The Scoop with Tanya Flanagan

Wesley Knight 0:00
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Tanya Flanagan 0:19
Good morning, and thank you for joining me for the scoop with Tanya Flanagan, I'm so happy you decided to wake up and start your day with me here on the scoop, where we talk about life, joy, funny moments, trending topics and so much more, we promise to keep you in the know and find out what you know. So let's get started.

You Good morning Las Vegas. Good morning Nevada. And thank you for joining me for another edition of the scoop here on KU and B 91.5 jazz and more. Thank you for tuning in these past few weeks. I know we've had some recent shows you might have caught but it's a great time. We're in the midst of the 83rd legislative session in Carson City, and as you know, I'm one of your state representatives, so I'm bringing you shows and information from our state capitol, and today I am very pleased to welcome to the show another one of our very effective legislators who represents the northern part of our state. I have Selena LaRue hatch with me. She represents District 25 and I am enjoying the pleasure of getting to know her, working with her as a colleague. So without further ado, please allow me to welcome Assembly Member LaRue hatch to the show, Good morning. Selena, good morning. Thanks so much for having me today. Thank you for being here the show airs. You know hails mostly from Las Vegas, so I want to make sure, though, no matter where people are, they get an understanding of where your district is. We have 42 districts across the state. And so would you share with them the area that you represent? Yeah,

Selena La Rue Hatch 2:05
so I represent assembly district 25 which covers West Reno. So if you're up here in Washoe County, you know, I cover from McQueen high down to Reno high. It's an area that's got a lot of working professionals, you know, a lot of teachers, professors, lawyers, doctors, firefighters. And it's a great place to live, because we're really, really close to nature. Just a 30 minute drive up to donner, maybe 40 minutes up to Lake Tahoe, and it's a wonderful place to raise a family. I have

Tanya Flanagan 2:37
to say, we've been up here now. What are we on day? 80 Days? Maybe something. It's crazy how 100 it's a 120 day session, and it starts on February 3, and it goes until June 3, signing die. But it's amazing how the time moves and what you get to learn about this part of the state. If you're normally from the southern part, which I am, it is so pretty. The mountains, the snow, the trees, the deer just walk across the street. They use the crosswalk. It is, I don't know, it's very cool the time that we spend up here, even though we spend a lot of it in the building and in meetings, it is just really delightful. You mentioned that your community has teachers and firefighters, and I know that by day, you are an educator, so tell us a little bit about you and how you ended up deciding to run for office. And you know what inspired you, or what was the moment you said, I need to do this? Yeah,

Selena La Rue Hatch 3:40
no, I really appreciate that question, because, you know, I didn't plan to be an assembly member. I grew up on a ranch outside of Washoe County, up by Pyramid Lake. And, you know, I went to Washoe schools, and then I went away to college. I went to Boston University, where I studied history and political science, and I came back and I worked for some political campaigns, I worked for some nonprofits, but I just didn't feel like I was fulfilling my purpose, and I was serving my community, but not in the way that I really wanted to. And so then I went back to school, and I got my master's in teaching, and that's where I spent the next 10 years of my life. And I love it. I teach high school World History. I've taught in Title One schools and bubble schools, which are basically Title One schools, but not all of our families fill out the paperwork for free and reduced lunch. So we have all of the challenges, but none of the federal money to support it. And it's really, I think, incredibly meaningful work. I think that those kiddos need people in their lives to help support them and inspire them and help them achieve these great things. But through that work, I saw problems facing my students and their families. Number one of course was education. We have the largest class sizes in the nation. Not everybody knows that. The national average class size is 15. My. My classes when I first ran were between 38 and 45 students each, and I had six of them, and that is very common across the state, I think, in Clark oftentimes the classes are even larger. And then beyond the school issues, I saw hunger and I saw poverty and I saw homelessness, and I saw all of these things that my students and their families were struggling with, and I just felt like we needed to do something, and we needed to make sure their voices were being heard. So I didn't immediately run for office. I instead got really involved in my union, and I became a board member of our teachers association, and I started lobbying the school district to be honest at first, and then I realized, Oh, the school district doesn't have any money. Where does the money come from? It comes from the state. And so I started lobbying the legislature, and I started going to protests and organizing rallies and trying to make our voices heard. And it just felt like a lot of times we were rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, but not actually making the systemic changes that we needed. And so I decided, You know what, if our voices aren't being heard outside the building, then I'm going to get in the building and I'm going to bring my students and their families voices with me. And that is what has oriented every decision that I've made in this building ever since I got here.

