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This is a press release issued by Native Voters Alliance Nevada on May 7, 2025

THIS PROPOSED LAND GRAB INTRODUCED INTO THE RECONCILIATION BILL AFFECTS THE VIRGIN AND MOAPA VALLEYS

Tens of thousands of Acres in Clark, Washoe, and Fernley Targeted in Last-Minute Federal Amendment

**CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FEDERAL LAND DISPOSAL MAPS REQUESTED BY REPRESENTATIVES AMODEI AND MALLOY***

NEVADA — Just before midnight, Reps. Amodei (NV) and Malloy (UT) introduced a surprise amendment to a sweeping budget reconciliation bill mandating the sell-off of public lands. The move bypassed standard procedures, limited debate, and appeared timed to avoid public scrutiny. Newly released maps confirm the proposal targets areas near Avi Kwa Ame and Gold Butte, an estimated 12,000 acres in Fernley—including land that borders the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation—and an estimated 15,000 acres in Washoe County. Even more land is flagged as “eligible for disposal” in future federal land management plans.

Taylor Patterson, Executive Director of Native Voters Alliance Nevada, issued the following statement:

“Let’s call this what it is: a coordinated land grab. It was planned behind closed doors, dropped at midnight, and aimed directly at Tribal homelands.

“We’ve seen the maps. This isn’t theoretical. It is targeted. Lands near Avi Kwa Ame and Gold Butte are in the crosshairs. So are scattered parcels across Clark County. In Fernley, the disposal zone pushes right up against the boundary of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, a calculated move that shows how close they’re willing to get.

“These are not excess acres. These are Native lands. And the people advancing this know exactly what they are doing. This is the same story our people have lived through for generations. Erase us, sell what is left, and pretend it was never ours. But it was. And it still is.

“Every inch being sold off was cared for by our people long before this government existed. These lands do not belong to Congress. They belong to the generations who bled, prayed, and survived on them.

“Once land is gone, it is gone. Fences go up. Access disappears. The connection between people and place is severed.

“If you are Indigenous, this is your fight. If you care about public land, clean water, access, or cultural survival, this is your fight too. Because this amendment is not a policy tweak. It is a warning shot. If they can carve up our homelands in silence, they will do it again. And again. Unless we stop them.”

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About Native Voters Alliance Nevada: A rising powerhouse in the Nevada political landscape, Native Voters Alliance Nevada (NVAN) is dedicated to forging a dynamic Native ecosystem and fostering political strength within Indigenous communities. We serve as a resonating platform for urban and Tribal Nation voices, guiding elections, molding legislation, and championing Tribal sovereignty. Join us in our empowering journey and learn more at https://nativevotesnv.org/.

Legislative Report for 4/5/2025

Source is Nevada Economic Forum, this is an AI generated summary of the report:

On May 1st, 2025, the Nevada Economic Forum released updated revenue projections for the upcoming 2025-2027 biennial budget, which the legislature will use to finalize the state budget. Here’s a breakdown of the fiscal analysis as of that date:

Key Findings:

• Lower Revenue Projections: The Economic Forum projected approximately $191 million less in general fund revenue for the next two-year budget cycle compared to their previous forecast in December 2024. This represents a 1.6 percent reduction.
• Significant Impact on Education Funding: The State Education Fund is expected to see a decrease of nearly $160 million from prior projections. This contributes to a total decrease of approximately $350 million in anticipated state funds.
• Reasons for Downgrade: Economists cited concerns about a potential economic slowdown due to the Trump administration’s trade policies, particularly impacting tourism from Canada, as well as a potentially strained labor force amid reduced immigration and modest gains in unemployment.
• Sales Tax Decline: A significant portion of the lower revenue projection is attributed to a decrease in sales tax revenue, which was down 3.2 percent compared to the same point last year.
• Impact on Budgeting: The reduced revenue forecast is expected to lead to budget cuts and could result in the failure of legislative bills with significant price tags.
• Education Funding Concerns: The substantial drop in projected education funding raises questions about potential expansions to education programs in the coming biennium. Governor Lombardo’s proposed budget had relatively flat per-pupil funding for the next fiscal year, with a slight increase in FY 2027, but this new forecast puts further pressure on education funding.
• Increased Unemployment Forecast: The Governor’s Finance Office projects that the state’s unemployment rate will rise from 5.69% to 6.55% in the next fiscal year before slightly recovering.
• Decline in Tourism: Visitor volume is also expected to decrease by 4.4% in FY 2026 before a slight rebound in the following year.

