be processed. 

“This legislation helps ensure qualified tenants who are waiting for rental assistance applications to be processed are protected from being evicted for nonpayment of rent,” Sisolak said at the time. “AB 486 was enacted and creates a glide path for the end of the eviction moratorium. The law ensures both landlords and tenants will receive the benefits of $360 million in federally funded rental assistance to keep tenants in their homes, pay landlords and prevent avoidable evictions.”

The bill was supported by legal and housing justice groups, including Nevada Legal Aid Services and PLAN.

“With the passage of Assembly Bill 486, Nevadans still have some protections from eviction,” PLAN’s Moore said Thursday. “We urge all tenants facing eviction in Nevada to file an answer to the notice received, apply for CHAPs (rental assistance), and reach out to local legal service providers.”

Those providers include:

• Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada, 702-386-1070;
• Washoe Legal Services, 775-329-2727
• Nevada Legal Services 702-383-6095 / 775-284-3491

“Tell people not to give up,” Bortolin said.

During a special legislative session last summer, lawmakers authorized the creation of a statewide eviction mediation program, which began in October. 

Home Means Nevada, a nonprofit established by the Nevada Division of Business and Industry, runs the state’s eviction alternative dispute resolution program for tenants and landlords. 

In addition to offering mediation between tenants and landlords, the program also helps tenants with rental assistance and unemployment. 

‘The right to exclude’

The Supreme Court’s 6-to-3 opinion was in response to a case brought by landlord groups in Alabama and Georgia. They had won at the district court level, but that ruling had been stayed pending appeal.

The Supreme Court gave the realtors and landlords the decision they wanted Thursday.

“The moratorium has put the applicants, along with millions of landlords across the country, at risk of irreparable harm by depriving them of rent payments with no guarantee of eventual recovery,” reads the court’s opinion. Not allowing landlords to evict tenants “intrudes on one of the most fundamental elements of property ownership—the right to exclude.”

“It is up to Congress, not the CDC, to decide whether the public interest merits further action here,” the opinion concluded, agreeing with the argument made by landlords that the CDC had overstepped its legal authority by extending the moratorium early this month. “If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it.”

Nevada Democratic Rep. Dina Titus Friday issued a statement calling on Congress to do just that.

“Days before the expiration of the July 31st moratorium, I wrote to Congressional leadership urging swift action to extend the moratorium. My stance hasn’t changed,” Titus said. “We need to protect millions of Americans at risk of homelessness as COVID spreads. I will continue to push for Congressional action to prevent a wave of evictions which could exacerbate the spread of COVID.”

The White House Thursday night issued a statement saying the administration “is disappointed that the Supreme Court has blocked the most recent CDC eviction moratorium while confirmed cases of the Delta variant are significant across the country. As a result of this ruling, families will face the painful impact of evictions, and communities across the country will face greater risk of exposure to COVID-19.”

The post Don’t panic, Nevada renters told after evictions ban struck down appeared first on Nevada Current.

(Nevada Current file photo)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

As of midnight Thursday, most of Nevada, including Clark and Washoe counties, will again have a mask mandate.

The state announced the resumption of the mandate in keeping with Tuesday’s updated federal recommendations urging Americans in counties with high surges in COVID-19 infections to once again wear masks when they are in public, indoor settings — even if they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

The state’s announcement came hours after the Clark County School District announced it would require students to wear face coverings.

According to Centers for Disease Control (CDC) tracking, all but five of Nevada’s 17 counties have either “substantial” or “high”  transmission. (Transmission is “moderate” in Eureka, Humboldt, and Lander counties, and “low” in Pershing and Storey counties.)

While the new mandate doesn’t take effect until Friday, businesses and residents in the dozen counties with substantial or high transmission “are strongly urged to adopt the changes as soon as possible,” the state said. 

In following the updated federal recommendations, Nevada is adhering to an emergency directive issued in May 2021, by which the state automatically adopts the latest CDC guidance.

The updated federal recommendations marked a sharp shift from the agency’s guidance in May that Americans fully vaccinated against COVID-19 do not need to wear a mask in most situations, indoors and outdoors.

The updates also included changes for schools, with federal health officials now urging everyone in K-12 schools to wear a mask indoors. That includes teachers, staff, students and visitors, regardless of vaccination status and the level of community transmission.

The update in CDC guidance was prompted by new data indicating that although breakthrough infections among the vaccinated are rare, those individuals still may be contagious and able to spread the disease to others, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Wearing a mask indoors in areas with “substantial” or “high” transmission of the virus could help to reduce further outbreaks of the highly contagious delta variant, she said.

Some 39 states, including Nevada, have infection rates that have reached “substantial” or “high” levels of transmission, according to a data tracker on the CDC website. 

The agency also tracks infection rates on the county level, and 63% of U.S. counties are in those two categories of concern.

“This was not a decision that was taken lightly,” Walensky said. She added that other public health and medical experts agreed with the CDC that the new information on the potential for vaccinated people to have contagious infections required the agency to take action.

President Joe Biden described the agency’s revision on recommended mask use as “another step on our journey to defeating this virus.”

“I hope all Americans who live in the areas covered by the CDC guidance will follow it,” Biden said. “I certainly will when I travel to these areas.”

The mask-use changes may not be the only changes coming as the White House attempts to respond to the spiking infections. Biden also said Tuesday that a vaccination requirement for all federal employees is under consideration.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs already has required its frontline health care workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

But the new recommendations on masks are expected to be met with resistance. 

Some states have taken legal steps to prevent future mask mandates. At least nine states — Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Vermont — have enacted legislation that prohibits districts from requiring masks in schools, according to a CNN analysis.

Walensky sidestepped a question during Tuesday’s news briefing about the level of compliance that the CDC expects with the new recommendations, saying only that the way to drive down rising community transmission rates is to wear masks and to increase vaccination rates.

Correction: The original version of this story listed the wrong date for the state’s emergency directive.

The post Following updated CDC guidance, Nevada re-ups indoor mask mandate in most counties appeared first on Nevada Current.

(Nevada Current file photo)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Following the CDC’s guidance that fully vaccinated people needn’t wear masks in most indoors situations, Nevada officials declared that mask requirements in casinos and other businesses will be left up to the businesses.

The state “neither requires nor prohibits private entities from confirming vaccination status of individuals,” officials added in the statement issued from the governor’s office.

The Nevada Gaming Control board issued a separate release saying the board’s “agents will not attempt to confirm vaccination status of patrons.” 

The Control Board’s statement, echoing the sentiment in the state’s release, noted casinos “may have mask policies that are more restrictive than the CDC guidance.”

“To be clear, however, a private employer’s policies regarding COVID-19 safety protocol are not Board policies,” the board said.

As restrictions have loosened and more of the public has become vaccinated, the resort industry has largely indicated it has no intention of confirming the vaccination status of customers.

Some businesses, including Smith’s grocery stores, have indicated they will continue to require masks, and the Las Vegas Chamber is encouraging businesses to “play it safe” and continues requiring masks, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported.

“COVID-19 is still very much a threat in our State and many Nevadans may choose to continue using masks based on their and their families’ personal health concerns. Others should respect this choice,” said the statement from Gov. Steve Sisolak’s office.

Still required on planes, trains and buses

The CDC’s updated recommendations announcement is a shift from earlier federal guidance, which had urged people who are vaccinated to continue wearing a face mask when indoors with anyone not vaccinated or when in large-group settings. 

With a larger share of Americans vaccinated and a growing stack of studies confirming the vaccines’ effectiveness, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the science is clear on taking additional steps toward life before the pandemic. 

“We have all longed for this moment, when we can get back to some sense of normalcy,” Walensky said. “Based on the continuing downward trajectory of cases, the scientific data on the performance of our vaccines, and our understanding of how the virus spreads, that moment has come.”

