Nevada
Regent challenges Democratic incumbent in State Senate District 4 • Nevada Current
Democratic state Sen. Dina Neal is facing a challenge from a higher education regent in a primary race where the outcome will determine who represents the district for the next four years.
SD4 is a heavily Democratic district encompassing part of North Las Vegas. No Republicans filed for the seat, which means the winner of the upcoming primary election will automatically win the general election.
Neal was first elected to the Nevada State Senate seat in 2020 after representing the same area in the Nevada State Assembly for 10 years. To secure a second term in the upper chamber, Neal must survive a challenge by Laura Perkins, a first-term regent for the Nevada System of Higher Education. Perkins insists she was motivated to run by a desire to influence policy beyond what the Board of Regents is capable of, and not by dissatisfaction with Neal, who has butted heads with some members of North Las Vegas City Council and been publicly accused of misusing her influence.
‘It was just time,” Perkins said of her decision to run, “The time is right.”
Neal declined to be interviewed and did not respond to written questions submitted by the Current.
Perkins says her experience on the Board of Regents has prepared her for the Legislature.
“It’s like you have eight cities,” she said of the institutions overseen by the board. “I learned about finance, budget, human resources, investments, Title-9… You have to be a jack of all trades when you’re a regent.”
Perkins previously ran for mayor of North Las Vegas in 2022, coming in last in a crowded primary field of seven candidates. Pamela Goynes-Brown, who won that race and became the city’s first Black woman mayor, has endorsed Perkins in the state senate race. North Las Vegas City Councilman Isaac Barron also endorsed her.
“Perkins is an ethical, honest and fierce advocate for our entire community, not just her select friends,” said Goynes-Brown in a statement released by the campaign.
“I know she will restore moral and ethical representation to Nevada Senate District 4,” said Barron in a statement.
Goynes-Brown and Barron’s comments allude to public allegations made by the former head of the publicly-funded grant program NV Grow that Neal attempted to pressure him into awarding her friend money for his small business. Neal, who in 2015 passed the legislation that created the NV Grow program, has denied any wrongdoing and characterized the accusations as being part of a smear campaign by the City of North Las Vegas in retaliation over her work with Windsor Park, a long-blighted neighborhood where the homes are sinking into the ground.
Neal sponsored a bill during the last legislative session that secured $20 million from North Las Vegas and $10 million from the state to make the remaining homeowners in Windsor Park whole by relocating them to new properties. The city opposed the bill.
Perkins, when asked, did not directly address the criticisms of Neal being lobbied by her endorsers, saying that she “wants to run for the seat, not challenge her.” But she did call the endorsements “very motivating and encouraging.”
Perkins said that, if elected, her focus will be on education and economic development. She said she’d also like to find a way to help middle class families who are struggling with being caretakers for their elderly family members, a situation she experienced in the final years of her mom’s life.
Neal chairs the Senate Revenue and Economic Development Committee. Many of the bills she sponsored have dealt with tax policy. She has led efforts to modernize Nevada’s sales tax, which currently applies to tangible items and not their digital counterparts, and proposed a method for adjusting property tax without touching the beloved cap. She was also an outspoken critic of Tesla receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in tax abatements without approval from lawmakers.
Neal’s campaign had nearly $27,000 cash on hand as of March 31, according to her campaign finance reports. Her top contributors include Citizens for Justice Trust and Cox Communications, which gave $5,000 and $2,500, respectively.
Perkins had raised approximately $2,000 as of March 31, according to her campaign finance reports. Half of that — $1,000 — came from the real estate development company American Nevada Holdings.
Nevada
Nevada election officials certify enough signatures for Robert F Kennedy Jr to appear on ballot – Times of India
Strategists from both major parties fear he could tip the election against them, though a big blow to his campaign came when he did not qualify for the CNN debate in June. Instead, he held a separate event where he responded in real time to the questions that were posed to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
There still could be room for legal challenges. Last month, state and national Democrats filed a lawsuit challenging Kennedy Jr’s standing on the Nevada ballot as an independent because of his affiliation with political parties in other states.
The verified signatures came in a petition that Kennedy Jr’s campaign scrambled to submit after the Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar’s office clarified guidance that would likely nullify his original petition because he did not list a running mate.
The campaign had filed a lawsuit against Aguilar’s office over the state requirement that independent candidates must name their running mate by the time they start gathering signatures. The campaign said that they received approval in January from Aguilar’s office allowing them to collect the required number of signatures for a petition that did not list his vice presidential selection.
Aguilar’s office had said in a statement that they sent correct guidance to all independent candidates that had filed petitions for ballot access “well in advance of the deadline to submit signatures”.
Kennedy Jr picked California lawyer and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate in late March.
State and county election officials verified over 22,000 signatures on the new petition, well over the requirement of just over 10,000.
Nevada
RFK Jr. meets signature requirements to appear on Nevada ballot
Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign submitted the required number of valid signatures in order to appear on Nevada’s ballot in November, the secretary of state’s office confirmed Friday.
Kennedy’s campaign in Nevada submitted more than 22,000 valid signatures to county clerks in early July in order to qualify as an independent presidential candidate.
In a notice sent Friday, the secretary of state’s office said that based on the examination conducted by county election officials, the office determined that the total number of signatures exceeds the number of valid signatures necessary to declare the petition for candidacy necessary.
The Kennedy campaign must next submit the names of the six primary and six alternate electors that would certify the election for Kennedy if he were to win.
Notice of Sufficiency of Petition for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Independent Candidate for United States Preside… by Jessica Hill on Scribd
Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on X.
Nevada
Planning phase underway for College of Southern Nevada's northwest campus
LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The development of the College of Southern Nevada’s Northwest campus has taken another step forward after the state allocated $4.5 million for the planning phase, said CSN’s Vice President of Academic Affairs James McCoy.
He showed me the plans that they’ve come up with so far, which includes photos from similar campuses in other parts of the country.
“The blue would be a 60,000 square foot law enforcement academy coupled with some general education and student support services to support those students and others throughout the northwest,” he told me as he pointed to the tentative plans. “It would include the parking as we talk about the land development. You need that. It will include the central plant to operate the campus and the building.”
They’re still deciding on whether an emergency vehicle operations course will be included in phase one.
The reason he calls them potential plans is because the project is based on funding by the state legislature.
“Our goal is to be 100% construction documents in hand by the time the legislative session is wrapping up, so June of 2025,” he said.
Then come the inspections and everything else needed before construction can begin.
As for the cost of the actual construction, it’s yet to be determined.
“Still a work in progress,” said McCoy. “We’ll know much more as the state public works prepares for the presentations of all the capital projects for the entire state. That is slated for Aug.28 and 29.”
By the time it’s all said and done, the first phase has to be shovel ready by June 2026, or else they risk losing the land.
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