Legislative Activity:

• Legislative budget committees had been working to close budgets in anticipation of the Economic Forum’s May 1st projections.
• There were disparities between the Governor’s recommendations and legislative proposals in certain areas, such as funding for the Nevada Knowledge Account.

Overall Outlook:

The fiscal analysis released on May 1st, 2025, paints a concerning picture for Nevada’s upcoming budget cycle. The lower revenue projections, driven by economic uncertainty and declining sales tax, will likely force lawmakers to make difficult decisions regarding budget allocations and potentially scale back or eliminate some planned initiatives. The significant shortfall in projected education funding is a particular area of concern.

It’s important to note that the May 1st forecast from the Economic Forum is the final official revenue estimate that the Legislature must use to balance the budget for the next two fiscal years (2025-2027

Nevada State Democratic Party spokesperson Tai Sims: 

“In an economy that is already struggling under Joe Lombardo, Donald Trump’s reckless tariffs and Elon Musk’s erratic DOGE cuts are devastating working families’ budgets, harming businesses, and forcing the state to contend with sharp declines in revenue projections. With Lombardo’s encouragement, Trump’s reckless tariffs and economic policies are going to force painful budget decisions on the state all the while costing Nevadans jobs and leading to higher costs and less money in people’s pockets.”

Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro released the following statement after the Legislature’s Economic Forum projected a nearly $200 million drop in state general fund revenues over the next two years. Economists said that the drop in revenue is a direct result of the damage that the Trump administration’s chaotic economic and trade policies are doing to Nevada’s economy. Today’s projections reflect changes in economic circumstances since the Economic Forum last met in December 2024. 

“The Trump administration’s reckless economic policies are damaging Nevada’s economy, leaving us with a new $200 million gap in the state budget,” said Leader Cannizzaro. “Trump’s trade wars are killing American consumer confidence, reducing both domestic and international tourism to the state, and driving up prices for ordinary Nevadans. Today’s revenue projections show that our economy is now slowing with the potential for job losses and higher inflation on the horizon. Over the remaining few weeks of the session, Senate Democrats will work to minimize the damage and the impact on vital educational, health care, and social services that Nevadans need.” 

For more coverage and analysis, here is an article in the Nevada Independent and The Nevada Current.

I did not write the following. I only wish I had. I came across it on Quora.com. It was posted as a set of screen shots and the original author was not identified. But I would like to commend whoever wrote this.

“They said they were the law.

They said they had a warrant.

They didn’t have the right house.

They didn’t care.

On Thursday, April 24, 2025, in a quiet neighborhood in Oklahoma City, a U.S. citizen named Marisa and her three daughters were violently pulled from sleep by men claiming to be federal agents. ICE. The FBI. The U.S. Marshals. The names shifted, the threats didn’t. They ordered the family out of bed and out of their home – into the cold morning rain – in their undergarments. Rifles trained. Questions barked. No time to dress. No concern that one of the girls was a minor. No pause to reconsider the name on the warrant that didn’t match anyone who lived there. The family had only just moved in two weeks prior.

The men ransacked the house. They took every phone, every laptop, and the family’s life savings in cash — money they’d carried across the country to start over. When Marisa, drenched and humiliated, begged for her phone back so she could find food for her kids, one of the men looked at her and said, with all the smugness of a man who knows he’ll never be held accountable, “I know it was a little rough this morning.”

And then they left.

No names.

No paperwork.

No receipts.

No apologies.

The FBI says it wasn’t them. The U.S. Marshals say the same. ICE has remained silent. Not a single agency will claim responsibility for the raid. No one will explain why the family was targeted, why their possessions were taken, why their rights were trampled. No one has told Marisa how to get her property back. She doesn’t even know which office to call. Her children, once asleep in what they thought was a safe new home, now live with fear that the men will return.

