Housing, education and economic development how Governor Joe Lombardo plans to tackle each this year.

That's this week on Nevada Week.

Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hearn.

Stat welcome to Nevada Week on member Rene Dixon.

The 2025 legislative session begins on February 3rd, and it will mark Joe Lombardo second legislative session as Nevada's governor ahead of it.

The Republican governor delivered a state of the state address from Carson City.

And for analysis on the policies he's proposing, we spoke with former Nevada Assemblywoman and Clark County Commissioner Chris June, California Democrat, and from former state Senator Warren Hardy, a Republican and principle consultant for his firm, Warren Hardy Strategies.

So let's start out with first impressions from each of you.

Chris, you go first.

I have to say the governor was so much more rela.. More personable, more confident.

And that translates that he's he's kind of warmed up to into the job.

And that makes a difference because it makes him more approachable.

And I think when you have approachability, you can build relationships.

And that that's something that leads to good governing.

So and also important because he will be facing reelection.

Exactly.

All right.

What about from you, Warren?

Well, I agree completely with Chris, I think from last year, far more comfortable, far more, in, comfortable with the role in general, not just the speech, but I also think he did exactly what he needed to do to hit the bipartisan message.

There were, I noticed numerous, bipartisan rounds of applause, even standing applause.

That's been a while since we've seen that in this state.

And I know just talking to his staff, I haven't spoken with the governor personally, but talking with his staff, they're sincere about that, about the bipartisan trying to to bridge that gap.

The other thing that struck me is, is this is a governor that has clearly earned some political capital with the public, with the people of the state of Nevada.

He's got high approval ratings.

It's a game of political capital.

He's going to spend some of that political capital, some of the conversation about, you know, going back to a vote of the people, if necessary.

That reminded me of a tactic Ro.. that look, I want to work with Congress, but if I can't, I got there's alternatives here.

So that's clearly a governor that understands he's built some goodwill and and some political capital with the voters.

And it's going to be a different experience this session.

And he is also planning on spending some money, which we will cover ahead.

But I first want to ask you, Chris.

Well, the Nevada Democratic Party will be issuing a response to this.

It will be available on the Nevada Legislature's YouTube page and on.. Vegas.

PBS.org.

But what do you think Democrats would take issue with with thi..

I think globally it was actually it hit on many of the points that we all care about as Nevadans.

So I think I would prefer to look at it as, where did it give us a place to start from to work from?

I do think that they may take issue.

I do as well with how much money is going into the rainy day fund, for example.

Great that you didn't raise taxes, but people aren't paying taxes to have it just sitting in a fund.

So if you need to pay for childcare, if.. use some of that money.

So that could be someplace that they can mane.. and take a look at how that money is allocated.

Voter ID will be a difference of opinion from seeing where they were last session.

And the governor went ahead and put it on the ballot.

And he's right, you know, come back to the ballot again in two years.

If they don't do something this time around, I think the devil is in the details on that.

And there's an opportunity on how you look at how people have access to proper ID, but that's something that they'll have to flush out.

I think in the long run.

I know that he mentioned, and thank you, as a for.. that the permanent the salaries will be made permanen..

I'm not sure that they left state employees out.

I can't remember if they had one shot money only, but that would.

You don't want to divide your hard worker bees because they are who make this.

They make the governor look good because they're the ones carrying out the mission.

And at at the state level.

You're referring to last legislative session.

He got through good raises for state employees, also for teachers.

That was one time funding.

Correct.

But now when he says his budget makes that permanent for teachers, it's going to continue into it goes into the roll up for how they deal with the budget from here on out.

So yes, that was a scary thing.

That's what you saw across the state.

And many people were negotiating different language in case .. this time around.

Now that I could hear a deep sigh .. in the classroom, that we'll be happy about that.

And it's not just that there's support, personnel and administration.

I would know the school choice will be another debate then.

So that will be.

He did not say much about that or to his prior state.. Do you want to respond to anything that Chris said about the rainy day fund or the spending?

No, I think that I think she's she's spot on.

I will say this, the rainy day thing seems to be a little bit of a generational thing, because I think it's too high as well.

I mean, I when I was in the Senate, used to tease Senator Raja, who was a big fan of the rainy day fund and helped push it.

I used to call it the over taxation fund, I think 1.3 million, a billion is a lot of money, and I'd like that number to be around 500 million.

Now.

We're in unprecedented times.

