Nevada lawmakers are introducing key legislation with just days left in the session and a budget shortfall to contend with.

Plus... (Maria Schriver) Alzheimer's, women's health and research isn't a political issue.

It's a national issue.

It's a human rights issue.

-Maria Shriver, in Las Vegas, highlights how crucial research funding for Alzheimer's is.

Our one-on-one interview with her, that's this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

About 6.7 million people live with Alzheimer's disease in the United States, and almost two-thirds of those patients are women.

The Women's Alzheimer's Movement funds research specific to how Alzheimer's affects women, and we sit down with its founder, Maria Shriver, ahead.

But we begin with the Nevada legislative session.

It adjourns on June 2, leaving lawmakers with little time to make big decisions based on a smaller than expected budget.

Tabitha Mueller, Capital Bureau Chief of The Nevada Independent, joins us now from Carson City.

Welcome Tabitha.

-Thanks for having me on the show.

-What is the next deadline that lawmakers are up against?

(Tabitha Mueller) So Friday is our big deadline to get bills out of their second house, right?

They've passed out of the first house of origin.

Now it's on to the second; and then after that second, they head to the Governor's desk.

There are, of course, exempted measures with financial impact, but what we're really paying attention to are bills that do not have those exemptions and must pass out.

-From your perspective, what is the hottest bill right now being talked about?

-Oh, I mean, I think film tax bills are-- you know, the film tax expansion measure is right up there with bills that are being talked about.

It's got a big fiscal effect on it, so I think lawmakers are still weighing.

Both of those are still in their houses of origin, and they're in money committees right now.

Also education measures, right?

We saw that Governor Joe Lombardo's education measure is up for a hearing this week, as is Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro's received a hearing.

Both of those conversations are happening, as well as budget bills.

We saw that the five budget measures have come forward, and everything now is just, how do we get to the end of session and make sure that we have bills that are passed and legislation, and that's all being implemented.

-You mentioned two education bills, one from Republican Governor Joe Lombardo and the other from Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, a Democrat.

Governor Lombardo has talked about potentially working with the Senator.

And what would that look like, combining the legislation?

What do you think?

-So I don't know if it'll be combining the legislation or what those conversations are looking like.

We know that conversations are happening.

We had a meeting with the legislative leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, where they rated on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst, 10 being the best, how conversations are going with the Governor's office.

They said it was about 8 or 9, so that's positive news for us heading toward the end of the legislative session.

I think these two bills that we're hearing, I mean credit matters, right?

We're talking about whether Governor Joe Lombardo gets brownie points or Senator Cannizzaro does, leaving this session.

So I think there's probably negotiations on what they need to keep in, what they need to keep out.

One of the interesting things that we saw in Governor Joe Lombardo's bill is sort of converting underperforming schools into charter schools.

And I think that that is particularly interesting because when you look at Senator-- Senate Majority Leader Cannazzaro's bill, it's really talking about accountability for charter schools, among a host of other measures.

And so I think there's some tension between those two, those two leaders about, you know, how much leeway do we give charter schools, how much accountability do we hold them to.

There are, of course, room for compromise, right?

Senate Majority Leader also included a proposal that would provide funds for charter school raises, which was in contention.

So it'll be interesting to see how that moves forward and the way those conversations will happen.

-And then, when you talk about funding, it just makes me think of the shortfall that exists, both for education and in, what, the other, the general fund?

-Absolutely.

I mean, we're seeing a shortfall across-- projected shortfall, I should say, across the board when we're talking about funding for schools and funding for the state.

And so lawmakers have put together budget bills, and I think we're going to be okay.

I mean, those bills don't increase education funding the way they did in 2023.

We're not seeing massive changes reflected in, you know, state worker pay, for example, but I think that what lawmakers' goal was is to just make sure that we were maintaining the status quo when it comes to existing programs and existing services.