And while all of this unfolded — while a mother and her daughters were treated like fugitives in their own home — another story broke. A different crisis. One that drew national headlines and an immediate law enforcement response.

Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, had her purse stolen at a restaurant in Washington, D.C. A Gucci bag, reportedly containing $3,000 in cash, medications, apartment keys, and her DHS badge, was snatched from beneath her chair. Within hours, two suspects were arrested. The media ran with it. The system worked.

Statements were made. Justice was served. Noem got her purse back.

Marisa is still waiting.

This country protected Kristi Noem’s purse with more urgency than it protected Marisa’s children. It mobilized for luxury leather, but turned its back on a family stripped of dignity, security, and constitutional protection. One woman got swift justice. The other got soaked, robbed, and forgotten.

And make no mistake: this was not a bureaucratic slip-up. This was a test. A flex.

A soft rollout of unchecked power. What happened to Marisa was not just illegal – it was strategic. These were not mistakes. These were messages. That no one is safe. That citizenship means nothing. That the agents of the state can barge in, terrorize a family, take what they want, and vanish – and the country will yawn and move on.

Ask yourself: if Marisa had stood her ground, would she be alive? If her daughter had screamed or resisted, would they be burying her? If this had happened to Kristi Noem’s family, would Congress be holding hearings?

Of course they would. Because in Trump’s America, power protects power. Purses are prioritized. Mothers are expendable.

They took Marisa’s belongings. They left the trauma. And they are betting no one will make noise about it.”

You can read about this incident here:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/us-citizen-family-traumatized-ice-raid-rcna203700

Recently in the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/opinion/turkey-istanbul-protests.html), the editorial board described the current political situation in Turkey:

“Turkey, at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East, is an important American partner, with the second-largest military in NATO. Yet Turkey has been sliding toward autocracy over the past decade. Mr. Erdogan has changed its Constitution to expand his power, brought the courts under his control, manipulated elections, purged professors, shut down media organizations and arrested journalists and protesters.”

“Last month, Mr. Erdogan took the assault on democracy to a new level. With dissatisfaction with his government growing, it detained his likely opponent in the next presidential election, Ekrem Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul, along with almost 100 of Mr. Imamoglu’s associates on dubious charges. The arrests put Turkey on the path that Russia has traveled over the past two decades, in which a democratically elected leader uses the powers of his office to turn it into an autocracy. ‘This is more than the slow erosion of democracy,’ Mr. Imamoglu wrote from Silivri Prison in these pages. ‘It is the deliberate dismantling of our republic’s institutional foundations.’”

While Donald Trump and his cronies haven’t yet duplicated all of these actions, they are clearly moving in that direction. Recently they have arrested a judge, threatened the country’s largest law firms, deported American citizens (admittedly children but still actual citizens), revoked valid visas, tried to silence whole universities, banned journalists, fired thousands of federal workers, and ignored the law, the courts, and the Constitution. So Mr. Imamoglu’s words regarding “the deliberate dismantling of our republic’s institutional foundations” can also be applied to Trump and his minions.

As Brian Greenspun said in his editorial in the Las Vegas Sun on Sunday (https://lasvegassun.com/news/2025/apr/27/please-donald-stop/), “The first move of dictators around the world is to shut down the courts and intimidate the lawyers. The next move is to silence the media. And Trump is doing his best on that score.”

But key questions remain:

• Will they continue to arrest judges who displease them?
• If the Supreme Court rules against them, will they obey or ignore?
  • Will they begin arresting the Democratic party leadership and potential opponents?
• Will they continue deporting people including American citizens?
• Will they try to change the Constitution?

Trump has already alluded to being President for a third term if not indefinitely. We have learned to our dismay that he does what he says he is going to do and that he believes he is not bound by any rules or laws. So, if he does run again, we can expect a heavily rigged election in 2028.

The challenge for us now is the one that Ben Franklin posed: “A Republic. If you can keep it.” The response to that challenge requires our strong and immediate actions. Make your voice heard. Write to your representatives at all levels of government. Even if they are Democrats and already agree with your point of view, it’s important to let them know where you stand. Talk to other people and raise your concerns.

