The race for Assembly District 37 in Summerlin is all but guaranteed to be close again this year — but the stakes are even higher.
Two years ago, Assemblywoman Shea Backus (D-Las Vegas) won the race by about 800 votes, the third-smallest margin among the state Assembly contests. It marked a return to the Legislature for Backus, an attorney who is an enrolled member of Cherokee Nation, after first taking office in 2018 and being unseated in 2020.
But this year’s race could have statewide significance, as it is among a handful of seats that may determine whether Democrats maintain their two-thirds supermajority in the lower chamber — which would allow them to override any veto from Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, as long as they also hold two-thirds of the state Senate seats.
This time around, Backus, 49, is squaring off against David Brog, a 58-year-old former executive director of Christians United for Israel and a candidate for Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District in 2022, when he finished second in the GOP primary.
All cycle, Backus and Brog have been locked in a tight fundraising battle.
In an interview, Brog described himself as a “pragmatic centrist” who is “wary of the ideological extremes of both parties.” He touted his work for former Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, who was a Republican for most of his tenure before switching to the Democratic Party, and emphasized that he is not a “bomb thrower.”
Meanwhile, Backus touted her record in the 2023 legislative session, during which she served as the vice chair of the influential Assembly Ways and Means Committee. If elected, she said she wants to dive deeper into the implications of a slew of bills passed last year, particularly the record-breaking funding for K-12 education, to inform future policy.
See below for a closer look at both candidates’ policy positions.
Education
The candidates have differing views on two education policies likely to resurface during next year’s legislative session: universal school meals and school choice.
Backus is proposing legislation to provide free school meals to all K-12 students, extending a pandemic-era program that provided universal free meals. Lombardo vetoed the same legislation last year, arguing that the state already ensures that any student in need can receive free school meals, while Democrats have said the bill helps families who narrowly miss the income level needed to qualify for free school meals.
Meanwhile, Brog said in an interview that he believes the legislation would only ensure that students from wealthy families can also have free meals at school.
“I don’t think there’s anyone who wants to deny lunch to a student,” Brog said. “The question is, should we allocate precious dollars to buy lunches for students who don’t need the help … My answer is no.”
Instead, Brog wants to see more money allocated to Opportunity Scholarships, a program championed by Lombardo and opposed by Democrats that helps subsidize the cost of attending private schools in Nevada for certain low- and middle-income students.
Brog thinks the state is failing to provide equal educational opportunities to all students, and that students who live in certain ZIP codes are going to receive a worse education — something that he believes Opportunity Scholarships can alleviate.
Backus strongly disagrees. She referred to the scholarships as “opportunity vouchers,” and said the program lacks transparency. However, she signaled she was open to maintaining funding for students who are already enrolled in the program.
Criminal justice
Brog said one of the main reasons he is running is to “undo the damage” of a bipartisan criminal justice reform package that passed in 2019.
Last year, Lombardo failed in his effort to repeal key parts of the legislation, which sought to curb a ballooning prison population in the state by reducing some criminal penalties and bolstering programs that divert people from prison.
Brog said the bill “led to an increase in property crime.” Statewide and Clark County data show property crime rates have remained relatively stable in the years since the legislation passed, with some increases in 2022 and 2023.
To address prison overcrowding, Brog said he would be open to exploring whether nonviolent offenders could be released early and also argued better high school graduation rates could subvert the pipeline to prisons.
In response to Brog’s opposition to the 2019 legislation (which Backus supported), she said “I wonder if he is talking to the Koch brothers,” a reference to the fact that an organization tied to the billionaire conservative duo supported the legislation.
Backus fiercely defended the legislation.
“Absent changes that went into effect following the enactment of the bipartisan supported criminal justice reform bill, prison populations would have grown far worse than they are today,” she said.
To further reduce prison populations, she said she wants to pursue legislation that addresses root causes of crime, such as addiction and homelessness. She touted the bipartisan passage last year of AB528, a bill that established a wide-ranging homelessness prevention fund to build out supportive services in Southern Nevada.
Health care
Backus touted the Legislature’s efforts to open a medical school at UNLV and increase the school’s capacity, but said there are not enough residency programs in the state to attract doctors. She also wants to look into whether Medicaid reimbursement rates for physicians are sufficient.