We're a little bit, you know, shocked because of what happened with Covid.

So I understand the overreaction, but I think it might be overreaction.

I don't know that the Democrats will push back that hard on it for that reason that there's like, okay, look, we just got now the fires in California.

And it doesn't seem as unreasonable as I used to think it was.

I do agree on the state employees.

I do think that's a question.

I haven't seen the budget.

He didn't mention it.

But I didn't see the budget.

I was I was very surprised, too.

He didn't mention, at least I didn't hear, mention of opportunity scholarships, which I expected might be a priority.

And I know what I know will be for the Republican legislature, so.

Right.

I mean..

I know some of you do as well.

And why do not, you know, you call it a voucher and be honest about it and opportunity scholarships.

It's all painting the pig with, you know, just a different story.

But it really he does completely and he's never hidden that he doesn't support school vouchers.

That will be a bone of contention is how you get there.

Now.

School choice terminology I truly believe that zoning should be opened up for parents and families depending on their work schedule.

I've always said that because zoning is really restrictive.

I wanted kids to be able to walk to their home school, and I still think you can come back to that pa.. And then you look at where your where your sizes and where your compatibility is.

But if your parents are both are working across town and there's a school that has available seating, why not let those kids go to that public schools?

As part of what he called the Nevada Accountability in Education Act, he said he wants to expand open enrollment policies, which is a reference to the zoning that you're talking about.

Did anything else stand out?

Well, there were kind of code words in there, right?

But what struck me about the speech was it was very clear that the governor was intentionally, very intentionally trying to send a message that we need to work together.

The public.

And I used to say this a lot when I was.. the failure of the legislature is not the failure of the Democrats.

It's not the failure of the Republicans.

It's the failure of the legislature.

The same applies to the executive branch.

Those folks will either rise or fail together.

And I really think that's the message the governor's trying to send.

I really feel like you've got the right speaker.

I although I know there's been some contention between them, too.

I'm absolutely positive you have the right Democratic majority leader to build on that.

And I couldn't help but notice that Senator Kent is our no.

I couldn't see what Speaker Younger was..

In some cases.

I think we ought to all be..

But make no mistake, the governor was very deliberate.

We have got to work together.

And he didn't go as far as to say what I used to say.

And that is a the failure is the failure of all of us.

Voters don't like it.

They don't look at ours, they look at the success .. And I think we're at a place now.

That has to be the message.

And I am exceptionally encouraged.

You pick your pieces that you really want to go down to the rug and fight for.

But there were there were pieces here.

And Nicole kind of has this wonderful thing for looking at paid pre-K.

He has childcare, he has pre-K, he has literacy in there.

So there's a place where you start to massage and how you get there.

They've got the revenue this time around.

So let's figure out how we go ahead and put the policy in place.

You might have a knock down drag out on this other thing, but let's look at the major pieces.

It's where do people live?

How can they get to work.

What type of salary do they have?

Are they getting it wrongly evicted with for no good reason?

Are they getting 10% raises in their rent for no new amenities, or no reason other than maybe inflation for the property owner?

Right.

Those are things that, Democrat, Republican, nonpartisan all have to really focus on because it's the quality of life issues that really hit home with people.

And so I think there's places here.

I mean, even the insurance for the wildfire was I was telling Warren, I said, I have a home, I'm out Charleston.

They're canceling a lot of my neighbors is insurance policies for having done nothing wrong.

If you want to increase my rate, ..

So I appreciate that, that there's a recognition.

And that's something that I think the state of Nevada has to take a look at, as well as how we pay our wildland firefighters, because that's a whole another issue at the federal level.

But our state we use that we use the the prisoners a lot of times.

And there should be some accountability and paying them a decent wage as well.

If you're going to be out there clearing the brush and fighting the fires.

So there's at least places that I think I can see where they can maneuver to work together on, and then have the knock down drag outs on the..

There's a real interesting evolution.

We're talking about the pre-K programs.

Chris and I were laughing earlier because, see this scar right here?

This is pre this is, Christopher.

This is all day kindergarten where we fought.

There doesn't seem to be a fight over this type of thing anymore.

Everybody's sort of on the same.

There are other issues that have become very, very..

But I think one of the things is going to have to be addressed is, is state employee salaries.

I mean, I was an adamant opponent of collective bargaining for state employees I would not support.

I wouldn't even hear the bill when I chaired the Senate Government Affairs ..