As with Mr. Erdogan, dissatisfaction with Trump and his administration is growing. He may well follow the Turkish leader’s example and strike out even more forcefully at our institutional foundations.

President Donald Trump has pardoned Michele Fiore. That’s right — she will now escape consequences for her federal conviction on six counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She was scheduled to be sentenced on May 14.

Fiore allegedly diverted monies received for her Las Vegas city council campaign, political action committee and her charity. She was accused of lying on her campaign finance reports.

Fiore has maintained her innocence and claimed she was singled out by the so-called “deep state” for her support of Donald Trump and Cliven Bundy. As you may recall, she stood by Bundy during his standoff with the federal government in our area in 2014, and his subsequent trial and acquittal.

Here is the order for a full and unconditional pardon.

According to a recent Washington Post article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/04/18/immigrant-detention-overcrowding-trump-crackdown/ by Douglas MacMillan), at a crowded Miami detention center, some immigrants are being held in conference rooms with no toilets. The Cibola County prison in New Mexico doesn’t have enough chairs for all the immigrant detainees to eat their meals at a table. And at Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, some immigrant women have been forced to sleep on thin mats on the concrete floor because all the beds in the female holding unit are taken.

The Trump administration’s efforts to boost deportations has increased the number of immigrant detainees so quickly that the government is failing to provide basic necessities, including beds and medical care, for some of them. Nearly half the people currently detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Protection have no criminal charges, federal data show, yet some are being held in conditions that would be unacceptable in high-security prisons. At the same time, the administration has eliminated two oversight bodies that ensured that facilities met health and safety requirements. Also, many of the facilities are nearly at or over their contracted capacities.

In other ICE-cold actions, the Department of Homeland Security denied Mahmoud Khalil permission to attend the birth of his first child, who was delivered at a New York hospital on Monday, according to the New York Times.

Instead, Mr. Khalil experienced the birth by telephone from Jena, La., more than 1,000 miles from the hospital where his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, gave birth to a son. It is unclear when he will be able to see the baby.

Mr. Khalil, a legal permanent resident who was a prominent figure in pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the Columbia University campus, has been detained in Louisiana for more than a month. On Sunday morning, shortly after Dr. Abdalla went into labor, Mr. Khalil’s lawyers requested a two-week furlough so that he could attend the birth. Less than an hour after they made their request, Melissa Harper, the director of the New Orleans field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, denied it.

Here in Nevada, the Nevada Immigrant Coalition (NIC) reports that there has been a surge in immigration enforcement activities in Las Vegas, with reports of ICE agents (working with other federal law enforcement agencies such as FBI, ATF, and/or US Marshals, among others) often operating in plainclothes and unmarked vehicles.

These actions have occurred at parks, markets, residences, and on the street sometimes during school drop-offs and pick-ups.

”While the full number of individuals detained is still unknown, the impact is clear: Families are being separated without warning and children are being ripped from their loved ones. Our community is living in fear and innocent people are being deported without accountability or justice. These attacks go beyond immigration. This is part of a broader, coordinated effort by this administration to silence dissent – criminalizing advocacy, threatening nonprofits, and targeting communities that dare to speak out. An attack on immigrants is an attack on all of us,” said Bethany Khan, spokeswoman for the Culinary Union and member of the Nevada Immigrant Coalition.

Martha Menéndez, a Nevada immigration attorney and also a member of the Nevada Immigrant Coalition said, “The biggest fear right now in the community is that folks don’t actually know which agencies are being deputized to act as ICE officers and detain Nevadans on ICE orders. Due process is under attack every day, but that doesn’t mean our rights don’t exist – they do, and we strongly encourage people to assert them. Everyone, regardless of status, should be prepared. If you are a legal permanent resident, carry your valid green card. If you have a valid work permit or a court document that shows you have deferred action or another type of protection, carry a copy of it with you. If you’re a U.S. citizen and are worried about being profiled, carry proof of your citizenship, such as a copy of your passport or passport card. Avoid carrying IDs, a passport, or a voter card from another country, as those can be used against you in immigration proceedings. Most importantly, remember that you have the right to remain silent and the right to speak to a lawyer. You do not have to answer questions about where you were born or your immigration status until you’ve spoken to an attorney. Stay alert and stay safe.”

