News

Full dropout tracking restored

Washoe school superintendent Traci Davis has gotten off to a fast start.

Attending a meeting of the local NAACP chapter with school board member Veronica Frenkel, Davis said, in answer to a question, that she has put an end to the practice of dropping some students from tracking of graduation rates.

Critics accused former superintendent Heath Morrison of inflating graduation rates (“Hiding in plain sight,” RN&R, March 27, 2014) by eliminating dropouts from tracking if they subsequently get into alternative institutions or Washoe High School.

Davis said, “Traci Davis never wipes students out of the system.”

An interview with Davis can be found on page 31.

Newlands’ race views debated

White supremacist legislator Francis Newlands of California and Nevada, who served in the U.S. House and Senate, never let his official duties take up all his time. While in Washington, D.C., he and fellow Nevada legislator William Stewart founded the suburb of Chevy Chase in order to have an all-white enclave. That community is now having a debate on whether to remove Newlands’ name from a Chevy Chase fountain.

Newlands’ racism didn’t stop with the founding of Chevy Chase—he also wrote the congressional resolution providing for the U.S. annexation of the Kingdom of Hawaii, said the U.S. had “drifted into a condition regarding the black race which constitutes the great problem and peril of the future,” introduced an unsuccessful plank to the 1912 Democratic platform to “declare our purpose to maintain this as a white man’s country,” was anti-Chinese and anti-Japanese, and proposed sending blacks “back” to Africa, though they were in fact born in the U.S.

Newlands [traffic] Circle in Reno is named for him. He had a mansion nearby.

Ed Vogel 1948-2015

Former Las Vegas Review Journal capitol bureau chief Ed Vogel died of cancer on Feb. 22.

Vogel, originally based in Las Vegas, came to the north to cover the legislature and liked the area. After being assigned to the capital, he and his wife Carol—also a journalist—settled in Genoa.

He had a unique story sense, seeing news or human interest in things other reporters did not. After the feds gave the operational name Misty Rain to a nuclear bomb test at the Nevada Test Site, Vogel wrote a fascinating piece about how the feds chose the names. On another occasion, he penned a story about state government’s unusual officials like the state demographer. In many cases, his fresh eyes on Northern Nevada turned up stories locals reporters had overlooked. His long tenure resulted in a head ED VOGEL full of institutional memory that his fellow journalists consulted regularly.

Vogel’s RJ colleague A.D. Hopkins wrote, “For in-depth stories, Vogel sometimes used unorthodox research methods. Once, to accurately describe the difficulties faced by Las Vegas’ homeless, he dressed in rags and spent a day and a night dumpster-diving, panhandling, and dodging policemen.”

Vogel was named to the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2012.

—Dennis Myers

Madeleine Poore, left, met with Assemblymember  Jill Dickman, who represents her in the Nevada  Legislature. 

Learning politics

2014 election results bring volunteers to Legislature

Five blocks from the Nevada Legislature Sunday morning, conversations by animated the room with the energy Carol Cizauskas of many new people to the political process. The largest group ever to attend Grassroots Lobby Days, these 193 Nevadans from across the state gathered to learn how to make their voices heard by direct participation in democracy. “I am so excited,” Lynn Scombardi said. “I am so brand new at this.” The University of Nevada, Las Vegas master’s degree student in social work joined about 15 others from her school to learn how to convince their lawmakers to help young people at risk of sexual trafficking and suicide.

“I had no idea about this process at all.”

Lynn Scombardi Volunteer lobbyist

Across the crowded room, Madeleine Poore sat on the floor with classmates from the Reno campus. A group from VOX— Voices for Planned Parenthood for students—advocates for reproductive rights, comprehensive sex education, and protection of sexual assault victims. They were attending, Poore said, “to affect real change by going in and talking to [our] elected officials.”

A big issue for Poore is the “campus carry” bill sponsored by Assemblywoman Michelle Fiore, which would allow guns on campus to help defend against sexual assault. “We know that guns won’t make us safer,” Poore said. “Nevada is the eighth highest state for women being killed by firearms. And 73 percent of sexual assaults happen by someone you know. … It’s really sad to see these politicians jumping on the issue of sexual assault, yet not supporting things like sex education, which would prevent sexual assault. If we were teaching people what consent looked like … sexual assault would definitely be decreased.”

