CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Q+A: Sisolak discusses plan to boost education, fight back on plutonium shipments and help immigrants

Las Vegas Sun - 2/28/2019

Feb. 28-- Feb. 28--Reducing class sizes in public schools, giving teachers a raise and expanding career and technical education opportunities for Nevada students are key goals for Gov. Steve Sisolak and legislative Democrats this year.

But they're also big-ticket items, of course, which has put conservatives and critics of public schools on red alert about tax increases to pay for them. Legislative Republicans have accused Sisolak of proposing a de facto tax increase by maintaining two taxes, one of which was scheduled to sunset this year while the other was set to be reduced. Sisolak says those aren't increases, but rather are simply extensions of existing taxes.

On Wednesday, Sisolak sat down with the Sun to discuss education funding and a number of other issues, including gun safety and his new initiative to regulate the state's cannabis industry. The former member of the Nevada Board of Regents and Clark County Commission chairman took office last month after helping lead Democrats to a nearly clean sweep of state government and legislative positions.

Working with Democratic majorities in both the Senate and Assembly, Sisolak has already pushed through one of his top priority items -- universal background checks on gun purchases -- and stands to score many more victories as the 2019 legislative session plays out.

So what's on the horizon? Here are excerpts from the interview, edited for clarity and length.

Why was it important for you to address universal background checks early in the session?

It was something I think was long overdue. It was over 800 days from when the voters passed it. Having gone through what Las Vegas went through on 1 October and seeing nationally the shootings that have happened, that and education were the biggest issues I heard on the campaign trail for a year and a half. So I wanted to do it quick and set the tone.

The Democrats' "Nevada Blueprint" -- the party's series of goals and priorities for the session -- lists universal background checks but no other gun safety policies. But what else do you think may come out of the Legislature on that front?

I visited about 63 legislators over there and listened to what their bills were and what their hopes are, and I heard a lot about gun safety. I don't know what's going to make it over here as they go through the process and they have their discussions. I anticipate something, but we'll have to wait and see what comes over.

After the Oct. 1 shooting, you explored imposing a ban on bump stocks in Clark County when you were the commission chair, only to learn that the Republicans had passed legislation in 2015 barring local governments from passing any regulations stiffer than those in the state statutes. Could the Legislature undo that law? And would you sign it?

The Legislature could change that, is my understanding. I don't know if they will. Several of the legislators talked about it. I urged them to have an omnibus-type thing, because there are so many bills that are going to be heard. But it's definitely something that could be done.

It's something I'm interested in. I don't want to get into hypotheticals about different bills, because it wouldn't be fair to the legislative process and to the legislators who are coming forward with different proposals. So I'll have to say I'll just wait and see.

Regarding the secret shipment of plutonium to Nevada, who have you contacted in the Trump administration and what has been the response?

We've reached out to the administration, reached out to (Energy) Secretary (Rick) Perry. Everybody is outraged about what happened and how it happened. And we still don't know how it happened.

My sources told me that that shipment would have to come with a lot of security around it, even aerial security. And I don't know how that would have happened without anybody seeing it or knowing about it.

That's a big concern I have. We sent a letter to Secretary Perry asking detailed questions about it a couple of weeks back now, and haven't heard anything; haven't heard his response.

They were going to have a tour of Yucca Mountain here, and we were hoping to get one-on-one time with him at that point. But staff has reached out to Energy to ask for a meeting when they do come out here. I'm willing to go to Washington, or them to come here, and meet with the president and the secretary anytime to talk about this issue.

If Donald Trump and Rick Perry were sitting here right now, what would you tell them?

As it relates to the plutonium issue, the message is that our citizens have a right to know what's coming into this state, how it got here -- we have no idea how it got here -- how it's being stored and the details that relate to that.

This is something that I think everybody realizes presents a high-security risk. Bad guys would love to get ahold of this stuff. And I don't know what precautions were taken, had there been an accident along the way with this stuff. I think it's incumbent upon them to let us know what's coming here and how it's getting here, how it's going to be transported, so that we can take appropriate precautions.

So we still don't know the route?

We asked about the route and their concern has been that they're not going to release it because there are only so many routes they can take, and they don't want to reveal the routes or the dates or anything related to that.

