CARSON CITY, Nev. (KOLO) – Republican voters are close to losing a significant voice in Carson City.
“I’m very very concerned. There’s a possibility not a single Republican vote matters. All Democrats have to do is flip one seat on the Senate side,” said Nevada Republican Assemblyman, Gregory Hafen II of District 36.
A Democratic Party supermajority in Nevada’s House and Senate would remove Republican Governor Joe Lombardo’s power to veto bills and give Democratic lawmakers the power to override the 75 bills Lombardo vetoed during the 2023 Legislative Session.
“That will come back up week one of the next legislative session in 2025 and his vetoes could be overridden like that,” Hafen said as he loudly snapped his fingers.
In the Assembly, Nevada State Democrats hold a thin two-thirds supermajority with control of 26 seats compared to the 14 held by Nevada State Republicans.
In the Senate, Nevada State Democrats are one seat away from a two-thirds supermajority with control of 13 seats compared to the seven held by Nevada State Republicans.
Thirty percent of the active voters in Nevada are registered as Democrat while 29 percent are registered as Republican and yet 65 percent of Nevada lawmakers represent the Democratic Party.
This discrepancy could be accounted for if the remaining 41 percent of voters in Nevada not affiliated with one of the major parties is siding more with Democrats, but several Republican lawmakers including Republican Assemblyman Greg Koenig of Fallon and Assemblyman Bert Gurr of Elko blame former Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak and top Democratic leaders for this imbalance, accusing them of Gerrymandering. It’s another way of saying political boundaries were drawn to favor the Democratic Party.
“We got called into a special session by Governor Sisolak in 2021 and we were presented with new maps and we asked this on record numerous times, ‘Who drew the maps? Where did the maps come from?’ We never got an answer. If you’re asking if we can get to a majority under the Gerrymandered lines that we currently have I think there is probably a 4 percent chance of that,” said Hafen.
Princeton University gives Nevada’s State Senate map a B, stating it gives Democrats a slight advantage. The Nevada Assembly State map is not graded. Nevada’s Congressional map earned an F because, according to Princeton University, it gives Democrats a significant advantage.
“The State of Nevada got an F, an F! Right now the demographics is a 3 percent voter registration advantage to Democrats. Three percent means you should have one or two or maybe three more Democrats in elected office in the Assembly, but right now we have a supermajority and that is all due to the way the redistricting lines were Gerrymandered,” Hafen said.
A lawsuit filed by Hafen states Nevada’s Constitution requires legislative districts to respect county boundaries, but Republicans say the legislative districts signed into law November 16, 2021 as Senate Bill 1 by Sisolak fails to comply with this requirement among many others including keeping communities in the same voting districts.
Sisolak’s action divides Nye County into three different assembly districts and moves more than half of Pahrump and its more than 44,000 citizens into Assembly District 36 with an urban area of Las Vegas diluting the rural vote. Republicans say SB1 also divides seven counties and 21 towns in the Assembly maps alone and breaks up communities of interest.
Hafen says he withdrew the lawsuit during an election cycle to prevent throwing the state into political chaos.
“It scares me. It makes me very nervous to have one party control because the Nevada Constitution requires a two-thirds majority to implement any new tax. So not only is the Governor’s veto at stake here, but we’re talking about any tax that could be passed with just one party control,” Hafen said.
“Last session there was a resolution ACR 7 that said hey, ‘We need to be studying how we can tax the citizens more.’ The first committee in interim revenue was talking about income tax and what other states are doing with income tax and I’m sitting here today wondering why our very first interim revenue committee hearing was talking about income tax,” Hafen continued.
The chair of this committee is Assemblywoman Shea Backus representing District 37 in Clark County.
“Still don’t have an answer to who drew those maps,” Hafen.
“Do you know who would know who drew the map?” Bond.
“You would have to ask the Democratic Party and former Governor Sisolak because they were in charge,” Hafen said.
KOLO 8 News contacted State Democratic leaders at all levels of government seeking a response to Republican accusations of Gerrymandering with no response. The individuals contacted include Senator Nicole Cannizzaro, Assemblyman Jason Frierson, Assemblyman Steve Yeager, and Assemblywoman Shay Backus. KOLO 8 also contacted the Washoe County Democratic Party Headquarters and the State Democratic Party.
KOLO 8 will air a response to this report on air and online if it comes from an official representative of Nevada’s State Democratic Party.
Copyright 2024 KOLO. All rights reserved.