We did see that on the Assembly side, Assembly Member Daniele Monroe-Moreno brought forward a bill to potentially tap into the state's rainy day fund for $350 million, which is sort of this emergency fund.

And when we talked to her about it, she said that that was more as the contingency plan.

So I don't think we'll need to tap into that money, but it is in place if, for some reason, between now and the end of the legislative session we have to kind of look at that funding.

-And Tabitha, you wrote an extensive article on Governor Lombardo's healthcare bill.

What's in it?

-So I'm going to preface this answer by saying this is a massive piece of legislation, and we won't be able to go through every fine point.

But I think top of the line what Governor Joe Lombardo is trying to do is to address the provider shortage.

We're seeing a shortage of nurses, doctors.

What he's also addressing is prior authorizations and approvals for health insurance.

We see a lot of folks talking about how their health claims are being denied.

We're seeing rising healthcare costs.

And so what his team actually did is put together an incredibly comprehensive measure to kind of take that on.

What's interesting about his proposal is that there's actually similar proposals moving through the legislature already on some of these topics.

For the provider shortage, his team put forward a graduate medical education bill to kind of make sure that graduate schools have additional funding and resources to help increase the number of providers in Nevada.

And Senate-- Senator Julie Pazina, she's a Democrat, she actually had a very, very similar proposal already.

And so when we asked them about those similarities, their team kind of said, Look, addressing these healthcare issues is a bipartisan effort, and we need to work together.

And Governor Joe Lombardo doesn't care if his bill is passed or another measure moves forward, as long as these issues are addressed.

-Governor Lombardo did set a record last session for the number of vetoes by a governor in a single session.

There are bills that are going to be before him again that he vetoed last session.

Are there any that you think may have a chance of getting his signature this time around?

-When we've asked Governor Joe Lombardo's office about these vetoes and whether similar measures that are going through now will meet the same fate, his office has said that the Governor will review every single piece of legislation on its own merits and then will issue.

Now, one thing that we have heard is there is an effort to change the state's unique summary eviction process, which actually requires tenants to file first in an eviction, as opposed to a landlord.

And it's the only one in the country that does this, right?

And I think that Governor Joe Lombardo has said he is open to that proposal, and he's open to signing that as long as the bill, you know, addresses his concerns that he had in the initial veto message.

So that's one of them.

I think some other ones may be less certain about what happens.

I know there's questions about a measure that would basically cap the price of prescription drugs to Medicare-negotiated prices that I don't know will move too much, but we'll have to see.

-Okay.

And then Medicaid cuts at the national level could bring back a special session, correct?

-That is something that I think we're definitely keeping an eye on.

It could have financial effects on the state budget.

If it does, that means we're seeing a special session likely in the fall when that-- when those cuts would move forward.

But again, we don't know yet fully where things stand.

It's like that proposal is likely to change.

-Tabitha Mueller of The Nevada Independent, thank you for your time.

-Thanks so much for having me.

-We move now to Alzheimer's.

Women are more likely to get the brain disease than men, a reality that Maria Shriver began making the country aware of more than a decade ago.

The journalist and former first lady of California founded the nonprofit Women's Alzheimer's Movement, or WAM, which raises funds for research.

WAM held a forum in Las Vegas to announce some new research and honor leaders in women's health research and caregiving.

This took place at the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, home of the WAM Prevention and Research Center, which Shriver says she convinced Camille and Larry Ruvo to open.

-I'm so grateful to Camille and Larry who jumped onto this idea five years ago when I said, I want to do a prevention center and everybody told me prevention and Alzheimer's don't belong in the same breath, but I knew that they were wrong, because they told me the same thing about women.

And so usually when someone tells me-- [applause] --I'm wrong, it just kind of makes me dig in even more.

So I have four brothers, and so that's the way I've been rolling since birth.

-Shriver is a well-known member of the Kennedy family.

Her uncles on her mother's side included former President John F. Kennedy and former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

That makes Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., her cousin.

