This is one in a series of profiles of legislative newcomers.

ASSEMBLYMAN GREGORY HAFEN

• Freshman Republican appointed to replace brothel owner Dennis Hof, who died prior to being elected to the Assembly in 2018
• Represents District 36, which includes parts of Nye, Clark and Lincoln counties
• District 36 leans heavily Republican (46 percent Republican, 27 percent Democratic and 27 percent nonpartisan or other in the 2018 election)
• Hafen was appointed to replace Hof from a field of 19 applicants. He was unanimously approved by the Clark and Lincoln county commissions and received just one dissenting vote in Nye County.
• He will sit on the Government Affairs, Health and Human Services and Taxation committees.

FAMILY AND EDUCATION:

Hafen is a fifth-generation Nevadan with family roots in the state Assembly, filling the same seat that his grandfather, M. Kent “Tim” Hafen, was elected to in 1966. Born in Las Vegas, Hafen received his bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In his free time, he enjoys spending time outdoors with his family, from riding ATVs at Big Dune to biking on the Cottonwood Trails.

CAREER:

Hafen is the general manager of the Pahrump Utility Company, a water utility that was founded by his grandfather, father and aunt in 1995. Prior to his appointment to the Assembly, he was chairman of the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission and the Pahrump Capital Improvement Advisory Committee. He also continues to serve as chairman of the Desert View Hospital Board and as a member of the Nevada Taxpayer Association, a non-profit advocating for fiscal responsibility in government.

ON NEVADA AND THE ISSUES:

What are your top legislative priorities for the 2019 session?

My top priorities for the 2019 session are education and health care.

I would love to see the state of Nevada in the top 10 rankings for education, and I think that we need to create a path forward to try and accomplish that. And health care is a growing industry, especially in Nevada. With the new UNLV medical school, we need to try and retain those students that we're educating through expansion of the residency program, fellowship programs, and one of the bills that I've sponsored, a loan forgiveness program for doctors that stay in the state.

What programs/parts of the state government could be cut? What programs/areas need more funding in 2019?

With the advances in technology, Nevada should be looking at how to utilize new technologies to make Nevada more efficient.

I'm on the technology committee, so we went and visited with [the Regional Transportation Commission] and a few other agencies that are integrating technology. One of the issues they're running into is that they're required to go with the lowest bid. However, that may not be best technology and, in the long term, may not be the most efficient. So, yes, it may be the low bid now, but over the long run a different technology may be more efficient for the state and may end up saving the state more money.

What specifically should Nevada do to improve health care this session? How about education?

I have proposed the following [bill draft requests] to help improve health care and education: BDR 850 - Provides funding for the Education Savings Accounts, BDR 851 - Establishes provisions to attract medical professionals to practice in Nevada, and BDR 851 - Revises provisions governing workforce development.

[On education], I'm not an education professional, I don't pretend to be an expert, but when you look at the rankings and the statistics we are typically ranked in the bottom of the nation. To me that's not acceptable, there's no reason why Nevada should not be in the top 10. We have an opportunity right now to improve that, and we need to have all the cards on the table to try and figure out what the best solution is.

[On healthcare], the statistics all show that where a medical student goes and does their residency, they typically stay, so if we can retain the students that we're educating, it would be a good investment.

[On workforce development], there's already some provisions, so I'd like to try and expand some of those to try and get additional apprenticeships, internships and expose children to different workforce fields that they could possibly go into that they, currently, are not being exposed to. I think that it's important to start young and let the child see what fields are out there, what their interests are, and then once they find an interest, then continue to help them along that path.

Should Nevada raise its Renewable Portfolio Standard to 100 percent by 2050? If not, what should the state's RPS compliance standard be?

I believe that the standards should be driven by the market and its customers. In the rural parts of Nevada, 100 percent may not be feasible.

If you look at the current renewable energy technology out there, the majority of it in Nevada is solar. Just to go to 50 percent, we're looking at roughly 100,000 acres of new solar panels. Right now, solar energy is about comparable to fossil fuels, so from a cost perspective, we're finally there.

But to get past that 50 percent threshold we're shooting toward right now, is going to require, at least with solar technology, an extensive amount of battery storage or other kinds of storage to store the energy for the evenings or nights when the solar's not able to generate electricity.

So I just don't know that the technology is there. I think we should invest in the technology and the research and the development, but I just don't see the technology today.

Do you support modifying or eliminating current property tax caps in state law?

At this time, I do not support modifying or eliminating the current property tax caps.

People live on a budget. If somebody bought their house five years ago and their property values have gone up substantially, in some instances, they're still living on that budget. To potentially double their taxes could end up being a substantial burden on the taxpayer or the homeowner or the property owner, and I just don't know that that's something that should really be done.

Are there any particular issues on which you see yourself working across party lines? If so, which ones? If not, why not?

My top priorities for the 2019 session are education and health care. I hope that both parties can work together by discussing every option on the table to develop the best possible solution.

In the governor's State of the State, some of his priorities were health care and education. I think that we all have the same goal, that we want to improve health care and education, and I don't think you'll meet anyone up there that says, 'No, we don't want to.' We might disagree on some of the details, but at the end of the day I think we all have the same goal in mind.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.