Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Will Athletics team of lobbyists score in Carson City?
Newly elected Gov. Joe Lombardo has made clear he’s not interested in luring the Oakland Athletics to Las Vegas by levying a new tax on Nevadans to help pay for a baseball stadium, but that’s not stopping the A’s from pressing their agenda in the Nevada Legislature this session.
A’s president Dave Kaval is one of 11 lobbyists registered with the Legislature to represent the Athletics Investment Group LLC. Nine of the lobbyists the A’s have retained have deep ties to Nevada and represent several in-state clients. Among them: MGM Resorts International, Amazon.com Services LLC, Google, Doordash, Zillow and other large corporate entities.
Along with Kaval, the only other lobbyist repping the A’s from outside Nevada is San Francisco-based Alexander Dean of Sansome Partners LP, a nationwide investment firm, and Hawk Hill Management LLC, a real estate appraisal company.
According to the Legislature’s website, individuals are required to register as a lobbyist if they plan to appear before lawmakers at the state Capitol in Carson City or any other building in which the Legislature conducts meetings.
Lobbyists are also required to register as such if they have or plan on communicating “directly with a member of the legislative branch” on behalf of someone other than yourself to “influence legislative action” whether any payment is exchanged for the communication.
The A’s have a strong interest in building a domed, 35,000 seat indoor stadium witht the Las Vegas resort corridor should their plans for a similar ballpark as part of a $12 billion development at Oakland’s Howard Terminal fall through.
The A’s were given the OK to pursue relocation options in 2021 after Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred deemed the team’s current home, the Ringcentral Coliseum, as unfit for play. The A’s have played at the Coliseum since relocating there from Kansas City in 1968.
Manfred told reporters on Wednesday that it appeared team owner John Fisher’s efforts
shifted primarily to Southern Nevada.
“I think Mr. Fisher wants to make the best deal to secure the future of the A’s, whether it’s in Oakland or in Las Vegas,” Manfred said. “They need a new stadium. I think that’s kind of beyond debate.”
Last month, the city of Oakland was rejected a $183 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation that experts said was critical to the Howard Terminal project, the mixed use development project on Oakland’s waterfront that would include a new stadium for the A’s as its centerpiece.
The team’s search for possible stadium sites in Las Vegas has intensified in recent weeks while talks in Oakland have slowed,the site of the Tropicana, Rio and Las Vegas Festival Grounds are among the chief contenders for a potential new ballpark here.
New Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao said reaching a deal to keep the A’s in the Bay Area city was important as long as it made economic sense for the city. Her predecessor, Libby Schaaf, led prior efforts to reach an agreement on Howard Terminal, but after the city and the A’s missed that October deadline, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred expressed reservations such a deal would ever get done.
“The pace in Oakland has not been rapid, number one,” Manfred said at the time. “We’re in a stadium situation that’s really not tenable. I mean, we need to do something to alter the situation. So I’m concerned about the lack of pace.”
Recent history involving major sport stadiums in California justifies his concerns. Sofi Stadium, home of the NFL’S Los Angeles Rams and Chargers, and Chase Center, home of the NBA’S Golden State Warriors in San Francisco, were built with private money. Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., home of the San Francisco 49ers, was 90% privately financed.
The question of public funding is also being asked in Las Vegas. The Raiders in 2016 received $750 million from the Nevada Legislature for a stadium. That then was the largest amount of public money paid for a sports venue, but it was surpassed last March by the $850 million pledged to construct a new stadium for the NFL’S Buffalo Bills.
Lombardo “will not raise taxes” to attract the A’s or any other team, his spokeswoman, Elizabeth Ray, said in a statement earlier this year. But she said the club could qualify for other ongoing “economic development programs,” which could mean tax breaks similar to what Tesla received in 2014 to build its Gigafactory in Storey County and will receive for its planned $3.6 billion expansion of the factory, which Lombardo and Tesla announced last month. Details of the tax break for the expansion are not slated to be released to the public until later this month.
Resolution would outlaw exception that allows slavery as punishment for a crime
For the second consecutive session, lawmakers in the Nevada Assembly last week unanimously passed a joint resolution that would outlaw slavery or involuntary servitude as the punishment for a crime, clearing a hurdle for the measure to be voted on in the 2024 election.
Assembly Joint Resolution 10 — which was first introduced and passed during the 81st legislative session in 2021 — cleared the lower chamber by a 42-0 margin Thursday shortly after advancing out of the Assembly Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections.
Assemblyman Howard Watts, D-las Vegas, the resolution’s primary sponsor, noted the language of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution still allowed for slavery or involuntary servitude to be used as punishment for a crime and such a provision remains in the Nevada Constitution today.
“As the Battle Born State, Nevada enshrined that language — allowing slavery and involuntary servitude as a punishment for crimes — into our state constitution, and it has remained there for more than 155 years,” Watts said. “I want to be really clear about what we’re talking about when we talk about these words: We’re talking about the designations of human beings as the personal property for other people. We’re talking about the complete loss of liberty, and of labor being compelled — forced — without compensation. People being beaten, abused, killed without any consequence.”
Watts continued: “I believe it is time for us to move forward and make it clear and unequivocal that nobody will ever live through the horror of state-sanctioned slavery or servitude ever again.”
Several states in recent years have made similar changes to remove all mentions of slavery in their constitutions, starting with Colorado in 2018, Utah and Nebraska in 2020 and Vermont, Alabama, Oregon and Tennessee in 2022.
“Now it’s time for Nevada to lead and take action on this important issue,” Watts said.
The resolution heads to the Nevada Senate, where it also cleared unanimously in 2021. Should it again pass the Senate, a referendum on the change to the state constitution would be placed on the general election ballot in 2024.
Titus to head gaming caucus
Nevada Democratic U.S. Rep. Dina Titus will co-chair the unofficial Congressional Gaming Caucus during the 118th Congress, sharing the role with Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Guy Reschenthaler. The caucus serves to inform other congressional members of issues related to gaming policy, as well as advocate for laws meant to crack down on illegal operations, her office said in a statement.
“Las Vegas’ gaming industry has set the national gold standard, which has been followed across the country as gaming has expanded,” Titus said in a statement. “As co-chair of the Congressional Gaming Caucus, I look forward to working with Rep. Reschenthaler and our colleagues in a bipartisan way to help well-regulated gaming markets flourish and incentivize economic development in District One and across the country.”