Among the key takeaways: Ford and Yeager reported the highest aggregate value of trips provided to them, followed by Republican Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony, whose travels to Greece, Germany, Mexico and some U.S. destinations came with $15,000 worth of covered costs.

It’s the latest development in an acrimonious political divorce between state Democrats and the LVPPA, which broke from the ranks of most organized labor organizations to endorse President Donald Trump and a mix of other Republicans on the 2020 ballot, including congressional and state Senate Republican hopefuls.

Kelvin Atkinson, a former top Nevada state lawmaker who was convicted last year for campaign finance and wire act violations, was granted an early compassionate release Friday evening by a federal judge because of concerns about his possible susceptibility to COVID-19.

Campaign payments made by Fiore’s PAC to a business owned by her daughter highlight Nevada’s loose laws and oversight on political spending, especially with no clear definition of “personal use” or guidance on how to avoid ethical conflicts when paying family members out of campaign funds.

About a dozen seats in the Legislature will have no incumbent in the race in the 2020 election, setting the stage for some fierce competition when candidates formally file to run in March, according to an analysis from The Nevada Independent.

Democratic Sen. Marcia Washington, whom county commissioners appointed in March to serve the remainder of former Senate Majority Leader Kelvin Atkinson’s term after he resigned, says she will not run for re-election. Democratic Assemblyman Greg Smith also will not seek re-election.

When I heard Joe Dickey had retired as an FBI supervisory special agent and was starting his own private investigations business with an emphasis on political campaigns, I couldn’t help smiling.

Summers-Armstrong has served as chief steward for Regional Transportation Commission. Since May, she has been an executive board member of SEIU Nevada, which represents thousands of health care workers and public employees in the state. According to her campaign announcement, advocating for cash bail reform is one reason Summers-Armstrong decided to run for office.

One of the faces at the forefront of efforts against human trafficking is Nick Trutanich, U.S. attorney for the District of Nevada, whose office is tasked with investigating such cases. The Nevada Independent caught up with Trutanich at the seminar to discuss the challenges of those prosecutions, as well as his office’s priorities on marijuana enforcement and public corruption cases.

SB557, which was introduced into the Senate late Saturday, marks a push by Cannizzaro and other legislative Democrats to improve the state’s campaign finance laws after former Senate Majority Leader Kelvin Atkinson resigned in disgrace amid a federal investigation into his use of campaign funds. All 13 Senate Democrats signed on as co-sponsors to the bill.

Cannizzaro, who submitted the bill draft request on May 15, said in a brief interview that the bill would address transparency in campaign finance, but declined to give specific details on what the bill might entail or when it might be introduced.

Newly appointed Democratic Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro says she only found out the night before his announcement that her predecessor, Kelvin Atkinson, was the subject of a federal investigation and planned to resign.

The sudden resignation marks a precipitous fall for Atkinson, the state’s second African-American and first openly gay Senate majority leader. A legislative mainstay, Atkinson was first elected to the state Assembly in 2002 and joined the Senate after the 2012 election.

Nevada’s Democratic legislative leaders are vowing to increase the minimum wage, tackle surprise emergency room bills and ban for-profit, private prisons this session with the help of the state’s first Democratic governor in two decades.

But amid a relatively slow first three weeks (outside a contentious gun background check bill), lawmakers are preparing for a potentially major legal opinion from legislative legal staff that could have significant implications for Gov. Steve Sisolak’s $8.8 billion budget and the rest of the session.

Emotional testimony from nearly two-thirds of the 21 senators dominated debate on Wednesday, with at least two senators saying close family members had been killed by gun violence. But Republicans and Democrats staunchly disagreed over whether the legislation would fulfill the will of voters who approved a substantially similar 2016 ballot initiative or create arbitrary and unneeded restrictions for gun owners.

An emotionally charged hearing over a proposal to require background checks on private gun sales and transfers marked the first pitched partisan battle of the 2019 legislative session, with lawmakers split on whether the bill would carry out the will of the voters or create barriers to legal gun ownership.

The collected data offers a picture, though, of how the most powerful and well-connected industries in Nevada — gaming, energy and organized labor — contribute to campaigns and offers a glimpse at how legislative campaigns are funded and operate. It also lends useful context as the 120-day Legislature gets underway, and lawmakers face pressure and requests from the very same businesses and entities that helped fund their campaigns.

During largely ceremonial activities in the snowy capital of Carson City, Democratic legislative leaders Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson and Senate Majority Leader Kelvin Atkinson both highlighted the milestone Nevada reached Monday in officially becoming the first state in the nation with a female-majority legislature.

Even more so than last session, the relationship between the two leaders will be in the spotlight as they, along with newly inaugurated Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, attempt to push for progressive policy goals previously unattainable under past Republican leadership.