After skipping at least seven debates or forums, Joe Lombardo will be taking the debate stage for the first time tonight at 7pm. Nearly a year into his campaign, he still hasn’t answered questions or given clear stances on the issues that matter to Nevadans.
Here are five questions Lombardo has yet to answer:
- What restrictions to abortion do you support and how would you implement them?
Lombardo has been anything but clear about where he stands when it comes to Nevadans’ right to choose. To the mainstream media, he doubled down on being anti-choice, saying there should be no exceptions beyond rape, incest and health of the mother. Immediately after, he claimed he supports Nevada’s current law allowing abortion for up to 24 weeks. THEN, when asked by a conserative columnist if he’d sign a 13 week abortion ban, Lombardo said he would.
- What are you doing as sheriff to address the staggering rise in homicides that led to one of the deadliest years in Clark County in 2021?
Coming off the deadliest year in the last five and with 2022 following the same pace, Clark County families are facing surging homicide and property crime rates while Lombardo campaigns for a promotion. Lombardo has continually blamed the legislature for rising crime, but when given the chance to oppose it, Metro remained neutral on their sweeping criminal justice bill.
- You’ve previously expressed support for efforts to defund the police. Is that why you have over 200 vacancies on the force and upwards of $120 million in unspent funds to hire more officers?
Despite expressing support for defunding the police several times, Lombardo has built his campaign around fighting all efforts to defund the police. Yet, Metro is currently understaffed while the More Cops Fund–which is funded by a sales tax increase Lombardo fought relentlessly for–has $125 million stockpiled.
- How will you ensure Nevadans have access to affordable health care?
Lombardo called Governor Sisolak’s public option bill–which is expected to expand health care access to 350,000 Nevadans–”bullshit” and then promised he’d “help…in that space” with no further explanation.
- You pushed for an increase in sales tax as sheriff. How can Nevadans trust you not to push to raise their taxes again?
While Lombardo is letting taxpayer dollars stockpile (from a tax he advocated for), he’s asking for millions more in Metro’s budget.
But if his past interviews are any indication, we have a feeling his answers might sound a little something like this…
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