Vote Nevada Supporters,
To celebrate Constitution Day on September 17th, the National Constitution Center hosted an event to examine: James Madison, Ratification, and the Federalist Papers.
Seeing James Madison is my favorite founder, I wanted to share the recording: https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/podcast/james-madison-ratification-and-the-federalist-papers
Our Wednesday evening meeting with Michelle Chan from the Nevada Grow program went really well. The conversation ranged from how to develop a business plan, to the mental health strains of owning a business, to weaknesses in the grant allocation process.
We agreed that grassroots economic development that drives investment in Nevada’s social institutions must supplement economic diversification programs that merely lure established businesses into the state with tax abatements. You can listen to the recording here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OPBcN_DgPBeN3vVc0U1w_3IQD4CEB3c_/view?usp=sharing
Our meeting today on managing campaigns for candidates and ballot questions was very informative with lots of good discussions. We will definitely follow up with a future meeting on running ballot questions. You can watch the recording here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/116p9dbp8aXB7PrUQH_RA_pXcPXcfFWy7/view?usp=sharing
Redistricting news: The Legislative Council Bureau gave legislators access to the final Census 2020 data in a format compatible with the current redistricting software and the redistricting software on September 10th. The public will not receive access to this data and to the legislative mapping software for a few weeks and the unofficial word is that a special session to approve the final redistricting maps will not be held until November.
So, legislators (not the legislature, because the legislature is not in session) will have the ability to draw maps without public scrutiny or input for approximately six to eight weeks.
You can review what is publicly available on redistricting on the legislature’s website: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/Division/Research/Districts/Reapp/2021/
If you would like to see some sample maps for Nevada, Dave’s Redistricting website has the 2020 Census data uploaded and sample maps for each state available. You can go here to see Nevada’s sample maps: https://davesredistricting.org/maps#state::NV
If you click on any of the sample maps, you will go into the map-drawing software. If you would like to see how the map-drawing software works, you can view a training video here: https://youtu.be/bEOs5Yn0QMI
Dave’s Redistricting software and the legislative software we will use in Nevada have an integrity-checking feature. This feature shows you whether a redistricting map meets all federal guidelines for fair districts; which includes, compact and contiguous lines, equal population, and does not break up or compress communities of interest.
If we start a special session with maps already drawn, we may need to use this feature to quickly integrity-check those maps.
The Princeton Gerrymandering Project and RepresentUs Redistricting Report Card project is up and running. Grades for maps currently submitted in some states are available here: https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/redistricting-report-card/
You can see what scores as an F here: https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/redistricting-report-card/?planId=rec1ovrNKW7xjVsKb
Some Vote Nevada meetings coming up in October are: The Nuts and Bolts of Running a Ballot Question and, for Indigenous People’s Day, Civic Engagement and Tribal Sovereignty.
If you have not yet reviewed our fundraising projects for 2021-2022, you can read more here: https://vote-nevada-blog.org/2021/09/05/vote-nevada-civic-projects-fundraising/
Altogether, we are fundraising for $10,000 for our 2021-2022 civic engagement projects. If you are interested in supporting these worthwhile endeavors, please consider donating through our
Facebook fundraising page if you are on Facebook (we pay no fees through Facebook):
https://www.facebook.com/donate/187176190048775/
Or
Our Square Donation page (we pay a small transaction fee through Square):
https://checkout.square.site/merchant/MLAC21JKV6XNH/checkout/CEXZLRNNSBLFPFI5H4FIF2KH
Thank you for being Nevadans with me!
Sondra
Vote Nevada 