By Bob Fulkerson

The George Floyd uprisings have placed police murders of Black people squarely into public view and forced Americans to no longer look away from anti-Blackness, our nation’s cultural and political fulcrum. The seismic shift of public opinion in support of Black Lives Matter is unprecedented. Seeing these murders on film, in our name, has created a massive social movement, which has by far exceeded the size, number and duration of protests at any other time in our nation’s history. Additionally, the health crisis and economic collapse has created renewed awareness about how gross economic inequality along racial lines is also killing Black people.

As someone who has been in the social justice movement for 35 years and arrested eight times for civil disobedience, I am inspired to see Nevadans from Baker to West Wendover to Reno protesting to demand sweeping criminal justice reforms. Those in power are paying attention, whether it’s Governor Sisolak marching with protestors or Attorney General Aaron Ford’s sessions with movement leaders to forge a common criminal justice agenda.

But I also know from experience how well insulated the status quo is in Nevada. “The house always wins” is a Nevada warning that can also be applied after elections, no matter which party loses control of the Legislature or governor’s office, or which justices are elected to the state Supreme Court. The “house” in this case is the cabal of big business, transnational mining conglomerates, and gambling corporations to whom Nevada politicians owe their careers. The mercenary lobbyists control state and city government. You can bet they’ve been watching these protests carefully and advising elected officials on how to act. 

A dollar-driven tradition of corporate control of Nevada policy began when the mining industry told the Nevada territorial to re-draft the state Constitution and insert language shielding their profits from meaningful taxation. Nevada’s mining barons bribed the Legislature to issue bonds to construct the V&T railroad, the state’s first corporate welfare. Their heirs, today’s lobbyists, still see Nevada government as an appendage of their profit-making enterprises, which is why today we have the lowest gambling and mining taxes in the world.

Nevada tax and economic policies have resulted in medieval levels of economic inequality, accentuated along racial and gender lines. Corporations putting their profits first, and then hiring politicians who put their re-election first, have created a failing state. We must shake our complicity in accepting the unacceptable, just as we are doing with the police killings.

According to economists, the single most effective way to decrease inequality is through tax policy. In Nevada, the 5th most unfair tax state in the country, state policy is to funnel wealth created by working Nevadans to the white millionaire and billionaire class, whose kids go to private schools and enjoy legacy admissions for college. That’s why the moguls don’t care that funding for our public schools and our universities is a national disgrace.

The governor and Nevada legislators will dismantle our state budget and the education and human services lifeline of Black, brown, and everyday Nevadans by cutting Nevada’s budget by 25 percent. Look for the tears they shed on the floor of the Legislature after taking our state’s already inadequate safety net and completely ripping it to shreds.  

That is it easier for legislators to do this than take on their corporate donors, especially from the mining industry, shows they’ve been held state captive far too long. As Bob Dylan sang, “take the rag away from your face, now’s not the time for your tears.”

Bob Fulkerson is development director for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada.