With many schools in the U.S. lacking updated or adequate heating, air-conditioning and ventilation, U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.)  introduced legislation to support energy efficient improvements that would also lessen by $2 million the current $8 million energy bill for K-12 schools. The Renew America’s Schools Act would create a federal grant program through the Department of Energy in which $100 million in annual funding for five years would be used toward improvements, upgrades,  renewable energy technologies, as well as  zero-emission vehicles and infrastruct ..read more

Following the death of George Floyd, Black Lives Matter protests and a president stoking racial division, UNLV Libraries began a panel series titled, “We Need To Talk: Conversations on Racism for a More Resilient Las Vegas.”  Moderated by Claytee White, Director of the Oral History Research at  UNLV Libraries, the live-streamed series featuring UNLV researchers and community experts discussing systemic racism and possible solutions. Beginning last September discussions have centered on criminal justice, communications and economics with each panel designed to examine the myriad ways ..read more

The Spectrum will be going into our third year in 2021. Like everyone else, we’ve had a tough year. We’ve struggled to get the magazine published. We succeeded most months. In 2021 our plan is to publish bi-monthly and to focus on our digital presence. Watch for Publisher Rob Schlegel to debut his Rob’s Spectrum View in January. You will be able to find this weekly news commentary on YouTube. Just look for Las Vegas Spectrum. Our first issue was published on New Year’s Day 2018. We choose an up-andcoming leader in our community and had our photographer Tonya Harvey photograph them in her studi ..read more

I hope you noticed we didn’t have a December issue of the Spectrum. Thanks to the COVID-19 restrictions, there just wasn’t enough advertising to pay the printer, the postage, etc. We are back but we’ll be going bi-monthly until business is back to normal. I want to thank Gov. Steve Sisolak. As many readers know, I’ve been unhappy with him since the last legislature when he torched some of our progressive agenda items, especially the minimum wage, which will eventually raise to $12 but by then, counting inflation, it’ll be a decrease from when the former minimum wages of $7.25 to $8.25 was enac ..read more

This is the most important election of our lifetime. I bet you’ve heard that this year, right? I know I have; my auto fill almost finished the sentence for me as I typed. But I’m writing it again here now because it’s true. There have been so many things to be afraid of this year. There have been moments of despair, but one of the most hopeful days this year was the day the Supreme Court ruled to protect LGBTQ workers from discrimination. It was a long overdue ruling that meant so much to so many people. But there’s still more left to do. In Congress, I was so proud to cast my vote for the Equ ..read more

We thought that headline might grab your attention. We thought about this, after hearing Judge Amy Coney Barrett proclaim she is “pro-life.” Again, in this issue of the Spectrum, we’re offering the Spectrum Voter Endorsement Guide. Our volunteer group of community leaders have gone through and evaluated every race, as we jokingly say, from President to dog catcher and everything in between. We’ve made picks for every race in Southern Nevada, including the five ballot questions. Here is some of the progressively pro-life criteria we consider: Does the candidate support a living wage, one that w ..read more

There is a video circulating on the Internet in which a white Los Angeles film producer stands for three days in Harrison, Arkansas, holding a Black Lives Matter sign. Among the racial slurs, death threats and confused stares he received, was the oft-shouted line, “You’re white!” by the shocked, SHOCKED!, and angry passersby. The viewer is left to deduce that you can’t be white and care about human beings who are not. And that is a predominant problem in America particularly where a long line of lily-white male Christians have long been determining the law for black, brown, LGBTQ+, atheists, M ..read more

The Las Vegas Spectrum asked several Nevada residents and lawmakers to give us a quote on their memories of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, when it was painfully apparent to me that men, particularly white men, had all the rights and all the power. As a brand new law school student at the age of 40, I read Justice Ginsburg’s opinion in U.S. v. Virginia. She was diminutive but so eloquent, so intelligent, so persuasive, and so unafraid to stand up to the most influential, powerful and ingrained white male beliefs and attitudes that she was ..read more

Fear and optimism are the two words that describe this year’s election. Fear of vote and voter suppression, fear of what happens if Democrats fail to show up and vote, fear that the US Postal Service, controlled by a political appointee of Donald Trump will find a way to lose or delay the ballots. Optimism for a change in direction. Optimism that we will no longer be a pariah on the world stage. Optimism that enough of us will get out and vote, thus erasing any possible challenge of the election results. In Nevada, all registered voters should have received their ballots in the mail.  If ..read more

“A political lifetime,” David Parks said in an oral history interview 20 years ago, “can be really short.” This year, Parks concludes a career in state and local government that has lasted 50 years, 24 of them spent in the Nevada State Legislature as an assemblyman and senator. In that time, Parks and other legislators he persuaded to follow him legislated equality and protection for LGBTQ+ citizens in every aspect of their lives. USA Today, in fact, has placed Nevada first among the 50 states as most gay-welcoming. Parks went to work for the city of Las Vegas in 1971 and eventually became dir ..read more