The policy change applies to people who are “fully” vaccinated. That means at least two weeks have passed since receiving a second COVID-19 vaccine dose, for those who got the Pfizer or Moderna shot, or after getting the one-dose Johnson & Johnson shot. 

One key exception to the new mask recommendation is for public transportation. Masks still must be worn on airplanes, trains and buses.

The CDC guidance doesn’t alter state and local rules for mask-wearing. The agency noted that individuals still must follow those local regulations and any rules enacted by private businesses, which may continue to require masks.

The announcement follows a growing wave of criticism that the CDC has gone too slowly in loosening its guidance on what vaccinated people should and should not do, and where face masks need to be worn.

Public health experts have lambasted the agency’s instruction on mask-wearing at summer camps as needlessly strict. A New York Times analysis was skeptical of the agency’s claims on outdoor transmission, calling it “misleading” and inflated.

Asked if the agency was responding to changes in science or to the public backlash, Walensky cited the plummeting tally of U.S. infections, which have dropped by one-third in the last two weeks. She also pointed to the increase in vaccine availability and the broader eligibility for those as young as 12 years old.

The eased guidelines are not intended as another technique to incentivize those who have not yet received a vaccine, Walensky added, saying the agency sought to follow the science available. 

More than 46% of the entire U.S. population has received at least one vaccine, and 35% are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data. President Joe Biden has set a goal of having 70% of U.S. adults receive at least one dose by July Fourth, and so far, 59% of that age group has one shot.

Dropping masks among vaccinated Americans will be one of the most visible steps toward resuming pre-pandemic activities. 

The excitement around doing so could be seen at the White House, where Biden met Thursday afternoon with a group of Republican senators, including Sens. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Mike Crapo of Idaho, and Roy Blunt of Missouri. 

GOP lawmakers told reporters afterward that they took off their masks in the Oval Office when they heard the CDC’s announcement — and that Biden did the same.

The post After CDC says vaxxed can (mostly) ditch masks, NV businesses told it’s up to them appeared first on Nevada Current.

(U.S. Census Bureau)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

After three of the last four census counts, Nevada picked up a new congressional seat.

But not this time, even though Nevada’s population, now officially at more than 3.1 million, had the nation’s fifth highest growth between 2010 and 2020 on a percentage basis.

The Census Bureau announced state populations according to last year’s census, and five states will have one more congressional race on the ballot in 2022 — Oregon, Montana, Colorado, North Carolina and Florida.

One state, Texas, picked up two extra seats.

California lost a congressional seat, as did a cluster of a half-dozen states in the east and upper midwest – New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois.

The number of congressional seats will remain the same in all the other states.

Nevada was the fifth fastest growing state between 2010 and 2020, with the population increasing 15 percent. However, that was well below Nevada’s 35 percent growth between 2000 and 2010.

The states with the largest percentage growth were Utah, Idaho, Texas. and North Dakota.

Puerto Rico recorded an 11.8 percent fewer people than in 2010, the nation’s largest population decline.

Overall, there were 331,449,281 people living in the U.S. on April 1, 2020, an increase of 7.4 percent since 2010.  That’s the slowest growth in a decade since the 1930s, and the second-slowest growth rate in U.S. history.

Monday’s data release follows months of delays, and for state officials in charge of redrawing district boundaries every 10 years, offers certainty on only the beginning of what they need to complete the once-a-decade redistricting process for both Congress and their state districts.

States also need block-by-block population data in order to draw districts of equal population. That data will be released to states in a less user-friendly format on Aug. 16, with the fuller version to be sent by Sept. 30, according to the Census Bureau, assuring Nevada’s Legislature, which is scheduled to conclude May 31, will have to be called back into a special session to reapportion legislative seats.

Typically, the state-level population data released Monday would have been provided by the end of December, but that process was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in turn upending state redistricting timelines, particularly for those with constitutionally set deadlines for when officials must approve new district maps.

The post Nevada grew faster than most, but not enough for a new House seat appeared first on Nevada Current.