AP Photo
A rendering of the Oakland A’s proposed Las Vegas stadium
Monday, Feb. 5, 2024 | 4:44 p.m.
A group of Nevada teachers filed a lawsuit Monday challenging the constitutionality of a Nevada law that will allocate $380 million in public funding to build a new baseball stadium for the Oakland Athletics on the Las Vegas Strip.
“Educators throughout Nevada are frustrated by the lack of focus by politicians on real priorities, like public education,” Vicki Kreidel, one of the plaintiffs, said in a Strong Public Schools Nevada news release. “There’s been more planning of a ‘world class’ stadium than there has been implementing a funding plan to ensure a ‘world class’ education for our kids. These misguided priorities are why Nevada continually ranks at the bottom of all the good lists."
The lawsuit was filed in Nevada’s First Judicial District Court in Carson City by the teachers group, a political action committee affiliated with the Nevada State Education Association teachers union, as well as two private individuals. The NSEA also oversees a separate PAC called Schools Over Stadiums which is circulating a petition seeking to overturn the spending bill via ballot referendum.
In addition to the state of Nevada, Gov. Joe Lombardo and state treasurer Zach Conine are listed as defendants. Elizabeth Ray, spokeswoman for Lombardo’s office, declined comment citing the pending litigation.
The suit also makes good on a promise by NSEA President Dawn Etcheverry, who said in November the group would challenge the legality of the bill. The suit alleges SB1 violates at least five clauses of 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.
Major League Baseball in November unanimously approved the Athletics’ relocation bid from Oakland to Las Vegas, all but ending a yearslong struggle over keeping the team in the San Francisco Bay Area. The team announced about a year ago it would forego talks to build waterfront ballpark district at Oakland’s Howard Terminal in favor of a proposed 30,000-seat stadium at Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue.
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.
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.
A’s owner John Fisher said last month that renderings of the proposed stadium will soon be published, but that stadium developers are conferring with Bally’s Corp., which runs the current Tropicana site, and Gaming and Leisure Properties, Inc., which owns the land the resort sits on, to include a possible resort next to the stadium.
Officials say the Tropicana will close permanently April 2, though details on when demolition may begin are still unknown.
