Q6 asks NV to defend, strengthen abortion rights

The Flippo factor. David Flippo may be relatively new to politics, and even newer to Nevada’s 2nd congressional district, where he is the Republican nominee this year. But he has already chalked up an exceedingly rare political achievement: His candidacy has prompted a couple national election rating outfits to no longer list CD2 as shoe-in for Republicans.

Earlier this month, the ratings group Inside Elections moved Nevada’s second district from “solid Republican” to “lean Republican.” And yesterday the district was one of four congressional districts nationally for which Sabato’s Crystal Ball changed the rating from “safe” to “likely” Republican. 

“Things may end up bad enough for Republicans that we might see upsets in some places we don’t expect. Toward that end, we are expanding our Likely Republican column,” the ratings outfit said.

It notes retiring CD2 Republican Congressman Mark Amodei has publicly (and with relish, ha ha) refused to endorse Flippo, and “Flippo has a credentialed challenger in former state Assembly Majority Leader Teresa Benitez-Thompson.”

Yes, Flippo’s still “likely” to win. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — if any Nevada Republican can lose CD2, it’d be Flippo. He’s sump’n special.

IN NEVADA CURRENT

Nevada’s abortion rights protections were put in place via a citizen-driven referendum passed by voters in 1990 and would require a direct vote of the people to change. That is a fairly high bar to overcome, but given the onslaught of attacks on reproductive rights across the nation under the Trump administration, advocates want the bar to be even higher. April Corbin Girnus reports: With 2nd approval of Question 6 , voters can secure abortion rights in state constitution

They’re called child care deserts, but maybe policymakers would pay more attention if they were called child care wastelands? Anyway, Nevada has lots. Oh, of child care deserts, not child care. Michael Lyle reports: Percentage of NV children in child care deserts outpaces region, analysis finds

President Trump, in the ballroom, with the crypto. "The cryptocurrency industry’s top legislative priority was torpedoed by the wildly pro-crypto president’s very own cryptocurrency corruption.” I added more details and backstory and context to yesterday’s newsletter and transmogrified it into a column: NV senators voted against it, but Trump’s flagrant self-enrichment is what killed the crypto bill

From the D.C. bureau:

US House leaves for campaign break without action on AI, affordability. Dang. A vote to impeach Secretary of Omnishambles Pete Hegseth could have been forced if the Republican House Squeaker hadn’t ordered the place shut down.

Fed raises interest rates for first time in 3 years, battling persistent inflation. Trump’s reaction to this was some truly peak ignorant blathering octogenarian, by the way. 

Good Luck