Political mail pieces that have arrived in North Las Vegas residents’ mailboxes attack state Sen. Dina Neal (D-North Las Vegas) as “‘Dirty Deal’ Neal,” alleging she has been “soft-on-crime for decades [and] has tried to destroy our police department and community.”

It’s the latest escalation in a key Democratic state Senate primary fight between Neal and Nevada System of Higher Education Regent Laura Perkins, who is backed by several top North Las Vegas officials who often tangled with Neal during the 2023 legislative session. The stakes are high — the Democratic primary winner will almost assuredly represent this North Las Vegas district in Carson City for the next four years.

The mailer (and another one highlighting a recent FBI investigation into Neal) was paid for by North Valley PAC, which was registered April 10 by North Las Vegas Councilman Isaac Barron. Barron initially agreed to a phone interview with The Nevada Independent last week, but did not respond to calls or text messages on Tuesday.

But because of a loophole in state law, the PAC will not need to report who is funding it or how much it spent until a month after the state’s June 11 primary election.

Thanks to a 2017 change in how often candidates and PACs are required to report their contributions and expenditures, political operators now have a two-month window during which to set up PACs and spend money on the state’s June primary election without having to report how much they’re raising or who is funding them until July 15 — about a month after the primary election.

A Nevada Independent analysis found that at least 20 new PACs and political nonprofits were registered with the Nevada Secretary of State’s office between April 1 and May 15 — slotting nicely into the loophole between campaign finance reporting deadlines and the June 11 primary election.

One such PAC is “Every Eligible Nevadan,” which was registered May 10 to a North Carolina political consultant who previously worked for the North Carolina Democratic Party. That PAC has so far spent about $1,000 on Facebook ads supporting Washoe County Commissioner Clara Andriola, highlighting her endorsement from Gov. Joe Lombardo and saying she will “SECURE OUR ELECTIONS.”

Kenneth Miller, an assistant professor of political science at UNLV, described setting up a PAC late in the election season as “one of the oldest strategies to hide where your money is coming from.” 

“It's always an issue when voters don't know where the money that finances our campaigns is coming from,” Miller said. 

He said in instances where there aren’t candidates involved, such as ballot initiatives, knowing where donations come from helps voters judge the intentions of a PAC and its sincerity. It’s important for voters and election observers to ask why an entity would hide its donors or take advantage of loopholes, he said.

“[The North Valley PAC is] just a perfect example of this kind of lack of transparency that we’ve evolved towards in elections over the last two decades,” he said. “We don't really know who's behind all of the communications.”

In 2017, Nevada lawmakers passed a bill (AB45) that, in part, shifted campaign finance reporting deadlines to a quarterly system, in line with the schedule followed by candidates for federal office, but without any of the additional transparency requirements for reporting pre-election fundraising totals. The law also instituted cash-on-hand reporting for candidates.

Previously, candidates for non-federal office and PACs followed a campaign finance reporting schedule more closely tied to the actual dates of the primary and general elections. 

The change in reporting deadlines was an amendment offered by Sen. Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) — a concept that wasn’t discussed during a hearing on the bill. During a work session, or a vote on the bill out of committee, the only discussion around the change in deadlines related to a need for consistency and how it would work in practice with senators who serve four-year terms, with then-Sen. James Settelmeyer (R-Minden) quipping, “I still firmly believe the only people who read these are my opponents.”