But I said at the time, and I continue to say, if we're not going to allow collective bargaining, we have to do something about salaries, the wages, if we're not going to allow them to collectively bargain, we have to do the responsible thing.

I'll be interested to see what happens there.

But very encouraged about the teachers permanent.

And I just think the governor kept his word.

He $2 billion for education.

Now he's saying tonight, okay, we gave you the money.

Now we want bang for our buck.

How do you argue politically with that?

And what does it mean to a teacher to hear that there is this Excel.. fund he's planning on having that would reward Nevada's highest performing teachers and administrators?

I'm torn on that because how do you define what excellence is?

And each school, do you get brought up or brought down?

I'd rather personally focus on building that into teachers scholarships, paying off teacher loans, things that can actually recruit people into the classroom would be, in my opinion, much better used.

I'm not a big fan for bonus because it's one day it's there and it's gone.

It's not built into your salary schedule.

That said, there are things that could come into play.

I mean, the Hope campus I've been long a critic of don't you dare just house all homeless into one place and then you create worse problems.

Now, if it's a triage, we were trying to come up with the right name of it.

Earlier.

But if you bring t.. you have an assessment, you have a strike force that co.. because Metro does spend their time as to our firefighters, they're mentally ill.

They shouldn't go to the jail.

Where do we properly take them?

If they can have an intake that diagnoses what's going on?

If they're VA's veterans, maybe you take them to the veterans hospital.

So that that gives me hope, but they have to have housing, we have to have transitional housing.

And the county was doing a good job of renting, up small motels on Boulder Highway.

And that's where we were housing people because if they've been on the street longer than six months, there's a breakdown mentally as well as socially, and they don't know how to clean, how to wash dishes any longer, any of those things that we take for granted as a homeowner or someone that lives in an apartment, house or condo, it doesn't matter.

We assume everybody knows how to get into a house and then how to how to grow within that place.

And that's what camp is.

A hope is.

I mean, it's the right approach.

I mean, and Governor Lombardo understands that better than anybody else.

But we've known this since I was in the legislature.

The number one problem, the first problem, the threshold problem, is law enforcement has no ability to do something with with a person who appears to be mentally ill and acting out other than to take them to the emergency room.

The last place they should take him.

Then they put him on a 72 hour old and nothing happens.

That is a threshold issue that has to be addressed before we can address anything else.

So they need more hospital beds, for example, not just housing, but hospital beds for screening for the mental illness side of these folks.

So both of you are in favor of that campus of hope as long as it does become one where everybody thinks it's a dumping ground and that's going to fix all the problems.

No unique housing across the entire valley, from Henderson to North Las Vegas to Boulder City.

That's where housing should be.

But you can have an assessment center that says, okay, you need this and this.

You need your mental you're treating your mental health with alcohol.

Okay.

So alcoholism will be secondary.

The mental health component needs to be done first.

If that's the idea and the concept that I'm hearing and as I understand it, it is it's a it's a centralization of services, not a centralization of homeless.

Okay.

So they'.. Let's talk about what he mentioned in regards to housing.

And he's calling it the Nevada Attainable Housing Act.

It does have transitional housing included and pathways to home ownership for essential workers like nurses and teachers.

$1 billion he wants to set aside in new attainable housing units lie attainable.

Warren.

Oh, Chris, I want to know..

I'll give credit to Commissioner Chris after it was Marilyn's idea because she went to a and she's like, oh my gosh, you know what?

What I can attain is a 30 year old versus what I need to attain as a 70 year old versus what I need to attend with no kids, with kids, with pets, without pets, all those factors.

It's a different market that you need to have.

So what works for one is not going to work for everybody else.

So a studio apartment might be perfectly fine for someone that's 70 and doesn't have kids and family and whatnot.

And so you have to look at that marketability for that group.

Then you look at families making sure they have a backyard, or that the apartment complex has green spaces for their kids to be able to play.

So those are factors, but it's what you attain, what you need at the beginning of your life is not the same as what you need at the middle or the end of your life.

So attainability is really what we should c.. and get away from affordability, because affordability still gives everybody the the feeling of the oh, what do we call those?

The Nimby is not in my backyard, in my back.

And it lets them think that, oh, you're just putting poor people in.

Well, nothing wrong with poor people.

I was there at one time in my life.

Right?

So.

But it gets rid of that issue and lets you really take a look at what do you need to produce for your community.

