Teachers group plans lawsuit to block Las Vegas stadium funding

By Casey Harrison (contact)

Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023 | 4 p.m.

A political action committee backed by the state’s largest teachers union said Tuesday it is intending to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the $380 million taxpayer-funded spending bill that will go toward building a Major League Baseball stadium on the Las Vegas Strip.

Dawn Etcheverry, president of the Nevada State Education Association and its PAC Schools Over Stadiums, stated in a press release the group intends to sue to overturn Senate Bill 1, which was passed by the Nevada Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Joe Lombardo in June.

“After several months of our organizing, our commitment to blocking the use of public funds for the stadium project has only grown stronger,” Etcheverry said in the release. “We believe SB1 violates at least 5 (sic) sections of the state Constitution which should lead to the bill’s partial or total invalidation. We have asked legal counsel to draft litigation and will be filing to overturn SB1 in Nevada District Court in the coming weeks.”

SB1 has long considered a crucial piece of funding for the construction of a $1.5 billion, 33,000-seat ballpark development at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue, where the Tropicana Hotel currently sits, in a bid to secure the relocation of the Oakland Athletics. Also on Tuesday, MLB owners kicked off a series of meetings over three days in Arlington, Texas, where the 30 owners will vote on the A’s relocation proposal.

Schools Over Stadiums claims SB1 violates the following clauses in the Nevada Constitution:

• Article IV, Section 18(2), which states such a spending bill requires two-thirds approval by the Legislature, despite SB1 passing with a simple majority.

• Article IV, Section 19, which states “no money shall be drawn from the treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law.”

• Article IV, Section 21, which decrees “... in all other cases where a general law can be made applicable, all laws shall be general and of uniform operation throughout the state.”

• Article IX, Section 3, which allows the state to contract public debts, “but shall never … exceed the sum of two per cent of the assessed valuation of the State … and every such law shall provide for levying an annual tax sufficient to pay the interest semiannually, and the principal within twenty years from the passage of such law.” Article IX.3 also states such an appropriation “shall not be repealed nor the taxes postponed or diminished until the principal and interest of said debts shall have been wholly paid.”

• Article IX, Section 4, which mandates the state shall “never assume the debts of any county, town, city or other corporation” unless such debts are used to provide for public defense.

The bill is structured so that the state would pay up to $180 million in transferable tax credits, of which $120 million could be made refundable. That’s paired with roughly $125 million in general obligation bonds issued by Clark County. The county would also invest a separate $25 million for infrastructure surrounding the stadium. The allusion to Article IV, Section 19 and Article IX, Section 4 appear to target that funding mechanism.

Tuesday’s announcement comes a day after the PAC said it was also appealing a ruling made earlier this month by Carson City District Court Judge James Russell, who tossed the group’s petition initiative on grounds the petition lacked a copy of SB1 in its entirety and had too vague summary of a summary of the bill.

That case was brought by a pair of lobbyists affiliated with trade unions that favor the Las Vegas stadium project. Meanwhile, officials from the joint construction venture Mortenson-McCarthy — who together also constructed Allegiant Stadium and whom the A’s hired in August — told Clark County officials last month that construction for the venue will need to begin by April 2025 in order to be completed in time for the start of the 2028 baseball season.

The Athletic news site reported late Monday that owners are expected to pass the relocation proposal with minimal opposition. It also detailed findings of a report commissioned by a team of MLB owners to vet the A’s move concluded that tourism will be a vital part of the team’s success in Southern Nevada, as well as how resort operators would sponsor and support the team.

That report also noted the move from the Bay Area — one of the nation’s largest television markets — to Las Vegas, which ranks as the 40th-largest TV market and would place the A’s in the league’s smallest media market.

The A’s have played at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum since the club’s arrival there by way of Kansas City ahead of the 1968 season. The team had spent years trying to build a new stadium in several cities around Northern California, but turned its focus solely to Las Vegas in April after potential funding shortfalls stalled talks for a waterfront development off the San Francisco Bay.

Should the owners approve the A’s relocation bid, it would mark the first time an MLB franchise has moved since the Montreal Expos moved to the nation’s capital in 2004 and changed their name to the Washington Nationals.

Before a Las Vegas stadium is erected on the 9-acre plot where the Tropicana Hotel currently resides, the building will need to be razed. It’s unclear when that specifically will be, as the A’s must wait for their relocation bid to be OK’d first by MLB.