LAS VEGAS — Republicans have vowed to continue pressing legal claims against Nevada’s 2021 law allowing the inclusion of mail-in ballots received up to four days after Election Day.
Federal District Court Chief Judge Miranda Du said plaintiffs including the Republican National Committee, the state GOP, the 2024 Trump campaign and Nevada voter Donald Szymanski, a registered Republican, “lack standing to challenge the Nevada mail ballot receipt deadline.”
The plaintiffs had sued Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, Washoe County Registrar of Voters Cari-Ann Burgess, Washoe County Clerk Jan Galassini and Lorena Portillo and Lynn Marie Goya, respectively Clark County’s voter registrar and county clerk. The two counties are the state’s most populous.
In a 15-page ruling, Du, a 2011 Obama appointee to the federal bench, said none of the plaintiff’s claims demonstrates they “have suffered, or will likely suffer, an injury” if the ballot-counting measure is allowed to stand. The judge said “it does not necessarily follow that mail ballots arriving after Election Day will skew Democratic. And even if later-arriving mail ballots have favored Democrats past elections, it is far from guaranteed that Nevada voters will behave similarly this November.”
She went on, “The Nevada mail ballot receipt deadline does not have an ‘individual and personal’ effect on the voting power of Republican voters; it neither undermines their access to the polls nor disproportionately diminishes the weight of their votes relative to other Nevada voters.”
Clark and Washoe counties tallied 45,596 mail-in ballots in 2022 voting, the secretary of state’s office reported, with 89% of those arriving the day after Election Day.
It’s unknown how those ballots broke down along party lines, but Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto defeated GOP challenger Adam Laxalt by 8,000 votes that year.
Republicans believe Nevada, which hasn’t gone for a GOP presidential candidate since 2004, could end up in former President Donald Trump’s column this year and have stepped up voter-integrity efforts, with party chair Michael Whatley saying the Silver State is “absolutely critical” in regaining the White House.
A GOP spokeswoman, Claire Zunk, told Courthouse News the party will appeal.
“Our case fights a Nevada law that shouldn’t be on the books; it breaks federal law and allows mail ballots to be counted after Election Day,” Zunk said. “Rather than letting us fight this in court, a liberal judge unjustifiably dismissed our case. Political parties must be allowed to fight invalid election laws that threaten the integrity of our elections. We are committed to protecting the ballot and we will pursue further legal action in this case.”
The Republicans are not alone in challenging voter issues in the Silver State. Last month, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, joined by two Nevada voters, sued Clark County’s Portillo over rolls showing voters listing a casino, several industrial parks and a topless club as their residential addresses.
That lawsuit, along with a similar one in Washoe County, is pending.
A recent Review-Journal letter to the editor mischaracterized Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s Southern Nevada Economic Development and Conservation Act, also known as the Clark County Lands bill. As the former executive director of the Nevada Conservation League, I wholeheartedly support this legislation, so I wanted to set the record straight.
Sen. Cortez Masto has been working on this bill for years in partnership with state and local governments, conservation groups like the NCL and local area tribes. It’s true that the Clark County lands bill would open 25,000 acres to help Las Vegas grow responsibly, while setting aside 2 million acres for conservation. It would also help create more affordable housing throughout the valley while ensuring our treasured public spaces can be preserved for generations to come.
What is not correct is that the money from these land sales would go to the federal government’s coffers. In fact, the opposite is true.
The 1998 Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act is a landmark bill that identified specific public land for future sale and created a special account ensuring all land sale revenues would come back to Nevada. In accordance with that law 5 percent of revenue from land transfers goes to the state of Nevada for general education purposes, 10 percent goes to the Southern Nevada Water Authority for needed water infrastructure and 85 percent supports conservation and environmental mitigation projects in Southern Nevada. This legislation has provided billions to Clark County and will continue to benefit generations of Southern Nevadans. Sen. Cortez Masto’s lands bill builds upon the act’s success.
So here’s the good news: All of the money generated from land made available for sale under Sen. Cortez Masto’s bill would be sent to the special account created by the 1998 law. Rather than going to an unaccountable federal government, the proceeds would continue to help kids in Vegas get a better education, bolster outdoor recreation and modernize Southern Nevada’s infrastructure.
I know how important it is that money generated from the sale of public land in Nevada stay in the hands of Nevadans, and so does the senator. That’s why she opposed a Republican effort last year to sell off 200,000 acres of land in Clark County and other areas of the country that would have sent those dollars directly to Washington.
Public land management in Nevada should benefit Nevadans. We should protect sacred cultural sites and beloved recreation spaces, responsibly transfer land for affordable housing when needed and ensure our state has the resources it needs to grow sustainably. I will continue working with Sen. Cortez Masto to advocate for legislation, such as the Clark County lands bill, that puts the needs of Nevadans first.
Paul Selberg writes from Las Vegas.
click to expand photos
Las Vegas High’s baseball team claimed a 3-2 home win over Coronado on Friday.
Las Vegas (9-13-1) next hosts Rancho at 10 a.m. Saturday. Coronado (13-14) hosts Chaparral at 3:30 p.m. Monday.
Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.
LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Nevada’s jobless rate is holding steady, but the state is still adding jobs.
A new report from DETR shows February’s unemployment rate unchanged at 5.3 percent, with the labor force growing by nearly 3,800 people.
MORE ON FOX5: Nevada unemployment rate rises to 5.3% in January
Nevada now has about 1.6 million nonfarm jobs, up 2.2 percent over the past year and 1,500 more jobs than in January.
“This month’s report shows a strengthening labor market,” said David Schmidt, Chief Economist. ”Compared to the report for January, the pace of job gains in the past year increased from 1.9% to 2.2%, building on what was already the fastest pace of job growth in the country. While the unemployment rate remained stable, the labor force participation rate rose to 63.7%, 1.7 percentage points higher than the national level.”
In Las Vegas, employment ticked up by 1,100 jobs in February, about 0.1 percent, and is up more than 25,000 jobs compared to last year.
Reno added 1,000 jobs on the month, while Carson City shed about 200 but is still slightly above where it was a year ago.
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