by Michael Lyle, Nevada Current

In the race to retain blue-leaning Assembly District 25 in Northern Nevada, both candidates are financed in no small part by Southern Nevada money, and the Republican challenger enjoys an overall fundraising lead over the Democratic incumbent.

Democratic Assemblywoman Selena La Rue Hatch, a teacher in the Washoe County School District who is seeking re-election, faces first-time Republican candidate Diana Sande, the program manager for the Black Youth Mental Health Initiative at the University of Nevada, Reno.

La Rue Hatch was first elected in 2022 after Republican Assemblywoman Jill Tolles didn’t seek re-election. 

The district has been targeted by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and his closely aligned Better Nevada PAC, which has been trying to break the Democrats’ supermajority in the Assembly and prevent Democratic lawmakers from obtaining veto-proof majorities in both chambers.

Campaign finance reports from July show La Rue Hatch had raised about $113,000 through the first six months of the year while Sande had raised about $212,000. 

Some of the Southern Nevada groups and industries contributing to Sande’s campaign include:

$10,000 from Clark County Education Association$5,000 from R&R Partners$5,000 from the Greater Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce PAC$5,000 from South Point Casino$2,500 from Boyd Gaming$2,500 from MGM Resorts$1,500 from Station Casinos$1,000 from the Henderson Chamber of Commerce PAC.

La Rue Hatch received donations from from Southern Nevada unions, each for less than $1,000. Larger contributions to La Rue Hatch with a Southern Nevada address came from political committees of fellow Democratic legislators. State Sen. Roberta Lange’s committee contributed $10,000, as did the committee to elect Assemblywoman Venicia Considine. And the committee to reelect Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager contributed $5,000 to La Rue Hatch.

Hers was one also of seven legislative races in Nevada that was spotlighted by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), the official arm of Democratic Party focused on state legislative races, as a way to help with fundraising. The Democratic-aligned PAC for America’s Future contributed $10,000 to La Rue Hatch. 

The district leans slightly Democratic with 16,745 active registered voters compared to 15,598 active registered Republicans. There are also 13,561 nonpartisan active registered voters.

“My constituents expect me to go in with common sense and work with other folks,” La Rue Hatch said. “A lot of candidates, including my opponent, are literally running with their number one issue being to protect the governor’s vetoes.”

On her website, Sande, who did not respond to numerous requests for an interview for this story, writes it is “of the utmost importance to our state that we ensure Governor Lombardo has the power to veto bills that are not in the best interest of Nevada.”

La Rue Hatch said that position doesn’t make sense and that legislators shouldn’t be “a rubber stamp” for their party. 

“I’m a Democrat, but I’m not running because I want to protect the Democrat’s power,” she said. “I’m running because I want my community to have a voice.”

As an example, La Rue Hatch points to being one of the Democrats who bucked her party’s leadership and opposed the $380 million in public assistance to the Oakland Athletics billionaire owner who wants to build a stadium on the Las Vegas Strip.     

Out of all the issues being discussed during the 2023 session, she received the most calls about the stadium, she said. 

“My community was saying it was not going to benefit us,” she said. “It was not going to help our schools or housing crisis. We have people sleeping on the streets and people with mental health issues.”

Her constituents wanted lawmakers to invest in the people “and not give money to a billionaire.” 

In a September interview with the Reno Gazette Journal, Sande said she wanted to focus on government transparency,” especially when it comes to budgets” and how money is spent. 

“And I’d like to see more transparency for the legislators on why decisions have been made, where we are with legislation and what the data looks like, such as for opportunity scholarships,” she said, referring to the private school voucher program.

The Lombardo-allied Better Nevada PAC has attacked La Rue Hatch for her opposition to funding school vouchers and criticized her vote in support of the Capital Improvement Projects funding.

“I voted against the A’s stadium so clearly I’m very concerned about how we are spending our public money and how it’s invested into our communities,” she said. 

Class sizes and climate impacts

La Rue Hatch said her decision to run has been influenced by being in the classroom and dealing with the consequences of the climate crisis. 

As a teacher, she said she’s had to deal with large class sizes with 40 plus children and has had to work with finding solutions to address mental health needs of students.

Washoe County in recent years has also dealt with the increased frequency of wildfires in nearby California pouring smoke into the community. 

She remembers one particular recent summer when “the skies were black with smoke and I had a 4-year-old who literally couldn’t go outside all summer.”

“It just felt like we were facing so many different crises,” she said. “It felt like our leaders were just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and not actually making the systemic changes we needed.”

To address the climate crisis, lawmakers need to take both immediate and systemic measures, she said. 

One longer-term measure would introduce light rail as a way to reduce the amount of cars, and emissions, on the road. 

La Rue Hatch plans to bring a bill next session around developing a light rail system to Clark and Washoe counties. She knows it could take multiple sessions to achieve, but wants to start the initial process because it “is something we need and our constituents want.”

Though the bill draft request is in the preliminary stages, she said it would likely establish a working group of government, labor and potential riders who would examine costs and funding mechanisms. 

In addition to looking at federal funding available, the group would be tasked with identifying “who would oversee the projects and identify where light rail would be most effective,” she said.

“That way we could come back the next session with multiple bills to make it happen,” she said.  

Priorities listed on Sande’s website include increasing mental health awareness and access to services, supporting efforts to expand the “Read by Three” program and “helping small businesses thrive.”

In her interview with the RGJ, she said the state needed to look at ways to expand mental health services for youth. 

“I think we need to do something to engage the churches,” she said. ‘We need to continue to engage faith leaders on how they can also serve with regards to mental health, how we talk about it, especially to young people, especially to someone that potentially could be in crisis.”

Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: [email protected]. Follow Nevada Current on Facebook and X.