Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Politics:

What if Nevada’s members of Congress wrote the State of the Union?

Obama

ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 28, 2014.

Tonight, the nation will watch President Barack Obama give his second-to-last State of the Union address.

From combating terrorism to reforming the tax code, Obama is expected to declare what he'd like to get done in these next two years with a Republican-controlled Congress.

Nevada's six congressional lawmakers will be listening closely to what the president says — and will be sure to give their opinions afterward.

But what if Nevada's representatives in Congress had a chance to write a part of the State of the Union? What state-specific issues would they declare a priority for this next Congress?

Here's what they had to say:

Fix highway funding so we can build an interstate through Nevada

Building I-11 topped the list for many of Nevada's lawmakers. But before the state can pave an interstate connecting Phoenix to Las Vegas and beyond, Congress needs to repair an increasingly urgent hole in the nation's fund for highways.

The path forward would likely involve some politically unpopular moves, such as raising the gas tax. If there's no political will to do that, it's possible lawmakers could yet again patch over the funding potholes with general funds.

Refinancing the Highway Trust Fund is a priority for Democratic Rep. Dina Titus of Las Vegas and Republican Rep. Cresent Hardy, who both sit on the House's transportation committee and will have a say in the debate.

Squash any attempt to move forward with Yucca Mountain

For the past eight years, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid's control of the Democratic Senate put the brakes on Congress' efforts to bury the nation's nuclear waste under a mountain about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Now, it won't be quite as easy for the Senate minority leader to stop any pro-Yucca bills that could pass the House of Representatives. In addition, Hardy, Nevada's newest member of Congress, has said he's open to discussing the project.

The president has promised to veto any spending bill with money for the project. But in the face of this new Republican Congress, Titus said she'd like reassurance that's still the case.

"I'd like to hear the president re-state his opposition," she said.

Fix our nation's immigration system

Nevada's four Republican and two Democratic members of Congress have different ideas about how to do this. But they all agree on one thing: The status quo of millions of undocumented immigrants living in America in legal limbo is untenable.

The limbo is felt acutely in Nevada, which is becoming a leader in advocating immigration reform.

Pew Research Center estimates that Nevada has the largest share — nearly 18 percent — of U.S.-born children in grade school who had a parent living in the country illegally. And Nevada's three Republican House lawmakers bucked their party this month when they voted to keep in place Obama's 2012 temporary visa program for young, undocumented immigrants.

Rep. Mark Amodei, a Northern Nevada Republican, would like to see House Republican leaders propose an immigration reform bill that could get through both chambers of Congress — sooner rather than later.

"I'm defending nothing here," he said. "The status quo is bad leadership."

Diversify Nevada's economy to create more jobs

More than six years since the recession hit Nevada harder than most of the country, the state's lawmakers are still hypersensitive about protecting Nevada's slow but steady recovery.

Nevada's job growth ranks near the top of the nation, and it's unemployment rate is at a six-year low; though at 6.9 percent, it's still higher than the national rate of 5.6 percent.

Reid has called for policies that spread the wealth to middle-and-lower class Americans.

"The challenge now is to make sure that all Nevadans and working Americans feel the gains, not just special interests and the wealthiest one percent," Reid said in a statement this month after the nation's December jobs report was released.

His Republican counterpart in the Senate, Dean Heller, has paused his push for extending emergency unemployment benefits for long-term unemployed and introduced legislation to give state residents a permanent tax break. Heller said Nevadans want to feel like Congress is still focused on creating jobs. "I would hone in on economics," he said.

In the House, Titus and Rep. Joe Heck, a Republican representing the Las Vegas suburbs, have called for expanding tourism programs and tourist visas. Heck is also focused on maintaining Nevada's position as a leader for testing unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones. The state could eventually grow a job market manufacturing drones, he said.

Work with the federal government to give more land back to the state

This is a priority for Nevada's two Republican lawmakers whose districts cover the central and northern swaths of the state; much of that land is owned by the federal government.

Hardy, the lone Nevada lawmaker to sit on a natural resources committee, said he's focused on giving federal land that's "important for economic development" back to the state.

"We need properties to tax for education, for infrastructure," he said.

Amodei, who now has jurisdiction over how the Department of Interior controls its purse strings, is focused on the complicated state and federal government efforts to save the sage grouse from being listed as an endangered species, which could hamper economic development on the land Nevada does own.

And Reid is expected to continue to protect thousands of acres of wilderness in the state and a program he engineered that gives rural counties with federal land payments in lieu of taxes.

Act on all this quickly

This is a long list for just one state. Nevada's lawmakers will have to jockey for time among lawmakers representing wish lists for 49 others, plus the president's own priorities.

But time isn't on anyone's side. Most political observers agree Congress has about a year — or less — to act on major priorities such as immigration and tax reform before much of the legislating stops and the campaigning for 2016 starts.

"If you haven't got what it is you're trying to get done by St. Patrick's Day," Amodei said, "then you've got the presidential election coming around the bend."

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