Here’s my contentious three-part Q&A with Nevada State Sen. Dina Neal over her bill (SB254) that would force private landlords to rent to ex-felons…
Here’s my floor statement on the “windfall” revenue projection predicted on Wednesday by the Economic Forum…
Transcript:
Mr. Speaker,
On Wednesday the Economic Forum predicted the state will have an additional half-billion dollars in revenue over the next two years.
And many in this building are already rushing to spend it like a kid in the candy store on allowance day.
Instead, at least some of that money should be used to give our battered business community a little help in recovering from the devastation brought on them by the governor’s year-long shutdown orders.
Nevada is one of only five states that require a state business license, in addition to all the licenses and permits they’re required to obtain at the local level.
It also charges the highest fee.
Repealing the state business license would not only provide our small business community with a little tax relief, but would eliminate a totally unnecessary paperwork burden so they can focus on rebuilding their business and creating new jobs.
I understand this windfall is burning a hole in the pockets of many of my colleagues who want to spend it on pet projects and non-essential government programs.
But that would be fiscally irresponsible.
Instead, we should eliminate the state business license fee altogether and use the rest of the money to replenish the rainy day fund the governor and the Legislature drained last year.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Here’s the “utterly ridiculous” reason why you won’t see me in this year’s “class photo” for the Assembly.
This “Mask Madness” – which has no basis in science – needs to end. Enough is enough!
The Great Disrupter strikes again!
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to Assembly Bill 109.
As originally introduced, the bill was horrible. As amended, it is merely terrible.
The purpose of this bill is to help the teachers’ unions, not help our kids. It seeks to hamstring public charter schools by restricting who they may hire as classroom teachers.
Such bureaucratic interference in school management is one of the reasons our traditional public schools perform so badly and why so many parents choose the innovative charter school option in the first place.
And “choose” is the important word here.
No one is forcing parents to put their kids in charter schools. Parents who choose charter schools for their children are fully aware that their operation is very different from our traditional, union-run public schools. And the inconvenient truth is, there’s a waiting list to get into a number of them.
Instead of trying to force charter schools to operate more like so many of our failing traditional public schools, we should be trying to force our failing traditional public schools to operate more like charter schools.
And make no mistake. Simply pumping more money into our failing traditional public schools is not the answer. If a car has a blown engine, giving it an expensive new paint job isn’t going to fix the problem.
Charter schools work. And when something works, don’t fix it. I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill and instead focus on REAL institutional changes to our traditional public schools rather than simply throwing more good money after bad.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker,
Tens of thousands of Nevadans have been out of work for over a year now due to the governor’s shutdown. Inexcusably, many STILL have not received their unemployment benefits.
I received an email on Monday from a constituent who reports that it took her over an hour for DETR to accept her documents and selfie online so she could file her claim.
However, DETR is STILL not accepting her husband’s claim even though he has provided scanned and uploaded photo-copies of his driver’s license and passport through ID.me.
It’s bad enough that tech-savvy Nevadans are STILL having these problems.
But what about senior citizens and low-income Nevadans who don’t have computers or cell phones that can scan documents and provide selfies?
As the constituent wrote to me – quote – “DETR has had over a year to get their act together and failed. They only succeeded in making it harder for eligible claimants to get their benefits. What a disgrace.”
I agree.
When will this body stop accepting the mountain of excuses DETR keeps giving us for this inexcusable failure and hold someone accountable to the pain and misery it’s causing so many Nevadans who are suffering through no fault of their own?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, Order of Business 15.
On September 2, 2011 Alyssa Otremba, just 15 years old, was walking home from borrowing a textbook from a friend. Javier Righetti kidnapped and dragged Alyssa into a desert lot where he sexually assaulted and raped her.
Righetti then stabbed Alyssa more than 80 times in her head, neck and body, then carved an “LV,” for Las Vegas, into her thigh because it made him feel “gangster”. During the autopsy it was discovered that the tip of the knife had broken off in her skull.
He returned hours later and poured gasoline on Alyssa’s body and lit it on fire. The coroner had to use dental records to identify her. Alyssa’s remains were in such bad condition that her family was advised not to see her because they shouldn’t remember her like that.
Javier Righetti’s guilt is not in question. He gave Alyssa Otremba a death sentence. He should get the same.
* * *
On January 20th, 2008, a college student named Brianna Denison was kidnapped, raped and brutally murdered by James Biela, who is currently on Nevada’s death row. Her murder was committed just two months after Biela brutally raped at gunpoint another college student in a UNR parking garage.
Miss Denison’s body, clothed only in socks, was found weeks after the murder in a snow-covered field near a Reno business park under a discarded Christmas tree. She had been smothered with a pillow, raped, and ultimately strangled to death.
DNA evidence conclusively proved Biela was Miss Denison’s killer. He was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to death by a jury. Bri was only 19 years old with her entire life ahead of her. But James Biela gave her the death penalty.
He should get the same. And the sooner the better.
* * *
In the early morning hours of June 3, 1999, Zane Floyd walked into a neighborhood grocery store in Las Vegas and brutally executed four innocent Nevadans with a shotgun, including a mentally disabled young man and a 60-year-old grandmother who begged for her life.
After his arrest, Mr. Floyd told a detective that he “looked right at her and I just blew her head apart.” One of the police officers who captured Floyd at the scene of the bloody rampage recently wrote me recently about the incident. Floyd said to him, “I probably shouldn’t have done that. She reminded me of my mom.”
There is no doubt about Mr. Floyd’s guilt. He was given a fair trial and sentenced to death by a jury. Considering the circumstances, it was the right and proper sentence.
According to the Nevada Department of Corrections, as of March 29, 2021 there were 1,126 convictions for 1st degree murder currently in our prisons. Just 6.5% of those prisoners are on death row. Only the worst of the worst are sentenced to death. That is as it should be. We shouldn’t abolish the death penalty.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker,
Late last Friday, it was announced that the public would finally be allowed back into our building to fully participate in the legislative process in person.
However, the rules and requirements established are so complex and convoluted that this building will remain effectively closed to most of the public.
No similar draconian rules are being imposed to go into a grocery store, a casino, a restaurant, a bar, a drug store, a convenience store, a mall or any other public building.
This session is now more than half over. Critical votes on important bills are now being cast.
Yet we’re forcing our constituents to jump through bureaucratic hoops simply to exercise their right to petition their government.
This isn’t right.
The People’s House should be fully reopened to the public using the same safety precautions established for every other public building in the state.
We are the people’s servants, not the other way around.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
“Lockdowns clearly don’t work. Which is why I again urge my colleagues to stop locking Nevadans out of the Legislature. It’s THEIR building, not ours, and it’s time to let the people back into the people’s house.”
WATCH:
I’m still fighting to get my colleagues to debate Gov. Steve Sisolak’s Declaration of Emergency & vote on whether it’s time to terminate it.
Here’s my floor statement today…
Newer Posts