Please don’t go full Sandoval on us!

Your intrepid blogger did not want to write those words. But it is what it is. Nevada needs Joe Lombardo re-elected, but the special session of the Nevada Legislature that just concluded revealed some very unsettling things that need to be discussed.

With Emerson College’s recent poll coming out as the session was ending, it puts an exclamation point on everything. (FYI Emerson was within 3 points, mostly to the left of the actual results of elections in 2024)

“With less than a year until Election Day, the first Emerson College poll of Nevada’s governor’s race finds Governor Lombardo in a dead heat with the state’s Attorney General, Aaron Ford,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said. “Lombardo holds an eight-point lead among independents, though 40% remain undecided. Ford’s strengths are among Hispanic voters, who back him by 16 points, and women, who break for the Attorney General by five points.”

Governor Lombardo holds a 34% job approval rating, and 36% disapproval; 30% are neutral or have no opinion on the Governor. U.S. Senators Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto hold net negative approval ratings: 31% approve of Cortez Masto and 42% disapprove; 27% are neutral. Twenty-eight percent approve of Rosen, 46% disapprove, and 26% are neutral.

Ouch. 34-36 approval. It is clear that the shutdown hurt the two democrat senators with voters, but for the incumbent governor to be at 41%-41% and 2 points underwater on favorables, this is a 5 alarm fire.

Which gets me to the special session just concluded.

There were supposed to be some big priorities on the session called. It was supposed to be just a few days. It ended up being the longest ever and pretty much every major thing the Governor wanted went sideways.

(Quick note: a lot of gamesmanship was played over voting while absent. Under nevada law, if you are abesnt, you are the equivalent of a no vote. This is why games had to be played to allow some and not others to vote remotely.)

When you read State Senator Jeff Stone’s letter – you get the idea that the film tax credit bill was a tough sell and there was a ton of arm twisting and deal making being attempted. You can also see how the rules of participation were also being abused in an attempt to affect the outcome. In what I believe was a pre-scripted move, alleged “conservative republican” Danielle Gallant voted for a procedural motion that allowed two Republicans that were out of state to vote on the bill. Those affected, Heidi Kasama and Brian Hibbetts were known to be supporters of the giveaway bill. By casting the tie-breaking vote to allow them to vote remotely, Gallant effectively allowed two yes votes on the $1.5 BIllion-plus giveaway. Gallant will pay for this as the voters, especiallty high-information primary voters will see through what she did.

Jeff Stone’s letter summed up the centerpiece of Governor Lombardo’s special session very well. That failed to pass by just Stone’s vote despite people like Gallant and others playing games, the arm twisting by legislative leaders and it appears the threats (referenced directly in Stone’s letter).

Another member of the legislature, Jason Patchett (AD19) was just appointed along with Blayne Osborn (AD39) to the Assembly into a ruby-red District. Patchett did what leadership and the governor told him to, in defiance of his district’s views of the issue. It now appears that Patchett could be a one year wonder. Osborn stayed true to his rural Douglas/Lyon district and did not sell them out the way Patchett did his Eastern Nevada district.

$1.5 Billion in refundable / transferrrable tax credits is effectively a $1.5 BIllion tax increase because that lost revenue has to be offset somewhere else. Did Joe Lombardo just signal to all of us he is going full Sandoval in his second term? (Brian Sandoval famously engineered a $2B tax increase with Republican majorities in both houses and Republicans in every statewide office. They got wiped out the next election and we have not recovered since)

School Choice was supposed to be on the agenda for the special. Nope. Was it because of the Clark County Teacher’s Union endorsement?

A Crime bill with badly needed fixes of some idiotic stuff signed by Sisolak during Covid was on the docket, but was hijacked by some inner city Las Vegas Communists to have anti-ICE language inserted in to the bill. Lombardo stated publicly that Nevada will not be a snactuary state, now he will have to veto his own crime bill to keep that promise! Who was minding the store when the commie mice were playing?

But it gets worse. Right-wing Nevada pundits completely missed the deeper reason why the legislature was able to call a special session of their own for the first time in Nevada history. In my opinion, Ira and Alexis Hansen, married, one in the State Senate and the other in the State Assembly were both fed up with the game playing, arm twisting and the coercion they saw surrounding the film giveaway. With the democrats only needing one Republican in each house to get the 2/3 necessary to invoke a special session, the Hansens gave it to them for the purpose of addressing the “affordable housing crisis”. Right-Wing pundits got fixated on the dog whistle of the issue and completely missed that this was done to punch the governor in the mouth, period!

There is no sane person that would think real conservatives like the Hansens would ever vote for the heavy handed socialist anti-development over-regulated manifesto that was proposed. That is why the bill died in the Assembly with Alexis Hansen voting no.

This was not a good week+ for Joe Lombardo. And there is a bonus. While the 17 Nevada County Republican Parties came out in strong opposition with Washoe (WELL DONE WASHOE, see I agree with you sometimes guys) leading the charge, the State of Nevada GOP came out in FAVOR!? The Nevada GOP (the State Party) had opposed the film giveaway in 2023. I can only postulate that some sort of deal was made to help the Nevada GOP raise some money (which they historically have not done under Mike McDonald’s tenure save for national pass-through money and a smattering of small dollar donations)? Perhaps another nexus would be legal considerations since 3 sitting officers of the NVGOP and 3 other close associates are being prosecuted for their role in the 2020 alternative elector stunt they participated in. Given that the Nevada Supreme Court features 5 ideaolgues that would fit in with Jeb Bosaberg or Beryl Howell, there is no way in hell those 6 “electors” will get a fair trial if it gets to that level. A Republican Governor could fix that.

A former officer of the NVGOP, Michelle Fiore, got pardoned by President Trump recently, so don’t dismiss that nexus out of hand. Equally possible is that the NVGOP leadership had a real change of heart and decided to wholeheartedly embrace corporate welfare at the expense of taxpayers, who knows.

This wasn’t a good scene. Games played. Threats made. Coercion. Bill Failed. Crime Bill poisoned. School Choice aborted. A special session called from under the governor for the first time in state history. It was like watching Geno Smith complete passes — to the other team.

Then add in that Lombardo got recently endorsed by the Clark County Teacher’s Union and the State Firefighter’s Union (which has swung hard left in the last 20 years) – you can see a pattern. With the most recent polls showing him 41-41 for re-election and -2% favorable, are his advisors telling him to go full Arnold Sandoval / Brian Schwarzenegger to win re-election in 2026? We’re going to find out soon.