As part of President Trump's efforts to reduce federal spending, RFK Jr. has canceled certain research funding and is proposing an $18 billion reduction to the National Institutes of Health budget.

The NIH is one of the largest funders of medical research in the world, and as Shiver explained to Nevada Week, it's provided more than $83 million in additional funding to the 51 studies that WAM has funded.

-These are seed grants that researchers, once they've done the initial research, they go to NIH to get additional funding.

So that has been the path in the past, and I hope it will continue to be in the future, because Alzheimer's, women's health, and research isn't a political issue.

It's a national issue.

It's a human rights issue.

And I'm planning on it continuing.

And so our work has been funded by regular people, everyday people, by corporations, by philanthropists.

That's why we wanted to focus a light on those who have been supportive of us and who will continue to be supportive of us.

-One of those people was Elaine Wynn.

-Correct.

She was not only a dear friend, but she was a champion of women's health and research.

She was a champion of the center and of our work.

And when I called her several months ago and said, I really want to honor you for being a trailblazer in this space, she said, Yes, I know how important that is, and I welcome being honored in that respect.

And I'm so proud that we can continue to honor her in memoriam.

I'm a big believer that people live on, and she certainly will live on in this prevention center and in this nonprofit.

-You and your son will also be honored.

-Yeah, MOSH has been really a big partner for the Women's Alzheimer's Movement, and I hope it shows to people how important corporate support is when you're trying to make a difference in research.

MOSH is a brain bar.

It's a protein bar for the brain that Patrick and I started several years ago.

And it shows, I hope, the importance of eating for brain health.

What we put into our body either helps our brain or hurts our brain, and MOSH has been at the forefront.

It's really successful.

And one of my goals was that it would fund the research of the Women's Alzheimer's Movement, and it has already, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And my hope is that it does it to millions of dollars.

So it's in direct proportion to how people buy it, to the money that it can fund and research.

But it's already funded grants and will continue to do so.

-So how cool that you've created this company that is directly funding a movement that you are so close to.

Now, here is the issue, like you talked about, with funding being cut across the board for nonprofits, you have corporations and philanthropists who are now being asked by multiple organizations to give more.

How do you confront that?

-I think you just stay the course, and you look for different ways to find your funding.

So you come up with your own bar company.

You do more events like this.

You shine a light.

You hope that people see that women's health and research has been neglected, misunderstood, underfunded, and they want to rectify that.

And we won't be able to make responsible, informed decisions about our health as women unless we have the research to guide us.

And we haven't been given that, so we have to go get it.

-There are a lot of family connections to this issue.

It was your mother who, in a broad sense, opened your eyes to women's health, but then your father himself who suffered from Alzheimer's.

What was it that was happening with him that made you think this is what I want to dedicate myself to?

-Well, it was-- it was my curiosity as a reporter that I was, Wow, this is the smartest human being I know.

This is a man whose brain created the Peace Corps, who came up with Head Start, who came up with Job Corps, who ran the war on poverty, who, you know, ran for President, who ran for Vice President, and now doesn't know who I am.

How does that happen to a brain, especially a brain this intelligent?

So the more questions I asked, it led me down this path of realizing this wasn't a normal part of aging.

This was something that we should all care about.

It led me to learning about the brain.

It led me to understanding that women's brains were underresearched.

It led me to understanding that women's health was underresearched, underfunded.

I'm a mother of two young women.

I'm a woman myself.

Every time I went into the doctor's office and I said what about this or what about that, the doctor would say, We just don't know.

We don't have the research.

When I took a drug, a prescription drug, I'd say, Has this been tested on women?

I was told, No.

I was like, Why is that?

They're like, Good question.

No one's ever asked.

No one's ever done anything about it.

And so I thought, well, someone should do something about that.

And then I thought, well, I'm capable of doing something about that.

I should do something about that.

