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Here comes the special!
If you are a lobbyist – and I don’t say this often – I feel sorry for you in the next 36 hours or so as lawmakers furiously dial for dollars before Gov. Brian Sandoval issues the proclamation for the special session, cutting them off for 15 days. The session could be done in half a day. But it won’t be. Some kind of logistical nightmare will arise or some kind of spotlight-grabbing move (WHY DOES ELON MUSK HATE THE SOUTH?) or some kind of maneuver by the newly formed Segerblom-Gustavson Party....
MY COLUMN: How the Tesla deal was done and what it means
On Oct. 23 of last year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wrote two letters. In a missive to Tesla’s Elon Musk, who spoke to Reid’s Clean Energy Summit in 2012, the majority leader wrote he had “offered his full support for making the case” that Nevada was the right place for Musk’s proposed battery “gigafactory.” “I have sent a letter to Governor Brian Sandoval letting him know that I think bringing large scale advanced battery manufacturing would be a tremendous opportunity for our economy,...
T-minus 90 to Tesla---updating blog
CARSON CITY-- 2:30 PM Look for huge numbers to be thrown around: $100 billion impact over 10 years, 20 percent-plus impact on Reno economy. Big tax abatements, but argument that nothing to abate if they are not there. Tesla giving, too, I hear. Special session could start as early as Wednesday, but Finance chair Debbie Smith is out of pocket, not returning until early next week. Other logistics also could hold it up, too. ALSO: Follow me on Twitter at @ralstonreports.
Culinary to Howard Hughes boss: Don't let labor dispute nearby "mar Summerlin's bright future"
As Summerlin gets ready to celebrate the opening next month of a multi-faceted retail/office development, the Culinary union has written to the master planner warning about the owners of an adjacent parcel and hinting at possible labor actions. In a letter this week, Culinary research analyst Meredith Schafer asks Howard Hughes CEO David Weinreb to "call on Station Casinos to ensure that a high-profile and contentious labor dispute at Summerlin's Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa does not mar...
Look what I found hanging on my door
So I woke up one day after reporting that the margin tax is winning to find something hanging on my door. It tells me, as you can see below, to vote no on 3, the motto of opponents to The Education Initiative. It's an expensive, colorful door hanger. And the kids! They are so adorable. Thank you, opponents of education funding, for caring so much about them. 'Our children are our future..." I am going to cry. Or go listen to this. The messages will be ones we will hear repeated often: It will...
Margin tax poll for foes shows it passing, 53-42
The Coalition to Defeat the Margin Tax has a new poll that shows The Education Initiative winning by 53 percent to 42 percent. The survey, conducted by national Democratic pollster Peter Hart, was taken last month of 800 Nevada voters, with about a 3 percent margin of error. The poll is the first I know of that used the language of the ballot question: Shall the Nevada Revised Statutes be amended to create a 2% tax to be imposed on a margin of the gross revenue of entities doing business in...
Tesla coming, special session in works
Lawmakers have been briefed about a special session to begin as soon as next week as Gov. Brian Sandoval is poised to announce Tesla Motors will build its gigafactory in Nevada, sources confirm. CNBC also has the story. Let the tax breaks begin! UPDATE: I'm reliably told by a legislative source that Elon Musk will be there in Carson City tomorrow. I'm also told Gov. Brian Sandoval has reached out to lawmakers. If I know some of them, though, they will ask for accountability measures, won't just...
GOP attorneys general group tries to rescue Adam Laxalt
The Republican Attorneys General Association has produced an ad for attorney general hopeful Adam Laxalt, an attempt to define him in other ways than a devastating law firm evaluation that described him as a "train wreck." The RJ's Laura Myers reported the buy as $200,000 (there's nothing in the public files of the Vegas network stations yet), and Laxalt used the same number in Fallon on Labor Day as he told people RAGA was coming to help. Laxalt's viability, we have always known, is dependent...
UNLV economists revise controversial margin tax study
Remember that UNLV Center for Business and Economic Research margin tax study that caused all the hullaballoo, except in the two major Las Vegas newspapers that all but ignored it? Well, it has now been "revised," and re-posted on the center's site. CBER boss Stephen Brown said it was not changed under pressure after the administrtation tried to discredit it but because "colleagues pointed out some things that can be improved upon." He mentioned Mary Riddle and Bernard Malmud, who are mentioned...
Two potential 2016 Reid foes coming to DC to raise money
UPDATE: Sandoval, who is usually not so partisan, is hooking up with the National Republican Congressional Committee for another event while he is in DC. So now he's a "special guest" of Speaker John Boehner & Co. And....Johnny Bench, too! At Nationals Park!  Invite attached here. ---- Gov. Brian Sandoval and his proposed understudy, state Sen. Mark Hutchison, are going to DC later this month to raise money, right in the backyard of a man either could challenge in 2016. The fundraisers, a...

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