Ballot Question 1

Our recommendation: Yes

Ballot Question 1 calls for the Nevada Board of Regents to be removed from the state constitution, which might seem like a bad thing. The wording may leave some Nevadans wondering, are we being asked to give something up?

But actually, the answer is no. What Question 1 really lets us do is gain control over a system that is rife with corruption and mismanagement, has a deeply unsettling history on sexual harassment and gender equality, and is keeping our universities and colleges from reaching their potential.

A vote for Question 1 allows for the Board of Regents to be reorganized and brought under the control of lawmakers, and ends the regents’ status as essentially a fourth branch of state government that isn’t answerable to anyone but itself and the small number of voters who pay attention to it.

Question 1 is the tool that Nevadans need to rein in, reimagine and modernize the system, which in its current form is holding back the state’s universities and colleges. It moves the state powerfully toward having the kind of professional, qualified and forward-thinking Board of Regents that other states have in place.

Here are some of the key reasons it’s crucial for Nevadans to approve the ballot measure.

The regents and the higher-ed administrative body are truly a swamp.

To understand why the regents need to be reined in, it’s first helpful to know some background on how the higher education system in Nevada is set up. Our system is somewhat akin to a public school district, with the regents serving in the same capacity as the school board members. The regents oversee the Nevada System of Higher Education, an umbrella administrative body that manages the state’s eight higher-ed institutions in a way similar to a centralized K-12 superintendent’s office.

The regents are elected, and they appoint a chancellor to head NSHE.

Nevada’s structure is the only one of its type, and that’s not a good thing. It has resulted in the board having way too much authority and latitude, which it has abused badly.

The root of the problem is an almost total lack of accountability. The 13 board members answer only to the voters in their districts, most of whom pay little or no attention to the regents.

The regents also have a history of not holding each other or NSHE personnel accountable, which has led to all sorts of bad behavior. A short list:

• As revealed last year in an award-winning collection of investigative reports by the Las Vegas Sun, Regent Kevin Page demanded special treatment for a relative of his who was attending UNLV’s business school in 2014, then threatened retaliation when university officials resisted. The special treatment Page requested—that his relative be allowed to skip a prerequisite class—could have led to the business school losing its accreditation. Every student and faculty member at UNLV could have been penalized by Page’s personal vendetta when his demand for preferential treatment was denied.

Page also was revealed to have shared confidential legal documents, including highly sensitive personnel documents, with his brother, who is not part of the regents or NSHE. And what ramifications did Page incur for his bad behavior? None. No ethics investigation, no censure, no letter of reprimand.

• Quietly rehiring a male NSHE administrator who was reported by a female colleague for watching porn on his office computer and masturbating. The female staff member had no idea the man had been rehired until she got a job at UNLV and was horrified to discover he had an office in the same building.

• Allowing former Chancellor Dan Klaich to resign and giving him a golden parachute after Klaich presented a doctored report to state lawmakers to mislead them about financial issues.

• Hiring Andrew Clinger as NSHE’s chief financial officer two years after he left his job as Reno’s city manager in the wake of sexual harassment complaints by three female city employees. Clinger denied any wrongdoing, and also was cleared in separate investigations, but the city council later approved a $300,000 settlement in a lawsuit filed by the employees.

A high-profile moment from the regents’ August meeting offered a taste of the toxic environment that the regents have created. It came when the board’s chief of staff and special counsel, Dean Gould, threatened to cut off Regent Lisa Levine during a discussion about protections for victims of sexual assault on campuses.

“I don’t want to man-speak,” Gould said, “but I will have to if you continue to child-speak, so please stop.”

Levine, who was appointed to the board in June, was visibly stunned by the comment, as were a number of people who posted video of the comment on social media. Yet Gould wasn’t reprimanded, and no one spoke in defense of Levine.

Enough. It’s time to clean up this mess.

Incompetency, mismanagement and dysfunction run rampant

Look at the bios of regents in other states, and you tend to see big players—heads of major corporations, former top-level politicians, high-achieving scholars and so forth. The composition of regent boards in other states is composed of people who understand higher education and understand the enormous stakes states have in enhancing higher education.

