by Dana Gentry, Nevada Current

When consultant Jeremy Aguero presented two of the most significant bills of the 2023 legislative session, he neglected to disclose a seminal fact – whose interests he was representing.  

When Aguero co-presented a bill with Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager in early June to pump hundreds of millions of dollars of public money into a homeless facility far from the view of Las Vegas tourists, he never disclosed working on the project for at least Wynn Resorts. He has since failed to respond to questions. 

“I don’t know who all he was working for,” Wynn spokesman Michael Weaver said during an interview this week. ”I know we engaged him to help with the initiative,” Weaver said.

And when Aguero touted to state lawmakers the potential benefits of investing hundreds of millions of dollars to publicly subsidize a baseball stadium, Aguero, who often does work for government agencies, once again failed to disclose on the legislative record that he was working for the Oakland A’s, the team hoping to profit from the venture. 

Despite his frequent presence at the Legislature, Aguero is not registered as a lobbyist, a process that would require him to publicly disclose his clients. 

At a hearing on the A’s bill in late May, Gov. Joe Lombardo’s chief of staff Ben Kieckhefer introduced Aguero “of Applied Analysis” – the consulting firm Aguero founded – to co-present the measure with Steve Hill of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. No one mentioned Applied Analysis worked for the A’s. 

The governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment about Aguero, who also served as a transition advisor to Lombardo.   

Aguero, who told news media he was an analyst, not an advocate, delivered rosy predictions for the stadium. He  projected 70% of the fans who would attend A’s games would be locals. The team currently has the worst attendance record in the league. 

He warned hesitant lawmakers that without the stadium, there would be no added revenue for schools and public services.

“The net fiscal benefit for the state is expected to be in excess of $360 million, which means that the state is actually better off because the project was actually constructed,” Aguero said. 

And he discounted economic experts who contend municipal governments are challenged to recoup the costs of publicly financed stadiums. 

“If you build a stadium, in most places around the United States, it is going to have a negative economic impact,” Aguero conceded, if only momentarily. “But I respectfully disagree… We’ve proven it over and over and over again. It is the element that we have that other communities do not that allows us to generate an economic return on investment that other places cannot.” 

Aguero was very much engaged in advocacy for the A’s, says LCB Executive Director Brenda Erdoes. 

“It’s my belief that both Steve Hill and Jeremy Aguero, in addition to presenting and answering all the questions, also lobbied,” Erdoes said during an interview, adding she saw a news media photo of the two in a lawmaker’s office. 

Nevada law defines a lobbyist as a person “who communicates directly with a member of the legislative branch on behalf of someone other than himself or herself to influence legislative action, whether or not any compensation is received.” 

But the state’s swiss-cheese-like laws allow savvy individuals to exploit loopholes.  

The clients know

“There’s only one reason to avoid registering as a lobbyist,” says Annette Magnus, executive director of Battle Born Progress and a longtime lobbyist. “They don’t want you to know who their clients are.” 

”Jeremy has been paid by and worked for everybody,” said a legislative insider who asked not to be named. “And I’m not saying they can’t do that. But you should know specifically who they’re working for on any particular issue, because sometimes interests may not be aligned.”

Neither Aguero nor Hill registered with the Legislative Counsel Bureau (LCB) as lobbyists, but Erdoes said the two are in the clear because the A’s bill “was the only thing they actually lobbied for.” 

State law exempts individuals from registering as lobbyists if they “confine their lobbying activities to communicating directly with one or more members of the Legislative Branch only on an infrequent or irregular basis and who do not otherwise engage in any lobbying activities, unless those persons engage in a pattern of conduct that is substantially similar to engaging in lobbying activities on a recurrent or regular basis.’

A “recurrent or regular basis” means more than once in a legislative session, according to Erdoes. 

She says Aguero’s work on Assembly Bill 528, the homeless legislation, doesn’t count as lobbying under a provision of state law that exempts individuals who “confine their activities to formal appearances before legislative committees and who clearly identify themselves and the interest or interests for whom they are testifying.”

“Jeremy guaranteed me that he did not do anything other than present the bill,” Erdoes said of AB 528. 

But a review of the hearing indicates Aguero never specifically declared whose interests he was representing, or his work on behalf of Wynn Resorts.  

Erdoes acknowledges that’s true, but adds that after “listening to his full testimony, it appears to me that he did ‘fully explain’ what he believed to be the need for the bill and his personal interest in it.”

When asked by the committee chairwoman if the measure was intended to be focused on Southern Nevada, Aguero, without consulting Yeager, said “I’m more than happy to do it. That’s an easy amendment…”  

“He clearly knew the answer so apparently did not need to discuss it with the Speaker,” Erdoes said.

Nevada law defines a lobbyist as “a person who communicates directly with a member of the Legislative Branch on behalf of someone other than himself or herself to influence legislative action, whether or not any compensation is received for the communication.” But a long list of exceptions pepper the law.

“To me, lobbying is lobbying, but these exceptions have come in through the years to make the system work,” Erdoes said, adding the result can be perplexing. “It’s very specific to where you do it, and how you do it. That’s the law.”

Democratic Assemblywoman Selena La Rue Hatch says she and some of her colleagues were unaware “who was paying for all this on both bills, but especially on the A’s bill.”

“I am concerned that there was lobbying being done on both the homeless bill and the A’s,” said Hatch. “And clearly meetings were being held, lobbying was happening and they weren’t registered. And if you’re saying that that’s totally fine within our current laws, then yes, the laws need to be updated.”

Aguero is the fiscal analyst who produced wildly optimistic construction job projections that helped persuade lawmakers to infuse $750 million of public money into Allegiant Stadium. He then parlayed his visibility on the project into a gig as staff for the Las Vegas Stadium Authority, and eventually to an executive position with the Las Vegas Raiders, which lasted just a few months. He subsequently returned to Applied Analysis.

While Aguero did not disclose his work for the A’s on the record during legislative hearings he did not keep it a secret, telling several media outlets that he is “an analyst, not an advocate.” 

Hill, CEO of the LVCVA and the Las Vegas Stadium Authority, also never mentioned Aguero’s link to the A’s as the two presented the stadium bill in two legislative hearings, including during a special session called by Lombardo. 

Applied Analysis serves as the staff for the Stadium Authority, which will oversee the A’s stadium, an arrangement that would seem to pose a conflict to taking on the A’s as a client. The team will have a year to produce a development agreement and a lease agreement with the Stadium Authority.

“To ensure there was no conflict, Applied Analysis disclosed our work with the A’s with all relevant clients, including the Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board, in advance of taking on the project,” Brian Haynes of Applied Analysis said via email. “We are analysts, not advocates, and have attempted to serve all stakeholders in that capacity.” 

“It’s the public that needs to be informed,” says Magnus of Battle Born Progress. “Not just the clients.” 

Former state lawmaker and current lobbyist David Goldwater says most of the time Nevada’s lobbying laws work, and  it’s up to lawmakers to ask questions when they don’t. 

“The purpose of those laws is to allow legislators to know clearly the interests of the people that are appearing before them and in their offices,” he says. “If there are questions about whose interests they represent, it’s up to the legislators to clarify.” 

During hearings on the homeless legislation and the A’s stadium bill, no legislators asked Aguero who he was representing.