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NPRI names Sharon Rossie as new president

For Immediate Release

Contact Chantal Lovell

July 20, 2015

702- 222-0642, 951-295-4855 (cell)

LAS VEGAS — The Nevada Policy Research Institute named Sharon Rossie as its new president today, after immediate past president Andy Matthews stepped down from his position to run for United States Congress.

Rossie is returning to the Institute, where she served as president from 2006 to 2011 and, prior to that, as its director of development. During her time at NPRI, Rossie grew the Institute’s staff from three to 12 and launched a number of new initiatives including the creation of NPRI’s Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation.

“NPRI’s Board of Directors is thrilled to have Sharon Rossie returning as president,” said Ranson W. Webster, chairman of NPRI’s Board of Directors. “Sharon is a visionary leader, and NPRI is still benefitting from the programs and personnel she put in place during her first tenure as president.

“Sharon will work tirelessly for NPRI’s mission of advancing the ideals and policies of free enterprise, individual liberty and limited, accountable government.”

Rossie said she is eager to return to the Institute at a time when Nevada has become the first state to adopt universal school choice and as NPRI celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2016.

I am grateful and humbled to have a chance to lead, for a second time, the Nevada Policy Research Institute.

Thanks to the work of NPRI’s talented and committed board and staff, including the strong leadership of Andy Matthews, now is an especially exciting time to return to NPRI. For instance, NPRI staff will be working with Nevadans at a grassroots level to help parents and educators understand the life-changing Education Savings Accounts program approved by lawmakers last session.

NPRI’s supporters are the ones who make all our efforts possible. They are true champions for liberty and free markets, and I’m looking forward to renewing old friendships, while meeting many new friends as well.

As we approach our 25th anniversary, we are grateful to our supporters and applaud their efforts to make Nevada a bastion for liberty in the West.

Rossie has also worked as a successful administrator and fundraiser with the Boys & Girls Club, the American Cancer Society, the University of California and Irvine’s College of Medicine and School of Humanities. She also owned a business and has served on several community boards in Nevada and Arizona.

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State of Nevada lends its support to NPRI’s case on behalf of Victor Fuentes

For Immediate Release

Contact Chantal Lovell

July 6, 2015

702-222-0642, 951-295-4855 (cell)

LAS VEGAS — The State of Nevada has put its weight behind the Nevada Policy Research Institute’s lawsuit on behalf of Victor Fuentes and his church, Ministerio Roca Solida (Solid Rock Church), Attorney General Adam Laxalt announced in a press conference Monday.

The Attorney General filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court of the United States, which the Institute’s legal arm — the Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation — has petitioned to request it hear the Fuentes case. During a press conference Monday morning, Laxalt explained why the State of Nevada is supporting NPRI’s request that the Court reconsider the lower court ruling that unlawfully forces victims of constitutional rights violations to forgo one right to vindicate another.

“For us, the most important thing was to make sure that Mr. Fuentes had his day in court, that he did not have to choose between fundamental rights,” Laxalt said, explaining that the rights the Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation is trying to protect are the very rights that brought Fuentes and other immigrants to the United States. “People come here to have opportunity and achieve their dreams. If we have a situation where the government is working against one of our citizens instead of with one of our citizens, it’s the perfect opportunity for the Attorney General to use the weight of our state to try to protect one of our citizens.”

On May 27, CJCL filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari in the Supreme Court asking the justices to reconsider the 2011 ruling in United States v. Tohono O’Odham Nation, which effectively forces the Solid Rock Church to choose between its rights to freely exercise religion and due process and its right to be compensated for a governmental taking of private property.

“Currently, under the law, Mr. Fuentes cannot actually try to protect all of his constitutional rights at once,” Laxalt told reporters. “Our system, for some reason, is making him choose between constitutional rights. We felt that was wrong. We felt that, as a state, we wanted to defend one of our citizens and make sure that he gets to defend all of his constitutional rights at once.”

The church sued the federal government after the government, acting contrary to the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution, altered in August 2010 the historic flow pattern of the spring-fed stream that traversed the church’s private property since at least 1881, diverting the flow of water to a higher elevation just outside of the church’s property line.  In so doing, the federal government “took” vested water rights belonging to the church. Making matters worse, on Christmas Eve 2010, coincident to area rainfall, water from the newly diverted stream overflowed its government-engineered channel, flooding and damaging the church camp’s buildings and property with the very spring flow that was both illegally and unconstitutionally diverted away from the church’s property just four months earlier.

Last week, the CATO Institute and the National Association of Reversionary Property Owners filed a joint amicus brief with the court. Of the State of Nevada offering its support to the case, CJCL Director and Chief Legal Officer Joseph Becker issued the following comments:

We’re hoping that, with the help of the State of Nevada and national groups, the Supreme Court will consider this case and create a way for the Solid Rock Church, and all those who have had their rights violated, to be made whole. This is a substantial constitutional question. Congress cannot obliterate constitutional rights through jurisdictional statutes, which it has errantly done in this case.