So it brought together my mother's struggle with her health, the dismissal she felt as a woman when she tried to get answers for her health.

It brought together my father's Alzheimer's diagnosis.

It brought together my own gender and the inequity that I saw what was happening to other women like myself.

It brought my reporting to the forefront.

So it was a perfect storm for me, and I saw an issue that people weren't championing.

I saw something that could be rectified in my lifetime for my daughter's generation, and it galvanized me, it enraged me, and it motivated me.

-Of the progress that you are responsible for in this area, what are you most proud of?

What stands out?

-Well, I'm proud of rewriting the narrative around Alzheimer's to put women front and center when everybody told me that that was incorrect and when everybody told me that women weren't discriminated against.

I'm proud of the work of the White House Initiative on Women's Health and Research.

I'm proud of, you know, letting women know that they should care about their brain health and that there are things that they can do, that they can get in the driver's seat, that they can be philanthropists, even if it's only $25.

So I'm proud of that.

I don't know that I'll find the answers I'm looking for in my lifetime, but I know that because of this work, when my daughters and their generation are my age, they'll get different answers in the doctor's office due to a lot of the work we're doing.

-So you have a family member within the administration right now.

RFK Jr. is your cousin.

He is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The progress that you've made, what role do you think he will have in continuing it?

-Well, I know he's supportive of women's health and research, and I'm going to meet with him about it.

And I think he should be asked that question by other people as well.

-Will you be asking him that?

-What do you think?

-I do.

I wish I could be a fly on the wall in that conversation, yeah.

Do you know when you'll be meeting with him?

-I talk to him a lot about it, so I'll let people know.

-Great.

That's wonderful.

You have already been vocal about the funding that was at threat of being cut, initially cut, then restored.

What did you say that you think got through?

-Well, I think that, you know, the Women's Health Initiative has been a complicated issue.

I think people focus on it.

-Why is it complicated?

-It was complicated, specifically, regarding its findings on hormones, right?

So, but it does a lot of other work, and I think sometimes people lose sight of that.

They don't understand the complexity of women's health.

So I think having a women's health and research initiative is integral to this country.

Women are 50% of the country, and, traditionally, NIH has spent about 10% of its budget way before this current administration.

So this is a, has been a problem long before this administration, and it will continue to be an issue until it's of equitable distribution, until 50% of NIH's budget is spent on women's health.

And so I think women's health has been siphoned.

I know when I go to corporations, they say, Well, we support breast cancer.

I said, But there's more to women's health.

Or people say to me, Well, you know, you're talking only about reproductive health.

I said, No, I'm talking about women's health.

So that starts in puberty.

It goes into your reproductive years.

It goes into perimenopause.

It goes into menopause.

It involves autoimmune.

It involves MS.

It involves Alzheimer's.

It involves osteoporosis.

It involves aging.

And then people step back and go like, wow, I never thought about it like that.

And we need, as a nation, to get better educated.

Medical schools need to do a better job.

I was just talking to Mary Claire Haver, who's going to talk today about menopause, and she said, You know, I never was taught to associate menopause with brain health.

That's in the past.

We've got to change that.

And so political figures have a role, funders have a role, and so do everyday women have a role.

-Who does this forum serve?

-This is a forum served to every single woman in this country.

As I said, if you have a brain, you should be thinking about Alzheimer's, not if you have the gene, if you have a brain, because we don't know who and why, right?

We know it discriminates against women--women of color, women of Latino descent--and we know now that there are things that each and every one of us can do.

You can start eating for your brain right now.

You can start moving for your brain right now.

You can start sleeping for your brain right now.

You can start thinking and prioritizing your brain health as soon as you hear this.

-The other side to this are caregivers.

-Sure.

-What do they lack that you wish they could have--if you could pick one to two, snap your fingers, this is what they'd get?

-They lack the dignity, the awareness of what actually is involved in caregiving.