It does remove that stigma, but it also better describes the problem.

As I said, at the top of the show, it's not, affordable housing, it's a housing problem.

And so Chris described it perfectly.

So it's just a better word.

It better describes the problem.

Then what do you think of the amount of money $1 billion for comparison?

I think of the home means Nevada under, Governor Sisolak.

That was $500 million in federal funding, Arpa funding, and that resulted in about 700 to 800 affordable housing units, which is just a drop in the bucket bucket.

Right.

And 1 billion may be.

But if it's to help people say you're in a minimum wage job and he identifies there, that's an essential job.

Well, maybe you offset it with $10,000 of down payment, but you also make sure that their credit and here's a game that's played out there that needs to be looked at nationally as credit scores uses, it forces people to have a high credit score or a reasonable one.

You actually have to be in debt.

And so that's the way the system works.

And so you have people that don't qualify under credit score, but they may actually have the wherewithal because of the payments from the family members that are paying into it.

You could afford that mortgage.

So affordability is no longer should be IT attainability.

And can you maintain that ability to pay for your apartment rent or a condo or a townhouse or single family, whatever your goal is down the road?

So it depends on what he wants to use that billion dollars for.

I could see it being used for down payment assistance, I'm thinking, but I don't know, maybe.

And as I said at the top of the show, that the devil's in the details because this is there's so many tentacles to this problem that if you get one wrong, you're going to affect the other side.

So again, I'm glad I don't have to deal with it.

Very difficult issue.

So I'm anxious to see the details.

Yeah.

So I don't personally agree that we have to open up more federal land.

We've got a lot of BLM land in town that we really should be using as infill development.

And I'm the water.

We have to know whether or not if we're recruiting people to live here, that we better make sure that we've got the water to be able to do that as a utility.

So making them show an impact.

As a developer, can you actually produce the water?

Is the water exist?

So those are other factors that have to be looked at.

And we don't know that one of the things I've pushed for, for years is we've never really done a geological study in Nevada.

We don't know how much oil, if any, here.

We know a little bit about mining because of the private sector, but we don't know anything about the water.

We've we've used a, you know, last century and I'm not talking about 1900.

I know about 1800s technology and perennial yield, which is appropriate.

But we need to get our arms around how much water is out there before we start building too much or growing much more.

I personally am convinced there's more water there than we think, but we need to get our arms around that as a state.

So I've personally pushed for a geological study on that for years, and so you keep saying the devil's in the details.

And so we will see these actual bills that come out of the governor's office and drafting.

He's probably ready.

He probably already has it drafted to some extent.

And in his proposals what he delivered this evening.

He didn't have details in everything, but in some proposals he did one.

For example, he wants to split up the department of Health and Human Services and create the Nevada Health Authority to manage Medicaid, the health exchange, employee benefits, mental health funding and other services.

Is that a big deal?

More it's a big deal.

That's a great idea.

And here's what I'll tell you.

We've been fortunate in Health and Human Services as long as I've.. We had Mike.

Weldon will then who was a brilliant department head and did an amaz.. We've had Richard Whitley, who's one of the best we have in the state, but it's ..

It's it's absolutely too much.

And the new director of that department is literally the governor was not exaggerating when she said she's one of the best we have.

So I'm optimistic and I do think we need to divide those up.

Okay.

That makes me think of somet.. And that is talking about all these different committees that the state has.

Why do you think that's going to be a big deal?

Well, because it's a big problem.

Because it's a big problem.

I represent a lot of interests, that that appear before, the regulatory agencies and the regulatory agencies have too much authority in Nevada.

And I know it's hard, right?

I know, I know, going through a regulatory process and hearing out the public and the concerned industries is hard.

But as I always say, democracy's hard.

There's a there's a Supreme Court ruling that was just happily overturned, called the Chevron ruling that gave, state agencies broad discretion to interpret statute.

And you would go talk to a judge or an attorney.. And they'll say, well, I've even had judges say, I agree with that.

It's misinterpreted.

I can't do anything about it ..

So this is a big bite of the apple.

I think some of the, some of the Democrats will see it as, empire building or power grab by the governor.

I hope they don't, because what he's talking about here is, is a real problem.

This is a big this is a this is eating the whole apple.

And I think we may need to step back a little bit and take a bite of the apple, but I'm so happy we're moving in the direction I don't know.