Locally, I have not heard of any activities in Mesquite or Moapa Valley. I have asked Erika Castro of NIC by email about this but have not yet received a reply. If you know of any incidents in either place, please post a comment to this blog describing them.

Whether or not you see this happening, it is, and it’s wrong. Consider asking your representatives to try to intervene.

The Nevada Legislature’s upcoming deadlines help establish a timetable for its short 120-day schedule. Tuesday’s deadline (April 22) requires most bills to pass out of their originating house in the bicameral Legislature.

A previous deadline, April 11, for bills to be passed by their originating legislative committee, was the first indication of which bills would survive.

Of several hundred pieces of legislation, 281 failed to meet the Legislature’s first committee passage deadline, according to data provided by the Legislative Counsel Bureau.

Between the first deadline and the one coming on April 22nd, dozens of bills have already moved through the deadlines. To name a few, AB81 would move Nevada to Standard Time and remove Daylight Savings time. AB217 is a prohibition on immigration enforcement officers entering schools unless they have a search warrant. SB451 would attempt to extend an existing Clark County property tax that funds about 800 Las Vegas police officer positions.

Several bills moving through the Legislature are identical or similar to proposals rejected by Gov. Joe Lombardo in 2023 when he set a record with 75 vetoes. They include an effort to legalize medical aid in dying for terminally ill adults and another measure to criminalize creating a fake slate of presidential electors. Both passed out of their original houses.

A number of bills likely won’t see action in the coming days because of their special exempted status. According to the Legislative Counsel Bureau, 188 bills and resolutions have received exemptions from Legislative leadership — a waiver that can be applied to bills that make large appropriations or otherwise would affect the state’s revenue.

Other priority bills for Democrats, including legislation strengthening gun control and renter protections and establishing free school lunches, were targeted in the Republican governor’s last batch of vetoes. Many are exempt from Tuesday’s deadline or had yet to make it to the full Assembly or Senate for a floor vote as of Friday afternoon.

These include some of the most consequential bills of the session, including Lombardo’s priority legislation. Only two of the Republican governor’s five omnibus bills on health care, education, crime, housing and economic development have been introduced: Assembly Bill 540, addressing housing “attainability,” and Senate Bill 457, which focuses on crime and public safety reform. The latter has not had a hearing.

Budgeting Headwinds

Bills with a significant fiscal impact or other effect on the state’s general fund may have a more difficult path forward in the Legislature as lawmakers worry about possible funding cuts, either from the Trump administration’s large-scale effort to reduce the size of the federal government, or from revenue declines resulting from an uncertain economic outlook.

One strategy for legislative leaders could be to let bills with hefty price tags fail at deadlines or wait until the findings of the Economic Forum, a state-mandated economic forecast produced in December to inform the governor’s recommended budget, then produced again as the final official revenue estimate used to formulate the biennial budget. That forecast for the state’s 2025-27 budget will be released on May 1.

The Assembly’s Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Committee on Finance, the two legislative committees closest to the budget process, dominated the past week with joint budget meetings, reconciling agency and the governor’s requests with what’s possible. Danielle Monroe-Moreno, Chair of the Assembly’s Ways and Means Committee, and fellow Las Vegas Democrat Marilyn Dondero Loop, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, delivered sobering news on Monday, according to local news reports.

President Donald Trump has upended the U.S. economy with his trade war, levying tariffs on Mexico and Canada, countries that are home to a large percentage of Las Vegas’ international visitors. Trump has since expanded that to a 10% blanket tariff on most U.S. imports and a 145% tariff on China in what he says is an effort to bring back American manufacturing.

The global tension and reports of increasingly aggressive U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have decreased international travel while the strain on American wallets due to higher prices has sent consumer confidence spiraling. Due to its reliance on tourist dollars, Nevada’s economy is particularly sensitive to national and international economic downturns. That’s why the May 1 revenue estimate is critically important to the state government’s budgeting process.

By Wednesday or Thursday, we should know what bills will have a chance to become law.