Tradition

Since 1991, the nonpartisan Nevada Women’s Lobby has sponsored Grassroots Lobby Days, a workshop early in the legislative session, to teach citizens how to talk to their representatives about how they want them to vote. Each year the conference draws attendees who meet other concerned Nevadans and learn simple yet effective methods to make their voices heard in the state’s political process.

The presenters at the workshop include members of Nevada Women’s Lobby; professional lobbyists for groups including the ACLU, Washoe Legal Services, and AARP; and legislators from both sides of the political aisle. Nevada Women’s Lobby serves as a voice for women and families in the Legislature. Their people teach from their experience of years in the legislative process. The first day included a workshop called Lobbying 101. Breakout sessions were held to discuss pending legislation that affects workers, women, children, and immigrants, and panel discussions of the dos and don’ts of effective lobbying.

Far from all work and no play, Grassroots Lobby Days helps new friendships forge, builds confidence in political neophytes, and lends itself to comic relief. Planned Parenthood lobbyist Elisa Cafferata shared the most preposterous thing she had heard in her years as a lobbyist. When questioning her reasons for comprehensive sex education in the classroom, the male legislator she was talking with asked her, “I’ve never put on a condom, but how hard can it be?”

At that, boisterous laughter relieved the tone of much of the day spent discussing the current legislature. Although the Nevada Women’s Lobby invites both Republican and Democratic politicians to speak at Grassroots Lobby Days, this year only Democratic legislators attended. State Sen. Kelvin Atkinson called the 2015 Nevada Legislature “Washington, D.C.-style politics.” With many Grassroots Lobbyists advocating for progressive ideals such as protecting unions, keeping reasonable restrictions on the use of guns, and defending the Nevada constitutional amendment requiring a minimum wage that continues to rise with the cost of living, the sweep of conservative lawmakers in this past election had many at the conference worried about the future of the state’s protection of the most vulnerable.

“You’re not going to railroad us,” Democrat Atkinson said. “You’re not going to run over us. We will do better as a party, and this won’t happen again.”

Nevada Women’s Lobby co-chair Annette Magnus believes that the Legislature’s new majority conservatism brought out this largest turnout in the 24-year history of Grassroots Lobby Days. “Our backs are up against the wall in a serious way, and we have to fight for the things we believe in, and I’m so glad to see so many people here willing to do that.” Results

second day of the conference, they walked the halls of the legislature. They visited their representatives, sat in on committee hearings and legislative sessions, and continued to build relationships with their fellow attendees. Both UNLV’s Scombardi and UNR’s Poore met with their elected representatives to promote their passions.

With Scombardi’s assemblymember, Democrat Richard Carillo, she discussed her support of bills that would place more social workers in schools, would treat exploited sex workers as victims and not criminals, and would raise the age from 8 to 10 years old when juveniles can be convicted of some offenses. They discovered they agreed on issues, and Scombardi found a legislative ally with whom she plans to collaborate.

Scombardi said she used the tools she learned from Grassroots Lobby Days to accomplish this.

“I had no idea about this process at all, not even a little bit,” she said. “I never would have known what to do, getting here on my own—would have been lost.”

Poore’s experience, however, wasn’t as obviously successful. Setting up appointments with both of her elected representatives to oppose the campus carry bill, the UNR senior was able to meet with Sen. Don Gustavson’s staffer and directly with Washoe Assemblymember Jill Dickman. Both Republican legislators support the bill, so Poore voiced her opposition to it.

Coming out of her meeting with Dickman, Poore seemed subdued yet resolute. “We just disagree on the issue,” Poore said. She recounted Dickman’s stance that women would feel safer with guns to protect themselves. “Yeah, maybe they would feel safer,” Poore said, “but I think the reality comes down to is—are you actually safer? … The chances [are] that gun is then used against her.”

Poore embodied what she had learned from Grassroots Lobby Days: “Just because we might not be able to win on a bill, doesn’t mean … that we aren’t the smartest in our strategy, the smartest in our reason, and the most well organized. Always be the voice of reason.” These words from Reno Democratic Assemblywoman Teresa BenitezThompson applied to Poore’s actions. “This session is definitely about a fight.” Ω

“Ourbacksareupagainst thewallinaseriousway.”

Annette Magnus Nevada Women’s Lobby

New brewery

Workers put finishing touches to the building at 302 N. Carson St. in Carson City for the new Lake Tahoe Brewery. The site was formerly the High Sierra Brewery, which has moved to Baldini’s in Sparks. The new Carson brewery is handy to City Hall across the street.