As in legislative sessions past, The Nevada Independent is publishing a series of profiles featuring the new lawmakers in the state. Check back in coming days for additional stories on new legislators' backgrounds, interests and policy positions.

Assemblymember Tanya Flanagan

• The freshman Las Vegas Democrat succeeds Assm. Cameron “C.H.” Miller (D-Las Vegas), who resigned from his seat in 2023 for an unsuccessful bid for Las Vegas City Council. 
• She represents a district in the center of North Las Vegas that is north of the city’s airport and west of the Nellis Air Force Base. About one-fourth of residents in the district are Black.
• District 7 has a heavy Democratic lean (40 percent are registered as Democrats, 18 percent as Republicans and 42 percent registered as nonpartisan or to other political parties as of December 2024)).
• Flanagan won an uncontested general election after defeating Democrat James Fennell II in the primary, where she won more than 80 percent of the vote.
• She will sit on the government affairs, education and revenue committees.

Profile

After being diagnosed with cancer for the third time in 2009, Tanya Flanagan had a conversation with her pastor.

“He said, ‘What do you think God wants you to do with your life?’” Flanagan, 54, said.

As she pondered that question, she said she looked back at the role that cancer has played in not just her life, but her mother’s as well.

When Flanagan was 23, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer that metastasized to her liver and lungs, and she died four years later. Four years after that, Flanagan learned that she had also been diagnosed with cancer — the first of her three diagnoses.

Flanagan had already worked as a journalist, during which she tried to capture “the faces of cancer” — not just the perspectives of cancer patients, but also of their loved ones — but she began to think about how else she could help people with their cancer journeys.

She eventually began working with Susan G. Komen, a breast cancer advocacy and research organization, and she later became the president of the board of directors for the group’s Nevada branch.

“In some ways, [cancer] has shaped some of the advocacy that I am for and am about,” Flanagan said.

She has done other advocacy work with the Las Vegas Urban League, an African American social and economic advocacy group, where she was a founding board member. She participated in National Urban League events while growing up in Arizona, and was the founding president of the Las Vegas Urban League Young Professionals.

Flangan, who received a bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science from the University of Arizona and her MBA from UNLV, also worked as a reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal for five years before pursuing public relations. She had a brief stint doing PR for the Mirage, and then started working for Clark County, where she has since worked for more than 20 years in various communications and community roles.

Her campaign for Assembly District 7 last year came four years after she unsuccessfully ran for Clark County Commission in 2020, a candidacy that was hindered by the pandemic. She came in second in the Democratic primary to Commissioner Will McCurdy.

As she heads to Carson City, Flanagan said she wants to lean on her own health journey to push for greater health care affordability and access, particularly for women. Across her three cancer diagnoses, she had about 20 surgeries.

“I have been fortunate to work with good doctors … but I think we need even more access and more affordable access,” she said. “[I’m] always trying to be a voice to open the door for women who are underinsured, uninsured, underserved, disadvantaged.”

As a legislator, she said she wants to follow her lifelong mantra of helping others.

“It’s always about creating … good opportunities for people who can't always create the opportunity for themselves,” she said.

On the Issues

Education

Flanagan supports funding free meals for all K-12 students — a proposal that Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed last year, but one that Democrats are planning to bring back — and said that growing up, her parents emphasized the importance of eating breakfast to “fuel the brain.”

She also said she supports current recipients of Opportunity Scholarships —  the program that provides students from low- and middle-income households with scholarships to private schools — to continue receiving those resources, but that the program should be reevaluated in the long run “to ensure we are being responsible and fair with governance practices impacting education.”

Health care

Asked what the Legislature should do to reduce the state’s uninsured rate, Flanagan said state legislators should push for the protection of the Affordable Care Act. and emphasized the importance of increasing health care affordability and access.

In particular, she referred to a bill proposal she submitted to provide more reproductive health care options to people who might be suffering from breast cancer that can genetically predispose them to ovarian cancer.

Housing

Nevada’s summary eviction process requires tenants, rather than the landlord, to make the first legal filing in an eviction case.

Flanagan did not directly respond to whether she would support proposed changes to the process — which were vetoed last year by Lombardo, who has since expressed more willingness to accept changes — but said that she backs “giving tenants the option to better advocate for themselves.”

Elections

Asked about whether she supports a slew of proposals to shorten mail ballot deadlines and beef up election staffing, Flanagan touted the efforts by the state to increase voting accessibility and said, “I don’t know that we can sacrifice accuracy for speed.”

She added that she “will remain a strong supporter of access to the polls and for casting ballots fairly and safely.”

Gun reform

Asked if she supports requiring people to be 21 to purchase certain semiautomatic rifles and shotguns, Flanagan said she supports raising the age to buy a gun, but that other proposals are also important, such as policies surrounding mental health evaluations and safety training courses.

Environment

Flanagan said she recognized the importance of the state’s goal to reach near-zero carbon emissions by 2050. But when asked if she supports stricter laws to achieve it, she stopped short of an endorsement before knowing what these proposals might entail.

She also said solutions such as urban gardens are a potentially “small contribution on the surface” that could have benefits toward reaching the state’s emissions goal.

Film tax credit

Flanagan called the film industry’s interest in Nevada “tremendous,” but said she would need to see more details before taking a stance on providing tax credits to attract companies.

Line-item vetoes
Flanagan is against the proposal to allow the governor to issue line-item vetoes of budget items, rather than having to address budget bills in their entirety. The line-item veto idea has been proposed by Assm. Heidi Kasama (R-Las Vegas).

Updated on 2/21/25 at 7:22 a.m. to correct the committees Flanagan is serving on.