I mean, it consolidates all the lobbying.

So that might make it difficult, but it consolidates a lot of power in the executive branch, which is one of the power resides anyway.

But I think I'm so I'm very happy the conversation started, but it's a big deal.

And we're going to be talking about this, when my grandson is governor of Nevada.

But, we'll hopefully get it right.

Or granddaughter.

Yes.

There you go.

Actually, more likely my granddaug..

He also talked about the Economic Development Policy Reform Act.

I thought reform was a unique choice of words.

But within that, you know, he mentioned targeted tax credits for child care facilities.

No mention of potential film studios did that.

I mean, I don't agree with giving public tax dollars away to billionaire companies.

They can if they and two of them just decided they don't want to come here anyway.

And they're fighting amongst themselves.

Why would we give public tax dollars to them?

So Warner Brothers discovered exactly splitting with Berkshire development.

It said it's you know, just briefly back to what Warren saying.

I hope the people see that all the boards and commissions have just mushroomed over the years.

And anytime somebody couldn't get a bill passed, they created a border commission.

You don't need five on schools, ten on the 14 on this.

There should be an efficiency because that's staff has to staff that.

And so that takes time away from state agencies from doing their actual mission.

So I think that there's a balance that could come about.

And it's long as it's not done with, there's a justification.

Who are you serving?

What's your mission?

Who are you?

Who do you impact?

You know, those types of questions should be asked.

And if they can't answer them, they should be gone.

All yes.

Let me just say I don't have a pro..

I think tax credits are a very useful tool, but we have to be smart about it.

And I will tell you, I'm really impressed with how the governor.

I don't want to act like I'm just here to support the governor, but I think there was a lot of things I have a hard time disagreeing with.

The governor's been very cautious on this.

The film tax credit he's been instead of just I mean, it's very po..

So he's coming here and and it may turn out to be a great idea, but I don't think the governor is buying off on it yet.

He wants some proof.

And I think that's exactly the right approach.

I think tax credits are fun because the economic benefit we we've seen that with the football stadium.

And we're probably going to see that with a baseball stadium.

But it can't we can't be all things to everybody.

And I think the governor's approach of saying we need the answers first before I think I'm not surprised he did..

He needs to be able to get behind it.

Yet restoring common sense in Nevada's election process.

That was his final piece of policy that he put forward, and he talked about a bill working with the Secretary of state to make it so that mail in ballots are at the location they need to be are at the department where they need to be on Election Day.

By the close of Election Day.

That sounds good, but what's the reality?

If the feds got away with consolidating their mail distribution houses and moving Nevada's mail to Sacramento like they were proposing, now you're creating a problem.

Because ballots were legally in the mail, .. Then those should be counted.

You have you have folks in the military that are coming in overs.. with their ballots.

So I think if they're going to have this c.. some way to make sure if it's postmarked by Election Day, those are the only ones they're counting in reality.

Yeah.

Democracy's hard and we and we we'v.. One of the most important things out there is that we have confidence in the system.

And I'm just this is just kind of the political scientist in me.

I'm sort of amazed at with everything that goes on and all the catastrophes, how consistently we've had great secretaries of state.

How does that happen?

And we've got one now.

And he recognizes he's Cisco Aguilar, right.

Recognizes these things.

And I'm again, part of that bipartisan message that he tal.. And I think our Secretary of state's got some good ideas.

And I really think there will be some some compromise.

I with the ultimate goal of getting results faster, faster.

Okay.

No one could disagree with that.

It's just again, the devil's in the details.

How do you make sure you don't descend French side?

Somebody that did mail it in and was postmarked on that date, and that's the cutoff date, but you still accept it if that's the case, I don't know.

And this is just me personally, but I think this falls in line with the governor not wanting to pick Partizan fights in his state of the state address.

But I think we got to do something about ballot harvesting.

I mean, ballot harvesting was, is a very popular thing with both parties right now.

Four years ago, it was a felony.

And so because of Covid, we just said, well, it's a felony, but let's do it anyway.

And didn't really give it the policy conversation discussion it..

I personally think that's more important than voter ID at the ballot to hear.

Speaker of the Nevada Assembly Steven Yeager's response from the Democratic Party to Governor Lombardo speech, visit our website.

Vegas pbs.org slash Nevada Week.

We'll have a link there, as well as the entirety of Governor Lombardo's State of the state..

Thank you for watching, and I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.