It would have had to come through other states, too, but we don't know which ones. You know, I spoke to a lot of my colleagues at the (National Governors Association meeting this month), and they don't know if it came through their states. Nobody has any clue.

Are other states raising a flag on this?

Well, I'm the one raising the biggest flag, because other governors had it transported through their state maybe. They don't even know. The only state we know it was transported through was South Carolina, and they were happy to get rid of it.

So it's a little more difficult to be as outraged as I am when you don't know. I mean, I know it was obviously transported on Nevada roads and is in Nevada right now, and everybody else doesn't have that knowledge.

What's the next step?

They've acquiesced to the fact that when they become available and when we're here we will be able to sit down and have a one-on-one. Again, I've offered to go there or they can come here anytime and we'll talk about the issue. They've said they're done in the filing with the shipments, but then again they kind of let the judge believe they weren't going to ship anything and then they did. So it was pretty tough to put a lot of faith in them after what happened.

Can you give us a status report on the Cannabis Compliance Board?

The task force has met once, and they unfortunately had to cancel another meeting because of the weather. I think under my general counsel, J. Brin Gibson, they're doing a great job.

There's a lot that needs to be done in terms of licensure and regulation and all of the other issues it's facing, whether it's consumption lounges or -- my biggest one, frankly -- banking.

The health and safety issue of all that cash is a big one. You know, you've got drugs and cash -- why not just put up a blinking sign in front of these places notifying the crooks of what's here. (Laughs)

So we need to get a handle on the banking situation. We need to get a handle on how many of these establishments there should be, where they should be, who should have control over this -- is it counties, is it cities?

There are a lot of unanswered questions, and my hope is that this Cannabis Compliance Board will be able to do that.

We are without a doubt the gold standard when it comes to gaming (regulation), and I think it's important that the public has that confidence in us. But we need to be the same thing, in my opinion, for marijuana. It's going to take some time to get there, but it's important that we get started. And that's what we're doing.

We'd like to read you a tweet from Tick Segerblom (Clark County commissioner and a leading proponent of legalization of marijuana when he served in the Nevada Legislature) and get your reaction to it. Here's the tweet: "It's important to remember that Question 2, which was overwhelmingly approved by Nevada voters, was titled Treat Marijuana Like Alcohol -- not Treat Marijuana Like Gaming. Please don't go crazy over-regulating it."

I don't want to go crazy over-regulating it, but I think it needs to be regulated. Alcohol is different. You can bank the cash out of a bar. You can bank liquor store money. We don't have a limit on the number of licenses that you can get with alcohol.

I don't know if Tick is proposing that we give out as many licenses as people want, and there will be a dispensary every corner.

But I think the different jurisdictions have put a distance separation requirement with alcohol, and different sorts of things when it comes to gaming and alcohol.

But alcohol, gaming and marijuana are all different. They've got some similar factors, but there are nuances between them.

One of your priorities is to establishment the Office for New Americans. Can you describe that to us?

I'm really excited about the Office for New Americans. There are a lot of folks who've come here for whom English is their second language, and they don't have access to information as it relates to opportunities, education and health care, just to name a few areas.

We want a place that they can turn to and ask, "What's available at CSN or at UNLV?" or "What can I do in terms of bidding on state contracts or local contracts if I'm a small business?" or "How do I go about opening a restaurant or a manufacturing facility?"

It's our hope that this office will be able to provide that information to various constituency groups.

It will be a clearinghouse for a lot of information and a resource center for information.

It's frustrating for an individual who wants to get into a business -- you've got to go over here and get this, then you've got to go and get that, then take that certificate and go over here, then take those two things and go over here.

People are, like, jeez, it's this complicated? I want to open up a flower shop.

During the news conference for "Nevada Blueprint," it was asked whether the office would serve undocumented immigrants. Will it?

The Office of New Americans will be open to everybody who's living here. Everybody will have the opportunity to avail themselves of those services. Educational services, for instance, apply to undocumented immigrants. Information on health care would be another example.

Let's turn to education. With so many big-ticket items on the agenda, is a tax increase inevitable?

There's not a tax increase that's on the table. I think we need to do an analysis of where our money's going. I think there's frustration among an awful lot of folks who saw this tax increase last time. In fact, this is what I'd hear on the campaign trail: You'd knock on the door, and the person would say, "Great, you increased the taxes -- it didn't help my kid's school. Nothing changed at all in the classroom. You've got the same teacher making the same money, and we have the same problems."