Not so in Nevada. While some of our regents are well-suited for the position, most can’t hold a candle to their counterparts in other states.

Why not? For one thing, if you’re a highly qualified and capable candidate for public office, there are a lot more attractive options for you than regent. Not only do the regents work in obscurity, but the position pays practically nothing—$80 per meeting plus a $60 per diem for those meetings.

So the board has become a political backwater that tends to draw lackluster candidates, or even rotten ones who are there to pursue entirely personal agendas. Witness this year’s candidacy of Kevin Child, a former Clark County School District board member whose aggressive, erratic behavior prompted the former superintendent to ban him from school properties other than the administrative building.

Child lost in the primary, thank goodness, but many other weak candidates have made their way onto the woefully incompetent board of regents.

The result is a board that does a lousy job of overseeing the state’s universities and colleges, and has proven almost incapable of providing leadership to improve all of our colleges and universities.

For proof, look no further than the revolving door of leadership at UNLV, which is on its seventh president (including acting/interim leaders) in the past 14 years. Several of those presidents were pushed out by the regents or left in disgust amid micromanagement and meddling by the board.

The most recent case in point was Len Jessup, a popular president who was pressured out in 2018 over trumped-up complaints about his oversight of the university. His ouster infuriated UNLV supporters, several of whom either withdrew or announced they were reconsidering multimillion-dollar donations. Meanwhile, Jessup immediately was snapped up by the prestigious Claremont Graduate University in Southern California and remains there today, which speaks volumes about the regents’ bad judgment.

The constant disruptions have hurt UNLV’s progress and development. Steering a large and complex organization like a state university takes time and continuity in leadership, but for UNLV it has been a stop-and-start process since 2006. UNLV has made extraordinary progress despite the setbacks—such as gaining elite Carnegie R-1 status as a research institution in 2018 (thanks in large part to Jessup’s leadership)—but think how high it might rise if it were managed by regents who pushed it forward as opposed to knocking it sideways or backward.

It allows Nevadans to build the system they want, not the one the regents and NSHE are protecting

Opponents of Question 1, who include some of the regents, say the question is dangerous because it doesn’t include a blueprint for a new system.

Don’t let them scare you.

In reality, the question lets other elected leaders—the state Legislature and the governor—design the new system to benefit all stakeholders in the state. And remember, those lawmakers answer to voters, so the question actually gives Nevadans the power to design a system that works for the state.

What that might look like remains to be seen, but we can certainly look to other states for successful models. One idea, which is common elsewhere, is a hybrid board with some positions elected and others appointed by the governor and Legislature. NSHE also could be moved under the governor’s umbrella—where administrative power and expertise exists today—with the regents becoming strictly a policymaking body and no longer being involved in personnel issues at NSHE or the individual institutions.

But the bottom line is that Nevadans will be able to present their ideas about it to their state legislators and the governor.

First, though, we have to break down the thick walls around the regents and NSHE. And the way to do that is to get them out of the constitution.

Nevada’s one-of-a-kind system isn’t working. We can do much better for our students and communities, and Question 1 is our launchpad. A yes vote on Question 1 is essential for the state’s future.

Ballot Question 2

Voters may see this question and think, “Wait, isn’t same-sex marriage legal nationwide?” The answer is yes, but this ballot question would give extra protection to the right of same-sex couples to marry by enshrining that legality in the Nevada constitution. As is, the constitution still contains language recognizing marriages as only between a man and a woman. The question would replace that language with a clause specifying that same-sex marriage is the law of Nevada. The new language also provides religious organizations and clergy members with the right to refuse to perform a marriage.

Our recommendation: Yes

Although same-sex marriage has been the law of the land since 2015 under a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court, it’s not part of the U.S. Constitution or our state constitution. Therefore, it’s still subject to being changed in court or by lawmakers. Adding same-sex marriage to the Nevada constitution would make it much more difficult for lawmakers to erase it—it would require votes both in the Legislature and among voters. Question 2 also erases a blot on our history from the culture wars of the early 2000s, when Nevada voters approved a ballot question specifying marriage between a man and a woman. In doing so, voters got caught up in a national movement by conservative Republicans to use same-sex marriage as a wedge issue. It worked, as ballot questions against same-sex marriage passed in several states. But Nevadans strongly support same-sex unions—they’ve proven it in polls and in their choices of leaders. In the Legislature, the vote to place Question 2 on the ballot passed nearly unanimously after the religious exemption was included. We strongly urge a “Yes” vote.