Fuentes is on the receiving end of illegitimate government action and as a result, according to Laxalt, his “whole life has been damaged.”

“It’s appalling to think that someone would come from Cuba to America for all the rights we have as citizens and then to be in a place like Las Vegas and trying to help the community and have those rights potentially infringed upon,” Laxalt said.

More information:

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NPRI announces 2015 scholarship winner

For Immediate Release

Contact Chantal Lovell

June 15, 2015

702-222-0642, 951-295-4855 (cell)

LAS VEGAS — The Nevada Policy Research Institute today announced that Ryan Everson, a recent graduate of Coronado High School, is the latest recipient of the Professor R.S. Nigam & NPRI Freedom Scholarship.

Ryan Everson receives a $2,500 scholarship from NPRI President Andy Matthews, left, and scholarship provider Swadeep Nigam. Everson is the winner of the 2015 Professor R.S. Nigam & NPRI Freedom Scholarship.

Scholarship applicants were asked to write an essay explaining the best way to improve education in Nevada. In his essay, Everson made a strong case for why expanding school choice in Nevada is favorable to raising taxes because it would increase student performance without needlessly hurting taxpayers.

In his essay, Everson wrote:

There is a mountain of evidence proving that school choice is an effective way of improving Nevada’s education system, but there is also ample evidence proving that increased spending is not an intelligent option, and we need look no further than our own public schools to see that. Glenn Cook of the Las Vegas Review-Journal writes that at the elementary level, one- and two-star schools in Nevada spend over $1,200 more per student than the five-star schools. The same results can be seen on a national level as well. According to a U.S Census Bureau report published in May 2014, Indiana, Colorado, Florida and Washington all have very low per-student expenditures compared with the national average. Yet earlier this year, the American Legislative Exchange Council ranked each state’s schools among the top 10 nationally. This completely debunks the myth that you need high expenditures to have successful students, and proves that states that spending much more money on K-12 education are cheating their taxpayers through inefficient spending.

In addition to his exemplary essay, Everson — who plans to attend Arizona State University in the fall — has an impressive academic record, participates in numerous extra-curricular activities, and has a strong record of volunteering.

“Ryan’s essay showed not only a deep understanding of free-market principles, but a strong ability to communicate that knowledge to others,” said Swadeep Nigam, who provides the scholarship. “His argument was supported by research and makes clear that school choice is the only way to effectively improve education in Nevada. Ryan’s involvement in his community and school also made him the stand-out applicant for this scholarship.”

Ryan, who has an impressive 4.68 GPA, has served as president of the Columbian Squires youth group at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church for three years where he has led annual coat and blanket drives, as well as school supply drives for underprivileged Nevada students. Additionally, he organized a donation drive to help rebuild St. Mary’s Catholic Church after it was destroyed in the 2011 tornado that devastated Joplin, Missouri.

This is the fifth year NPRI has offered a college scholarship to a deserving Clark County graduate. The award is named after Professor R.S. Nigam, who was a director of the Delhi School of Economics at the University of Delhi, a visiting professor at the College of Business at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a senior fellow at the University of Wisconsin, in addition to academic engagements in Europe, the West Indies and Asia, including North Korea. The award is made possible by Professor Nigam’s son, Swadeep Nigam, who has generously donated the scholarship. He is an active member of NPRI and has resided in Las Vegas for the past 28 years.

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NPRI hails creation of Education Savings Accounts, vows to help parents learn how to use program

CARSON CITY — The Nevada Policy Research Institute praised Gov. Brian Sandoval today for signing Senate Bill 302 — establishing the nation’s most inclusive and comprehensive school choice program in the nation — and announced plans to launch an educational campaign to inform parents about the new program’s existence and teach them how to use it.

SB302 — sponsored by Sen. Scott Hammond — creates an Education Savings Account program in which parents whose children are enrolled will receive 90 to 100 percent of the average funding provided for each pupil from the Distributive School Account. Parents can then use those funds to send their child to private school, pay for tutoring or distance learning, and fund other educational expenses.

In response to the establishment of ESAs — an idea for which NPRI has been a strong advocate — the Institute’s President, Andy Matthews, issued the following remarks:

Today is a historic day for all Nevada children, many of whom will now have a greater opportunity than ever before to receive the education they deserve. Governor Sandoval showed great courage in working with lawmakers to ensure all Nevada students — regardless of their family’s economic status — have access to the best schools in our state. For too long, we’ve shuffled children into public-school classrooms that offer a one-size-fits-all approach to education that has failed far too many of our kids. But that ends today.

This program puts parents, not bureaucrats, in charge of education. Until now, most parents had no choice but to send their child to their zip-code-assigned public school. Under this new framework, any child in Nevada may attend private or online schools, and parents can have a say in how and where their child is educated. In the coming years, we will see more students thrive academically because of their access to Education Savings Accounts, because they will be able to receive an education that is tailored to their individual needs.

