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.

Assm. Venise Karris

• The freshman Las Vegas Democrat succeeds Assm. Sabra Newby (D-Las Vegas), who resigned from her seat in 2023 to become the deputy city manager for the City of Las Vegas.
• She represents a district west of downtown Las Vegas and north of the Spring Valley and Chinatown areas. It is slightly more ethnically diverse than the rest of the state. 
• District 10 has a strong Democratic lean (36 percent Democrat, 21 percent Republican and 43 percent registered as nonpartisan or to other political parties as of December 2024).
• Karris won a three-way Democratic primary, then defeated Libertarian Sean Moore in the general election, carrying 63 percent of the vote.
• She will sit on the government affairs, growth and infrastructure and natural resources committees.

Profile

Venise Karris, 67, “had to reinvent” herself when she moved to Las Vegas 30 years ago.

Until then, her professional experience had been in medical research. The Chicago native received a biology degree from the University of Illinois before eventually moving to California (to escape the cold), where she held research positions at the California Institute of Technology and the Loma Linda University Medical Center.

She had family in Las Vegas, so she moved to Sin City in 1995 as a single mom with two daughters. With little medical research work available and a need to get high-quality health insurance for her daughters, she decided to look for a union job.

That’s when she found the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 357 (IBEW) — her home for the next 27 years until her retirement in 2023.

“There were so many highs,” Karris said. “It gave me a great career and a really good life.”

When she started at IBEW in 1996, there weren’t a lot of women in the electrical trade, she said. That taught her how to persevere through adversity.

“You're always moving, looking productive all the time, because you know you're being watched,” she said.

Her job entailed working on anything from fire alarms to putting electrical gear together. Her first stop was a brief stint at Basic High School in Henderson before moving to the New York-New York casino and finishing her career at the Fontainebleau.

She also was an executive board member for IBEW and worked as a shop steward for seven years — an experience that she thinks will serve her well in Carson City.

“I have some really mean negotiating skills,” she said.

A week after her retirement, she was asked to run for Assembly District 10, but she didn’t say by whom. Soon after, Newby left the seat, and Karris decided to jump in.

“I just really feel at this stage of my life, it's time for me to give back to Nevada, because it really helped me raise my daughters the way I wanted to,” she said. 

While campaigning last year, she said she knocked on more than 3,000 doors and primarily heard concerns about homelessness, education and inflation. As a freshman, she said her goal is to understand how to be an effective legislator.

“My main goal is to listen and observe and learn how everything works so that I can make really great decisions for the state,” she said.

On the Issues

Education

Karris supports funding universal free school meals for K-12 students, saying that it “removes any stigma of being singled out.” Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed the proposal last year, but Democrats are planning to bring it back this year. 

She also said students receiving Opportunity Scholarships —  the school choice program that provides students from low- and middle-income households with scholarships to private schools — should be allowed to keep them, but that “more accountability is required” before expanding the program.

Health care

Asked about what the Legislature should do to decrease the rate of uninsured Nevadans, Karris said lawmakers need to increase awareness of the state’s health plans and reduce the costs of prescription drugs, but she did not elaborate.

She also urged the federal government to protect the Affordable Care Act.

Housing

Karris supports changing the state’s summary eviction process, which requires tenants, rather than the landlord, to make the first filing in an eviction case.

Lombardo vetoed a bill in 2023 to amend the process, but he said following his State of the State address this year that he was “open to consideration” of something similar this year. 

Elections

Asked whether she would support shortening the timeline to accept mail ballots, increase election staffing capacity or require ballots to be received by Election Day, Karris did not provide a specific answer but said that she found ballot counting in 2024 “to be much improved.”

She also said that it “is imperative that ballots be counted safely and securely, in a timely manner.”

Gun reform

Karris said she supports raising the legal age to 21 to purchase certain semiautomatic rifles and shotguns.

“I understand our hunting community uses certain types of these weapons for their sport,” she said. “However, raising the age to be in line with the legal drinking age should not be considered a huge sacrifice for the improved safety it may provide for the general public.”

Environment

Asked if lawmakers should do more to encourage renewable energy, Karris said she wants the state to offer greater incentives for the use of rooftop solar panels, and do more to adopt electric vehicles. 

She also said the Legislature should look more into the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles and their high cost, while adding that the state should not be burdening families in its efforts to reach near-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Film tax credit

Asked if she would support more tax credits for the film industry, Karris did not provide a specific answer, but said attracting the industry to Nevada “would be a boon toward diversifying economic development.” She added that balancing these positives with the impact on taxpayers “must be thoughtfully considered.”

Line-item vetoes
Karris said she did not support allowing 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).