For every diagnosis of Alzheimer's, there's a caregiver who's going to have to step up.

-They lack dignity?

They don't get the dignity?

-Absolutely.

I don't think people pay caregivers what they deserve.

They don't put them on the cover of Fortune magazine or Forbes and say, look at this caregiver.

For sure not.

And the majority of caregivers are unpaid.

So we need to make it a profession that people will want to go into, that it's well paid, that it's actually a profession that people can, you know, survive on.

-What about for caregivers who are family members and they do not qualify for Medicaid to get paid that way?

-You know, we have to change.

It's, as I said, it's we have to dignify what they're doing.

We have to be willing to listen to what they're doing, hear their stories, offer them support, encourage them to take time for themselves.

It's a 24-hour job.

So I think, you know, everybody, as I say to my kids' generation, you're the caregivers on deck.

You want your parents to be as healthy for as long as possible, because who's going to care for them?

Who's going to pay for that care?

This is going to end up in your lap.

So the more you care about how they age, the better.

We need to have a national conversation about aging in our country.

This is an aging country.

What does that mean for corporate America?

What does that mean for our cities?

What does that mean for Medicare, Medicaid?

What does that mean for the healthcare industry?

What does that mean for nursing homes?

-What about, though, someone sitting at home saying, You know what, we have a huge national debt.

We need to cut this kind of funding.

It's just gotta happen.

-You know, I don't hear anybody saying that actually.

I hear that people say we need to cut waste out of the federal government, and that's a worthwhile conversation, just like every family probably needs to cut waste.

-Is there waste, do you think, within funding for research?

-I've not seen that, you know, no.

And I think certainly there's no waste in the research that WAM is doing.

There's no waste in the research that the Cleveland Clinic is doing.

I think, you know-- -It's so vital, though, that's privately funded.

-Yeah, but I think, you know, there's national research that I think people can collaborate on.

I'm sure there are ways to figure out, okay, how can we speak to this moment where people want to see more collaboration, they want to see more sharing of information.

So do I think that can be done differently?

Yes.

Can that be more helpful in the medical field of research?

Yes, that's a good place to look at.

How can people work together, share their results?

What is the role of AI and that sort of thing?

But I haven't met anybody who comes up to me, and people come up to me now every single day.

If I'm getting a coffee, they come up to me and say, I need a diagnosis for my parent.

I need a doctor for my parent.

I can't get into a neurologist for my parent.

Where can I take my parent?

How do I do this?

Every single day.

No one's ever come up to me and said, Yea, let's cut Alzheimer's research or, Bad on you for advocating for women's health and research.

They come up to me and say pretty much everything and anything, and all kinds of things have been said to me in my life.

That has never been said to me.

-Last thing.

With your many years of dealing with lawmakers, what is it that they're missing in this conversation?

-So I think it's finding, you know, the will.

It's finding the focus, because there's so much going on.

It's being able to, as I always say in my Sunday paper, rise above the noise and just take a minute.

You know, I myself have to do that when people are like, What are you gonna do?

There's a lot of panic, I think, out in the zeitgeist.

And I think being able to urge people like, Wait a minute.

That hasn't been cut yet.

Let's stay focused.

Let's just, you know, take a breath.

I think that's important in life.

And so I am very committed to working across the aisle.

This is not a political issue; it's a human issue.

I care for a woman who's of a different political party, who gets breast cancer, has a heart attack, who has osteoporosis, who has anxiety or depression.

It's human beings.

I mean, for God's sake, can't we agree on that?

-Maria Shriver, thank you so much for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you.

-Nevada has one of the fastest growing Alzheimer's populations in the country.

According to the Alzheimer's Association, there are 55,000 people in Nevada living with Alzheimer's, which results in 146 million hours of unpaid care provided by caregivers.

The brain disease also costs the state's Medicaid program $300 million a year.

For more information on any of the resources discussed in this show, please go to our website, vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek, and I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.