Ballot Question 3

This question makes structural and procedural changes to the pardon process, which are designed to make things move more smoothly and to reduce a growing backlog of requests for clemency. Among those changes:

• It would add the Board of Pardon Commissioners (which consists of the governor, the state Supreme Court justices and the Nevada attorney general) to the state constitution.

• It would require the board to meet quarterly, up from twice a year.

• It removes what is essentially veto power from the governor. As is, the governor must be part of the majority for any decision. That means if the governor opts not to attend a board meeting or doesn’t join other board members in voting for candidates, his absence or “no” vote becomes a de facto veto.

• It allows any member of the commission to submit items for consideration. Today, only the governor can bring items forward.

Our recommendation: Yes

Speeding up the clemency process is an important step forward on criminal and social justice in Nevada. Currently, data show the process is moving too slowly: When the question last came up in the Legislature during 2019, the state Department of Corrections reported that there were more than 200 applications awaiting processing at that time, and applications were taking as long as two years to get from filing to a decision. Although critics of the measure argue that the governor shouldn’t lose de facto veto power, we disagree. But we feel the governor simply has too much power. Not only could a governor essentially bring the process to a complete halt by refusing to bring any items forward for consideration, he or she could veto every request. Establishing a majority vote and letting all commissioners bring up items is a fairer way to go about it. This is a responsible and effective way to enhance criminal and social justice in Nevada.

Ballot Question 4

Nevada already has a voters’ bill of rights of sorts codified in state law, but this question would place the rights in the state constitution. Provisions include the following guarantees for voters:

• Access to ballots that clearly identify candidates and accurately records the voter’s choices.

• The ability to vote without being intimidated, threatened or coerced.

• The ability to get answers to questions about voting procedures.

• Equal access to voting regardless of ethnicity or any other basis for discrimination.

• The right to receive instructions on the use of voting equipment, and to obtain assistance with voting if needed.

The question also adds a requirement for a standardized and accurate vote-counting system into the state constitution.

Our recommendation: Yes

With Republicans waging an assault on voting access across the nation, Nevadans must protect our voting rights by placing them into the constitution. Although the state is fortunate to currently be led by Democratic lawmakers who support voting rights and access, that could change in future elections. For proof, look no further than the Nevada Legislature’s votes this past summer on a package of legislation to expand safe access to voting during the pandemic: Not a single Republican voted in favor of the bill in either the Assembly or the Senate. Adding the rights to the constitution will help ensure that voters won’t face intimidation at the polls or be subjected to the type of voter suppression methods that Republicans are carrying out in other states—closing polls in areas heavy with minority voters, limiting early voting and mail-in balloting, etc. Critics say the amendment is simply cluttering up the constitution since the rights are already part of state law, but to them we say this: The pressure to handle so many issues as constitutional amendments wouldn’t be necessary if the Legislature met annually and there were a more orderly and consistent method of enacting policy in the state. As is, though, Question 4 is critical for Nevada. Voting rights are entirely proper, nay essential, things to enshrine in the constitution—they are just the opposite of “clutter.”

Ballot Question 6

This question would add a requirement into the state constitution for Nevada electric utilities to generate or acquire at least 50% of their power from renewable sources by 2030. The question was first approved by voters in 2018, and lawmakers enacted the same renewable energy standards into state law last year.

Our recommendation: Neutral

We took no position on this in 2018, and nothing has changed in the past two years to alter our view. We’ll repeat what we said two years ago: “This is a well-intentioned measure, but we feel the market forces make it inevitable that the state will meet or even exceed these targets. The costs of renewable-energy generation are steadily falling, meaning it’s increasingly more cost-effective to build solar arrays, wind farms and geothermal generators than fossil fuel-burning plants.”

Why Isn’t there a ballot question 5?

A Ballot Question 5 had been slated for a vote this year, but supporters of the measure weren’t able to obtain enough signatures to advance it to the ballot.