PARTY LINES: Give cops a raise? Hey that was MY idea!

Long before he was elected governor, then-Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak promised a gathering of Carson City Democrats that, if he were to be elected, he would sign a bill granting collective bargaining rights to state employees.

And sure enough, in 2019, he did.

One of the groups that chose to engage in collective bargaining was state police officers, including members of what is now known as the Nevada State Police. But the bargaining unit didn’t reach an agreement with the state during the 2021 session and had to go to arbitration after the session was over.

After that process, the state eventually approved money for the raises, but the increases were delayed until the 2023 Legislature could approve them.

In the meantime, Sisolak has pledged that he will call for an increase in police officer pay during the 2023 session, assuming he’s re-elected in November. This will be the first significant pay increase since 2006, the governor’s office has said.

But, if you listen to Sisolak’s Republican rival for the job, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, that’s not good enough. Lombardo on Thursday called for an immediate increase in pay using money from the American Rescue Plan.

“Steve Sisolak’s disregard for the Nevada State Police is egregious,” Lombardo said in a statement. “Nevada State Police vacancies are at a crisis level, but Sisolak can’t be bothered to give them any attention, raises or help.”

Lombardo also slammed Sisolak for not calling a special session to speed an increase in wages before the next session convenes in February.

The state police officers union applauded Lombardo’s call for a raise on Twitter.

“Nevada Police Union applauds Sheriff Joe Lombardo’s call for Nevada State Police raises,” the group wrote. “NPU has continuously sounded the alarm on the pay inequity issue that has caused record high turnover rates and vacancies of state police, which leaves Nevadans less safe and secure.”

The group added: “Although Nevada (Gov. Steve Sisolak) has stated a need for salary increases for state police, NO ACTION has been taken to date. Not only has no action been taken, the state increased PERS and health insurance costs, reduced uniform allowances and mandated furlough days on state police officers, Most notably, Nevada state police are paid between 25%-50% below their counterparts at the local level. (American Rescue Plan Act) provided billions in funds to support police and public safety services in Nevada, yet once again, state police officers have been LEFT OUT.”

Sisolak’s campaign wasn’t impressed by Lombardo’s initiative, however, saying he was just copying the governor’s pledge.

“Governor Sisolak already said back in February during his State of the State address he would work with the legislature to properly fund much-needed raises for Nevada State Police in the next legislative session. This is now the third time Lombardo has released a ‘plan’ that has either already been done by the governor or has already been proposed by the governor,” said Reeves Oyster, Sisolak for Governor spokesperson.

This isn’t the first time that Sisolak and Lombardo have tangled over funding for law enforcement. When Sisolak was still on the commission, he repeatedly stood in the way of increasing the sales tax to hire more Metro Police officers. After Lombardo took over as sheriff, he negotiated a tax increase with Sisolak, who eventually acknowledged that he’d changed his mind on the issue.

Go Rebels!

Congrats to UNLV, for achieving a ranking of No. 27 on the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s list of colleges by how well they protect freedom of speech. That’s an “above average” ranking for the school.

According to the report, 42 percent of UNLV students say shouting down a speaker because of her or his views is never acceptable, 61 percent say they never self-censor on campus and 39 percent say they don’t worry about damaging their reputation because something they’ve said is misunderstood.

And that comes on a campus with a 3:1 ratio of liberal to conservative students!

UNLV did much better than rival University of Nevada, Reno, which clocked in at No. 76, which the foundation considers an “average” rank for an on-campus speech climate.

More Nevadans in Washington

First lady Jill Biden has a new press secretary: Vanessa Valdivia will take over the job soon. Longtime Nevada politicos will remember her from the 2016 campaign, when she helped Hillary Clinton win the Nevada caucus over Bernie Sanders, 53 percent to 47 percent. She returned during the 2020 primary, when she served as Nevada deputy state director for the Cory Booker for president campaign. She later served as deputy national press secretary for Booker’s effort that year. And she’ll have something in common with her new boss: Elizabeth Alexander, the first lady’s director of communications, is a veteran of Nevada politics herself, having worked for the 2002 congressional campaign of Dario Herrera.

Not thinking this through

The Nevada Republican Party is branching out into the retail clothing business, hawking “Defund the IRS” merchandise, but for a limited time only. You can buy hats and T-shirts and bumper stickers with that slogan, but act fast because they are “SELLING OUT FAST.”

Why now? Well, it turns out that the Inflation Reduction Act calls for hiring more than 87,000 new IRS employees — including special agents in the criminal investigations division — to collect taxes that are not being paid right now. Or, as the party put it, “At a time when inflation is at all-time highs (fact check: false), groceries are becoming more expensive, gas prices have skyrocketed (fact check: and also fallen), and Democrats are threatening to RAISE TAXES if they win in November.”

But the intent of the bill was to collect taxes that people owe but might not otherwise pay. In other words, these new employees will enforce the existing law, not increase taxes. And we’re old enough to remember when Republicans were the party of law and order (excepting Capitol riots and Mar-A-Lago searches, of course).

Endorsements update

Silver State Equality, a statewide civil rights organization for the LGBTQ+ community, has endorsed incumbent Justin Jones for re-election to the Clark County Commission, calling him “a proven leader and a powerful voice for Nevada families.” The group also backed Duy Nguyen for Assembly District 8 and Brittney Miller for Assembly District 5.

Quotable

“There’s not an election official probably in the country right now who doesn’t have some concerns. Democracy, I think, is coming under assault.” — Scott Jarrett, co-director of the Maricopa County, Arizona, election department, on additional physical security measures put in place to protect election workers from protesters.

Quotable II

“He just would not give up.” — former Clark County District Attorney David Roger, on Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German, who was murdered in Las Vegas on Sept. 2.

Contact Steve Sebelius at SSebelius@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0253. Follow @SteveSebelius on Twitter.