She commended the Legislature’s 2021 “public option” law requiring insurers who contract with Nevada Medicaid offer a discounted insurance plan on the state’s health insurance marketplace, although she was not in the Legislature when it passed.
Brog also said his focus would be on looking into increasing the number of doctors in the state and increasing reimbursement rates.
Elections
Brog is supporting a Nevada ballot question to require voter ID, while Backus is opposed.
Brog said it is a “basic, minimal step” to restore confidence in the state’s election systems, though he raised the question of whether people’s distrust in elections were justified. Backus said it is an unnecessary measure given that ID is required to register to vote in the state.
The candidates also have different views on so-called “ballot harvesting,” the process that Nevada legislators legalized permanently in 2021 that permits voters to collect and submit ballots on behalf of other people. Former President Donald Trump and his allies falsely claimed in 2020 that this practice led to massive voter fraud, but Republicans have since moderated their positions because of its legality.
Backus said she had trust in these ballot collection policies — though she stressed that people should only give their ballots to people they trust — while Brog said he is opposed to “ballot harvesting.” If it remains legal, he wants people collecting ballots to have to register with county officials and document any ballots collected.
Housing
The policy of freeing up federally owned land for affordable housing development has bipartisan support in Nevada.
Brog called the proposal “common sense,” and said if the land is freed up, the process of developing housing must be streamlined.
“The federal government has a stranglehold on our supply of land, and therefore they have a stranglehold on our pipeline of the supply of housing,” Brog said.
Although she is concerned about how expanding the footprint of the Las Vegas Valley could affect natural resources, Backus said that there are lands that should be acquired and that acquisition costs must be reasonable to ensure affordable housing can be developed there.
Gun control
Lombardo vetoed gun control bills last year that would have raised the legal age to purchase certain firearms to 21, criminalized bringing a gun within 100 feet of an election site and placed restrictions on gun ownership for people convicted of a hate crime.
Backus supported the first two bills and was excused from the vote on the third bill, though she said she would have supported it. She also said she “would seriously consider” a proposal to ban assault weapons in the state.
Brog said he supported all three of Lombardo’s vetoes.
Environment
Among the priorities of former Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, was achieving net-zero carbon emissions in Nevada by 2050.
Shortly after taking office, Lombardo’s administration took the plan offline and released a new version last month that essentially gives no strategy to reduce carbon emissions. The state is on track to reduce carbon emissions by about 48 percent by 2050.
Backus, a supporter of Sisolak’s proposal, condemned the new plan to reduce carbon emissions, saying “it’s just a paragraph.”
Brog called Sisolak’s 2050 deadline “arbitrary” — echoing a claim by Lombardo administration officials that a hard deadline for net-zero carbon emissions is ineffective — and said it could prompt a spike in electric bills.
Tax credits
Backus supported the Legislature’s tax credits to help fund the construction of the A’s stadium in Las Vegas — a vote that she defends today — but she would have liked to see a similar arrangement to the construction of Allegiant Stadium, whose public financing came from hotel room taxes from the Las Vegas Strip.
Brog also said he would have supported the A’s tax credits, provided that the stadium brings in more tax revenue than the cost of the credits, and he thinks there is a “high burden” that must be met before approving tax credits to corporations.
In the future, Backus said she would like to see greater legislative oversight of tax credits, particularly in rural areas that typically do not see as much benefit from such arrangements.
Vetoes
Brog said maintaining Lombardo’s veto power is the main reason he decided to run.
“The vetoes are very important in providing balance and making sure we are being governed from the center and not from an ideological extreme,” Brog said.
Backus supported all but one of the 75 bills that Lombardo vetoed and said she was particularly frustrated with Lombardo’s veto of AB250, which would have seen Nevada adopt prescription drug price caps adopted by Medicare.
Gaming
For a second straight session, legislators will vote on a proposed constitutional amendment to remove the state’s ban on lotteries. An affirmative vote in 2025 would allow lotteries.
Brog is opposed to permitting state lotteries, while Backus (who supported the legislation last year) said she has more skepticism this time around.
She’s worried the lottery won’t generate as much revenue as it does in other states, and that the regulation of the lottery could cost more than any revenue that is brought in.