It didn't affect most kids, and that's a problem.

When I was back in Washington, we talked a lot about this: Career and technical training is a big issue to me. We need to do a lot more. During my time on the Board of Regents, I'd see kids spending five years getting four-year degrees, then couldn't get a job. And now you've got $80,000 in debt. Student debt is crushing people.

But we've got a vast storage of professional, technically trained people. If you're a welder or a plumber or an HVAC technician or an electrician or any of a multitude of professionals, right now those jobs are paying $70,000, $80,000, $100,000 a year.

And we need to give kids that opportunity, and we haven't done it.

So that's one thing we need to do.

I need to make sure that we get the money down into the classroom. Our teachers are definitely underpaid and overworked.

Reducing class size is something I want to do. It's an expensive proposition. We don't have the buildings right now, even, to reduce class sizes.

We're going to have to pay our teachers better. We allocated money in our budget for that. And I'm going to be very disappointed if that money gets down to the school districts and it doesn't go into teacher salaries, but instead is used for another purpose. That's not the intent. I've had a meeting with the superintendents.

But where's the revenue going to come from?

We've made most of the changes we've made thus far with growth money (tax revenue increases fueled by the improving economy and population growth) and allocating the marijuana revenue to education, and we need to continue to do that.

You're a proponent of increasing the minimum wage. But how should the state go about it?

I don't want to make it one big jump to $15. I think that's hard to take, especially for a small business. You can't support yourself on a minimum wage job, so we need to do something about that. But at the same time, I need to be very cautious to not put little entrepreneurs out of business. If you from bump somebody who's getting $9-10 an hour up to $15, and you've got two employees, that's $500 a week. That's the difference between somebody being in business or out of business.

So we can't cost jobs and cost businesses by doing that.

So you are in favor of a gradual increase?

I threw $12 out on the table. I can see it going higher than $12 if it's done on a slow, graduated rate -- if it goes up $1 a year or 50 cents a year over a number of years.

I think we need an adjustment in it. How you get there is open for interpretation, and I'm anxious to see what the Legislature comes up with.

I cannot support one fell swoop to $15. That just will put too many folks out of business.

Do you back the ban on private prisons? (Note: Former Gov. Brian Sandoval vetoed a bill banning the state from contracting with private prisons in 2017.)

I do support a ban on private prisons. I think we need to look at our entire criminal justice system.

The first lady and I had the opportunity when we were driving up here a couple months back to stop at High Desert (Correctional Facility) and talk to some of the inmates and trustees. The job training programs they have there have given them a skill that they can use once they get out. And it's done with Culinary, too, at the release center in Southern Nevada, which is going to give folks an opportunity to be able to work.

I want to do more. The only way you're going to reduce recidivism is if they can get out and they don't go back to their same habits and their same friends and their same problems. They need to have a skill that allows them to support themselves and their families and make a living wage.

And I think that doesn't come from chance, it comes from giving them a skill or a trade they can use when they come out.

Critics of that ban say it will reduce the flexibility needed to address prison overcrowding in the short term. What's your response to that?

I don't know if it really reduces that. I think there are other ways to punish other than prison. I think we incarcerate too many people. A lot of these are minor drug offenses where I don't know if the best way to resolve them is put them in prison, frankly. If I've got to put $100 million into prisons, I can't put it into education, and I'd rather put it there.

Finally, are you on board with restructuring the Nevada Board of Regents?

I think we need to make some adjustments. Thirteen members is too big. It was big when I was on it, and it was 11. I proposed we go down to seven or nine, and instead it went to 13. So that kind of went backwards on me (laughs).

I can tell you I serve on a tremendous number of boards and commissions, both at the county level when I was there, and now at the governor's office. The larger the board is, sometimes the more difficult it is to get a quorum and to get people interested in serving.

I think you need to focus not on the size of the board but the quality of the people that you get on there, and what their motivation is for getting on the Board of Regents or a school board, for that matter.

We need people with expertise in various areas, and that's what we need to focus on.

___

(c)2019 the Las Vegas Sun (Las Vegas, Nev.)

Visit the Las Vegas Sun (Las Vegas, Nev.) at www.lasvegassun.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.