The theme was leadership and public service, and that meant that sooner or later members of the powerhouse panel that assembled Thursday morning at UNLV’s Boyd School of Law’s Moot Courtroom were bound to mention the name that’s anathema to both qualities essential to good governance.

Over the past two and a half years, the City of Reno approved nearly 7,000 units of housing, as a flashy new page on the city website reveals. Over a third of those are even “affordable,” meaning they’re priced low enough to be affordable to those within the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s definition of a “low-income” family, which, in Reno, means any household making less than $62,500 per year, more or less. 

Thursday morning, my email inbox began to blow up from my colleagues in the criminal defense world. “Game changer…” one simply said, and that said it all. Nevada’s courts – particularly our municipal and justice courts – are about to be radically altered, and virtually every Nevadan will be affected.

For many families, home ownership provides one of the cornerstones of a secure financial future. But unless our communities are able to provide sufficient supplies of housing, a growing number of our families will be unable to buy a home.

The top Nevada official for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently complained to the Las Vegas Review Journal that it takes three or more years to deport mothers without criminal records. “Who knows what could happen in those three years? She could have three more babies,” said Dana Fishburn, acting deputy field office director for ICE in Nevada.

Like a lot of you trapped on US 95 during the daily commute, I recently had time to conduct a brief survey while watching the blur of traffic on my left flow by in the HOV lane at a rate of speed usually reserved for NASCAR drivers.

Taxing tourists, if you’re a politician, is a win-win. You get the revenue you need to provide the services your constituents demand and, in return, you get to take that revenue from people who will never, ever vote against you.

Three years before 9/11, a movie called “The Siege” came out starring Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis. The plot involved escalating terrorist attacks world-wide. To stop the strikes in New York, the president declares martial law and sends the Army in to occupy Brooklyn. 

Former Vice President and Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden recently threw his health care policy proposal into the ring to square off against his fellow candidates’ various proposed plans.

I recently read an article by The Nevada Independent titled “At Mustang Ranch open house, Gilman says he wants ‘better respect’ for brothel industry.” The piece featured perspectives on Nevada’s legal brothel industry from a brothel owner and one of his managers.

George Will, in writing about Representative Justin Amash, stated that Amash does not “spurn the idea of offering temperate voters a choice of something other than a choice between bossy progressivism and populist Caesarism.” As a member of that group hated by both progressives and the right wing, a moderate, I instantly related to the description of the choice I will likely face in the next Presidential election. 

Opponents of school choice programs, whether they’re direct vouchers, charter schools, or various other options, always come back to the same argument – if only we had that extra money that’s going to some other school, along with the student. That money woulda turned it all around. If that charter school hadn’t opened, we woulda been education champions.

After a hearing that opened a cannabis of worms and a judge’s order that exposed a regulatory road paved with bad intentions, Nevada’s marijuana industry oversight has been unmasked as a morass of abject incompetence and potential corruption.

A 30-minute drive outside New Mexico’s capital city, two-lane State Route 41 passes Zorro Ranch Road and the entrance to what, until recently, was part of Jeffrey Epstein’s domain.

In cities and suburbs, in blue states and red, a growing number of hard-working Americans are struggling to find housing they can afford. According to a recent national poll of mayors, housing affordability is the first or second most frequent issue they hear about from constituents for cities large, medium and small.

The Clark County School District’s treatment of its teachers is just the latest and most visible issue to affect Nevada’s tempest-tossed education system. Funding formulas that favor Northern Nevada schools, NSHE scandals and the failure to address the issues associated with managing a district of CCSD’s size are just the headlines that touch on the issues.

In 2003, Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican and former superintendent who helped pass billions to build Clark County schools, pushed through what was then the largest tax increase in history to enhance education funding.