— by Marilyn Kirkpatrick, Speaker of the Nevada State Assembly
With less than 100 days until Election Day and just over 80 until Nevadans start voting, I am writing to update you on the Assembly Democratic Caucus, something I hope to do periodically over the next few months. It has been my great honor to serve as the Speaker of the Nevada Assembly since 2013 and the leader of our caucus.
For the past several sessions, our caucus has proposed a legislative agenda of job creation, education, stemming the rate of foreclosures, making health care more accessible and affordable, and improving public safety. We have successfully fought for measures to —
- Put more Nevadans back to work and improve our economic diversification efforts.
- Increase funding for education and other critical state needs.
- Help ensure a quality teacher in every classroom.
- Improve the quality of our health care systems in Nevada.
- Strengthen laws to prosecute both white collar and violent criminals.
We want to continue to fight for these priorities in 2015. As we do in every election cycle, we have worked to recruit men and women who will not only be strong candidates capable of winning their seats, but who will also be legislators who can hit the ground running once they are elected.
We believe 2014 will be a good year for our caucus. Currently, 27 of the 42 members of the Nevada Assembly are Democrats. We have six outstanding new candidates running for six open seats, and 21 of our 27 Democratic incumbents are running for re-election, all of which have solid Democratic registration advantages. We are confident we will be successful in all of our races and that we have an opportunity to even pick up a seat for a super majority.
I am assisted in our efforts by Jason Frierson, our Assistant Majority Leader. All of our incumbents are working hard to win their own seats and to mentor our new candidates to help them win their races and get prepared to serve. And, of course, we are already working to develop our policy agenda for 2015, with legislative proposals that will continue to move our state forward.
If you would like more information on any of these races, or any other information on our caucus, please email us at info@nvassemblydems.com.