Looks like this week’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week belongs to Joe Lombardo. After days of fake outrage from Lombardo’s cronies, a new report rehashed the facts ofJoe Lombardo’s record: that he is serving the interests of his special interest donors at the expense of Nevadans. Their fake outrage backfired when the resulting report revealed that Lombardo “[received] large sums of campaign donations from real estate mogul Robert Bigelow, and then [vetoed] bills related to affordable housing” and “[received] campaign funds from pharmaceutical companies and then [vetoed] a bill on lowering prescription drug prices.” If Lombardo and Republicans cared half as much about lowering housing and prescription drug costs as they do policing internet memes, then Nevadans would be a lot better off.
This week, another report revealed that while food insecurity increased across Southern Nevada last year, lower income students received nearly 10% less school meals in 2023 than the year before, due to Lombardo’s veto of AB319. All while Lombardo is “refusing to acknowledge” that state funds for attorneys doing post-conviction work is running out while legal professionals struggle to keep their employees paid and families afloat.
Read more about Joe Lombardo’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week below:
Las Vegas Review-Journal: Social media post suggesting Lombardo took bribes draws backlash
Key points:
- The Nevada State Democratic Party said Wednesday that the post was deleted due to a copyright issue. The party provided the Las Vegas Review-Journal a copy of the email from a photographer asking for the photo to be removed.
- In a Wednesday post on X, the Nevada State Democratic Party fired back, accusing the Nevada GOP of not understanding internet culture, twisting information to fit their agenda and blindly defending Lombardo.
- “We shared a viral meme to call attention to Joe Lombardo’s long record of taking political donations from corporate special interests and then acting on their behalf, not Nevadans,” the party said in a statement to the Review-Journal.
- The Nevada State Democratic Party criticized Lombardo for receiving large sums of campaign donations from real estate mogul Robert Bigelow, owner of Budget Suites of America, and then vetoing bills related to affordable housing. The party also criticized him for receiving campaign funds from pharmaceutical companies and then vetoing a bill on lowering prescription drug prices.
- “Lombardo and his cronies are manufacturing fake outrage over a meme because they are desperate to distract voters from the harmful impacts of his unethical record siding with his donors at the expense of hardworking families struggling with the cost of housing and prescription drugs,” the party said in a statement.
Nevada Current: Lombardo mum on shortfall for death penalty, post-conviction attorney fees
Key points:
- State funding for private attorneys and expert witnesses who take on post-conviction work, including appeals for death row inmates, is depleted, according to officials, leaving legal professionals struggling to keep their employees and families afloat while ensuring the rights of their clients.
- “Those bills are just sitting on someone’s desk in the governor’s office,” says Betsy Allen, a Las Vegas attorney who estimates close to half of her practice consists of post-conviction work for the state. She says she’s owed close to $30,000. “Would you work for six months without being paid? The governor’s office won’t even respond.”
- Gov. Joe Lombardo is refusing to acknowledge the lack of funds. His spokeswoman, Elizabeth Ray, said via email the Governor’s Finance Office “is conducting a routine review of the post-conviction claims related to the public defender’s budget account. Following sufficient review and approval, the claims will be paid according to the correct operating procedure.”
- But an email from the director of appointed counsel for Clark County, Susan Bush, to Allen and other attorneys in March says a budget shortfall, not a review, is holding up payment. Bush wrote that because of a “mid-year hourly rate increase the STATE (emphasis included) has exhausted their PCR (post-conviction relief) budget for Clark County this year.”
- For Allen, who has three children attending the University of Nevada, Reno, and a small business to run, planning accordingly is a challenge.
- “I saw that Governor Lombardo wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times, professing to care for working families,” Lasher wrote. “I am one of those people, with a small law practice funded exclusively by state and local governments.”
- The governor’s spokesperson declined to say how much is owed to attorneys.
Nevada Current: Funding for federal food assistance fell while participation increased, report says
Key points:
- In Nevada, a family of four receiving emergency SNAP benefits saw their benefits cut by an average of about 35%, or $334, in 2023, compared to 2022, according to the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health.
- By September 2023, the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program — which reimbursed eligible families for missed school meals due to COVID-19-related school closures — was also eliminated.
- Only eight states chose to continue the free lunch program. Nevada’s Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed a bill in 2023 that would have provided universal free lunch for K-12 students in the state.
- As a result, nearly 7% fewer lunches were provided to low-income students in 2023 compared to the previous year when the waiver was available. Additionally, about 9% fewer breakfast meals were served to food insecure students than when the waivers were available to schools, according to the report.
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