Nevada Assemblywoman Lucy Flores was unopposed in the general election after winning her Democratic primary by a wide margin, but that does not mean the attorney took the summer off from politicking.
Flores, who is entering her second term in the Assembly, acted as a surrogate, campaigning for Democrats here in the Silver State and as far afield as Florida. Between campaigning, continuing to work full time as a lawyer and collaborating with other Hispanic politicians to start a new political action committee, Flores, who has completed multiple marathons, exhausted herself to the point of hospitalization one summer evening.
Flores, 33, represents the 28th Assembly District in the northeast part of the valley, which includes parts of Las Vegas and North Las Vegas. In October, she won "Best Politician Using Social Media" from Latinos in Social Media at the organization's annual conference.
Now, Flores is focused on the upcoming legislative session and laying the groundwork so the PAC, dubbed the Impacto Fund, can aid Hispanic Democrats in future elections. She is working on legislation to alter the proficiency exam system for Nevada's secondary schools and also is crafting a law to better regulate notaries and paralegals.
Las Vegas Sun: What are your priorities for the upcoming legislative session?
Lucy Flores: We need to have some serious conversations about education and it being adequately funded, and what that means. ... Everyone always talks about how they are for education. You don't ever find anyone who is against education. So what I tell people is the question should not be: Do you support education? The question should be: Do you support funding education? Because at the end of the day, that's where the parties diverge. That's where you're either for education in action or you're just about education in words. I think for a very long time we've been about education in words.
Now, how you go about actually ensuring that this gets done, that's the million-dollar question. There is a finite amount of funds, and unless we talk about the topic we should've been talking about for a very long time, too, which is tax structure reform and dealing with our revenue issue, then we're never really going to get to the answer (of the question): How do we actually make education a priority by funding it adequately?
LVS: But Southern Nevada has two-thirds of the state population and they just voted down the Clark County School District tax proposal for capital improvements. How do you combat the public's aversion to opening up its wallets to state government?
Ms. Flores: I don't see (the CCSD tax proposal defeat) as taking the temperature of the electorate on how serious they are about education. I think there were a number of different issues going on with that particular question that didn't necessarily mean that Nevadans don't care about education. I think that they do. It's just that you had a completely separate issue going on with that.
The School District didn't do a very good job of giving necessary information, I think, about that question.
We all have to admit that the CCSD hasn't necessarily had the best track record when it comes to transparency and accountability. That's not the current administration's fault. I think Dwight Jones is fabulous and he's doing a wonderful job. But he also came into a situation, and that situation unfortunately was one of distrust and one of the least amount of transparency as possible -- and he's admitted that in the past, as well.