Because Education Savings Accounts are a foreign concept to most people, NPRI will launch an intensive educational campaign in the coming months to inform parents of this new opportunity and the resources now available to their children. The particulars of this effort will be announced shortly, but the campaign will include meetings with parents, civic groups and schools to explain how to take advantage of ESAs and how to research potential schools. Emphasis will be placed on working with members of minority communities, who have traditionally had fewer educational options and have suffered the most under the current public system.

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NPRI: Assembly passage of SB483 is why voters distrust politicians

CARSON CITY – This evening, the Assembly voted 30-10 to pass SB483, the largest tax increase in Nevada history. In response, NPRI executive vice president Victor Joecks released the following comments:

Tonight is the reason voters don’t trust most politicians. Just a few months ago, Republican politicians strongly opposed the margin tax and told voters they opposed higher taxes.

The effort to tell voters one thing and do another was led by Gov. Brian Sandoval. While he told voters he supported keeping taxes low, he was working simultaneously to create the largest tax increase in Nevada history, including a modified version of the margin tax.

The structural problems with the governor’s commerce tax proposal include pyramiding and raising taxes on businesses that are losing money, but the tax proposal also increases the modified business tax, sales tax, business license fee and cigarette tax.

While these tax increases will force struggling businesses into bankruptcy and put parents out of work, there is another tragedy with this tax increase.

Sandoval has promised that this new funding will finally improve education, because he’s going to implement accountability measures on the backend, but we’ve heard this line before.

After the then-largest tax increase in Nevada history passed in 2003, Gov. Kenny Guinn promised accountability for the new influx of education funding. Yet 12 years later, the Legislature is again trying to improve education by spending money first and promising accountability later.

It doesn’t work. The best news out of the Legislature is that a real education reform, universal education savings account in SB302, has passed both chambers. The great thing about education savings accounts is that they improve student achievement while spending less money. 

Real education reforms enact accountability for the money we’re already spending, instead of just spending more on a broken system.

Joecks noted that the legislature failed to pass any major labor reform, like AB182 and AB280, so school districts will be limited in their ability to spend new dollars more effectively than before.

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Nevada Supreme Court rules in favor of NPRI in case challenging CCSD’s lack of transparency

For Immediate Release

Contact Chantal Lovell

May 29, 2014

702-222-0642, 951-295-4855 (cell)

Nevada Supreme Court rules in favor of NPRI in case challenging CCSD’s lack of transparency

LAS VEGAS — The Nevada Supreme Court today ruled in favor of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, saying a lower district court was wrong to dismiss the Institute’s case calling on the Clark County School District to release its directory of taxpayer-funded and government-issued teacher email addresses.

The state’s high court reversed the ruling by the Eighth Judicial District Court, holding that the “directory of CCSD teachers’ email addresses is a public record within the plain meaning of the [Nevada Public Records Act]” and, as such, “should be open for inspection or copying by the public.”

In response to Friday’s ruling, Joseph Becker, director and chief legal officer of NPRI’s Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation, issued the following remarks:

Today’s ruling constitutes a win not just for NPRI and its supporters, but for all advocates of government transparency. This case brought together unlikely allies who, despite other differences, believe the only way to ensure government is accountable to the people who fund it is to require it to be open. This ruling is the latest example of the Nevada Supreme Court overturning lower-court decisions that wrongly limit government transparency under the Nevada Public Records Act.

As the Supreme Court held, the Nevada Public Records Act is clear that government email addresses issued to public employees are a matter of public record and not confidential. The purpose of the NPRA is to ensure government records are made available to the public and the Court’s ruling today reinforces this vital standard.

NPRI sued CCSD in March 2013 after the school district refused to provide the email addresses existing in district records. Later that year, District Judge Doug Smith ruled the email address records were not subject to disclosure under the Nevada Public Records Act.

NPRI’s challenge to CCSD’s scofflaw denial of public records was also supported by a number of groups and individuals that don’t often see eye-to-eye. The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Institute, and the Nevada Press Association, Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Steve Sebelius, and the Review-Journal editorial board all expressed support for NPRI’s reading of the Act. 

More information:

The Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation is a public-interest law organization that litigates when necessary to protect the fundamental rights of individuals as set forth in the state and federal constitutions.

Learn more about the Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation and this case at http://npri.org/litigation/.

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Media Mentions

All Media Mentions

CCSD Administrators Hiring Outpaces Teachers over Past Decade

Policy director, Geoff Lawrence, was interviewed about CCSD’s hiring trend.

This North Las Vegas official quit in May. He made $1M anyway

Las Vegas Review-Journal article featuring interview with Policy Director, Geoff Lawrence

November Could Determine Future of Ranked Choice Voting in US Elections

Daily Signal article featuring quotes by Nevada Policy President, John Tsarpalas

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