Spiegel, Matthews seek to parlay legislative experience into state controller job – The Nevada Independent

Two candidates with legislative expertise are vying for what is probably going probably the most under-the-radar government department workplace on the statewide poll this yr — the accounting-focused place of state controller. 

After one-term Democratic incumbent Catherine Byrne determined to not pursue re-election, former five-term Democratic Assemblywoman Ellen Spiegel is prone to face the one Republican candidate, Assemblyman Andy Matthews, within the November election. Democrat Alex Costa and Libertarian Jed William Profeta have additionally jumped within the race, however neither candidate has a public profile or raised or spent any marketing campaign cash in the course of the first quarter. 

Final yr, Spiegel introduced her intent to run for secretary of state however later switched to hunt the job of the controller in February, avoiding a doubtlessly dicey Democratic major with former Nevada Athletic Fee Chair Cisco Aguilar, who had garnered big-name help for the secretary of state function. Each Byrne and Gov. Steve Sisolak confirmed their help for Spiegel when she introduced she would run for controller as an alternative. 

“Once I heard that the present controller Catherine Byrne was not working for re-election, the governor known as me and requested me to contemplate,” Spiegel stated in an interview with The Nevada Impartial. “And I spotted that with my background, imaginative and prescient and enterprise expertise, I’m very well-suited for the place.” 

The state controller is the chief fiscal officer of the state of Nevada and is chargeable for administering the state’s accounting system, registering distributors, settling all claims towards the state and accumulating money owed owed to the state. The controller additionally sits on the transportation board and on the chief department audit committee. 

Every controller is restricted by the state structure to 2 four-year phrases and yearly compensation is round $100,000. The controller’s workplace publishes a 24-page Controller’s Annual Report, also referred to as the Common Annual Monetary Report, so residents can entry details about the state’s funds. 

Ellen Spiegel

Raised within the small Lengthy Island city of Jericho, New York, Spiegel has a level in shopper economics from Cornell College and has 40 years of expertise working with companies resembling American Specific and The Climate Channel. She stated her enterprise background could be the proper match for the state controller place. 

“I’ve at all times been a coverage geek,” Spiegel stated at a Las Vegas occasion hosted by the group Hispanics in Politics on Might 4. “I’m at all times folks, at all times doing issues differently. I’m trying to take what’s there and reinvent it and do it in a approach that is smart from a monetary perspective.” 

Spiegel additionally developed one of many first on-line shops that permit folks buy software program and obtain it to their computer systems, and supported the event of web privateness and electronic mail advertising and marketing tips that shield shoppers. She owns a Nevada-based consulting agency along with her husband Invoice. 

In keeping with her marketing campaign web site, Spiegel sponsored two anti-gender discrimination payments that had been signed into state legislation in 2017 and aimed to guard equal pay for equal work. She additionally authored a invoice in 2019 that mandates well being protection for pre-existing circumstances and provides shoppers higher entry to specialists. 

After spending a decade within the Meeting and narrowly shedding a state Senate bid in 2020, Spiegel stated it’s time for one thing new. Of Jewish religion, she stated she believes in “tikkun olam,” an idea in Judaism that refers to repairing the world, and stated she needs to contribute to her group. 

“As I have a look at the challenges which can be going through Nevada, we’ve acquired an terrible lot of issues associated to our monetary state,” Spiegel stated on the occasion. “Our taxes are low and we love residing right here, however it may be arduous to manage to pay for to go round and fund the issues that we wish to, resembling fixing our faculties.” 

Spiegel stated she has a plan to deal with the state’s monetary issues. She needs to introduce a Proper Observe program — one of many concepts from her secretary of state marketing campaign — that may assist deprived entrepreneurs get a enterprise license and mentoring for achievement. 

“The factor is, our enterprise license is sort of loopy,” Spiegel stated. “And I agree that there needs to be pricing. However if you’re scuffling with enterprise since you are unemployed or underemployed, you don’t have that sort of cash to fork over to the state while you don’t even know if your corporation goes to achieve success.” 

Below the Proper Observe program, Spiegel stated people would get to begin their enterprise with a provisional enterprise license free of charge, offered they comply with mentoring. She added that the mentoring side will carry a higher chance of success and the “steady line of monetary protection” would give folks a leg up, benefiting the state by saving on social companies. 

“We have to have our fiscal home so as,” stated Spiegel. “And other people have been making an attempt to deal with these issues for so long as I can bear in mind, however I even have concepts on how we will do it.” 

Thus far, Spiegel has raised about $21,000 and has spent $26,000. She obtained $2,500 from a PAC affiliated with Clark County Commissioner Michael Naft and particular person donations from Byrne, former Rep. Shelley Berkley and Assemblywoman Shea Backus. 

She has near $130,000 in money available, which is about $30,000 lower than her Republican opponent, Andy Matthews. Most of her bills, about $18,000, had been spent on payroll. 

Republican Andy Matthews

A primary-term assemblyman, Matthews beforehand headed the conservative advocacy group Nevada Coverage Analysis Institute, which helps extra education choices, low tax options and elevated transparency round public sector compensation. 

He defeated Democratic incumbent Shea Backus in Las Vegas’ Meeting District 37 by 2 share factors in 2020. Matthews didn’t reply to a number of interview requests from The Nevada Impartial. 

Matthews was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He graduated from Boston College’s Faculty of Communication and commenced his profession as a sports activities journalist at media shops together with Fox Information and MLB.com. He labored on a New Jersey political race in 2005, then moved to Nevada to work as marketing campaign supervisor for former state lawmaker Bob Beers’ finally unsuccessful gubernatorial run in 2006. 

His web site acknowledged he was prompted to run when former Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, pushed a record-breaking package deal of latest and prolonged taxes price greater than $1.1 billion in 2015. Matthews jumped within the third Congressional District race as a Republican candidate in 2016 however was finally defeated by Danny Tarkanian within the major. 

Among the many payments, Matthews sponsored as an Meeting member had been measures that may have exempted smaller companies from acquiring a enterprise license, rolled again expanded mail voting, stiffened penalties for presidency businesses that violate public data legal guidelines and created a committee to advocate reductions in authorities spending. As with many Republican-sponsored payments, these measures didn’t survive within the Democrat-controlled Legislature.

On his marketing campaign web site, Matthews’ record of priorities consists of making authorities extra clear and accountable, growing public entry to details about authorities spending and operations, opposing “damaging” tax hikes, reining in authorities spending and “restoring fiscal sanity within the state capital.” 

He has been endorsed by an extended record of conservatives resembling former Lawyer Common Adam Laxalt, former Controller Ron Knecht and former Gov. Robert Record. Matthews additionally leads the Morning in Nevada political motion committee, a company tied to Laxalt and conservative causes, as the chief director. 

In the course of the first quarter, Matthews raised a bit greater than $40,000 and spent about $20,000. He obtained $1,000 from the Las Vegas Gold and Silver Pawn Store, owned by TV star and Republican donor Rick Harrison. 

Matthews has $150,000 in money available. He surpassed Spiegel in marketing campaign fundraising however spent about $6,000 much less, giving him a slight benefit going into the second quarter.