Tanya Flanagan 6:14
Well, I one of the things I love about having these conversations is, when you're on the campaign trail, you know there's this march towards the finish line, and then once we get to this point, and you start to work with people, the very stories that people have in their backgrounds that let you know who they are and what they believe in and why they were inspired to Be a deeper impact, more impactful. Part of the process is always just so fascinating to me, and so listening to your story just now of what the motivating factors were that led you down the pathway to do this work, because I always say that the legislature is the most citizen based government space that we have, and you touched on so many issues that yet, every day, we sit in committees and we're listening to Bill ideas or legislative suggestions that affect poverty, that affect hunger, that affect Education and academic outcomes, trying to create programs, solutions, policy that will make a difference, increase people's access to opportunities and level the playing field. And it is just as mind boggling, because sometimes I used to be a reporter in my past life, and sometimes I feel like the very issues that I was covering when I started as a reporter, 2030, years ago, are still issues that are being dealt with today. What I find is sometimes the audience or the population that we're targeting to help has shifted. That has changed. So it's just, I don't know. It's just kind of, it's super interesting. You serve. We serve on committees up here, and you mentioned education, and I know one of the committees you sit on is education. Does that just align for you? Was it one of your first choices? Because while we don't choose exactly you do get to kind of throw into the pot. Hey, I like to do this committee or that committee.

Selena La Rue Hatch 8:31
I love the committees that I'm on. I'm on education natural resources and judiciary and education and natural resources, I actually did specifically request because they align with my background. Education is obvious, because I'm a teacher, but natural resources, because I grew up on a ranch, and so I understand some of that, agricultural water issues, rural issues, that not necessarily all of our colleagues have that expertise. But education is always my orienting principle. I have a seven year old daughter. I have 200 students every single year, and I think if we are not serving our children, we are not doing our job in this building. And I think that that is honestly the most important committee in this building. You

Tanya Flanagan 9:13
know, I have to agree with you, and I sit on education. We sit on education together. And people ask me often, I get the question, what's your favorite committee, and I have education, revenue and Government Affairs, and I say actually revenue surprising is surprising to me. How I find it interesting and what we deal with government affairs, because it allows me to look deeper into a space that I've served in and worked in for such a long time, but now, because I've worked with Clark County for 22 years, seeing policy through a different lens, being on the other side, I really enjoy. But education. It's like, even though sometimes it feels daunting, the presentation I have ever since the beginning, said, however, it is probably the most important space that we're sitting. In based on the issues of what we're evaluating and trying to make determination in terms of what's good, what's bad, who does it help? Who does it hurt? How is it a benefit? Is it the best benefit? What's the long term, short term goal and education? Definitely is. It's crucial. It's really, really crucial.

Selena La Rue Hatch 10:18
It Yeah, I agree, and I think, I think that to one of the things about education, you know, change is slow, right? We know change is slow. I'm a history teacher, change takes a long time. But I think with education, it feels so much more imperative. Because as a teacher, I sit there and I realize, if we don't get something done this session, and we come back in two years, that is two more graduating classes that we have lost, that we haven't been able to help. And so I think, for me, looking at it in that way of you know, a student only has 12 years in our K 12 system, maybe 13. I guess with with kindergarten, they only have 13 years if we don't get something fixed. In that time, we lose a generation. And so to me, that's why I think it is so critical that we work on it now, and we work on it

Tanya Flanagan 11:02
quickly. Yeah, and it's the preparation, you know, it's the responsibility of laying the groundwork for preparation, because all of those kids who are going through K through 12 should have the option and should feel equipped to choose whether it's vocational training, college, military, whatever the next step and chapter of their life is going to be. This is the foundation. This is the base of where they're being prepared to go into that space, and there's a responsibility to but it's really interesting and enlightening. The conversation, the people who come to talk to you about the different things when we're you know, you're up here in Carson City, it's very different. People talking about learning techniques, reading strategies, curriculum approaches, tutorial programs. We look at concepts that we like or don't like, competency based learning whether you like it or don't like it. The profile, the student Pro, the student profile or something, yeah, different things, portrait of a learner. There's so many different things, and it's really it is our responsibility to vet these concepts on behalf and that is thank you to those who have voted to place us here. To you know, place your trust in us. It is quite the responsibility to vet these concepts, and you're looking at it from everyone brings their historical their value system, their life experience, their family influence, all of these factors are work experience, all of these factors come to the table as legislators are working on on these committees and looking at the issues that come before them. What would you say to someone considering getting involved? You talked about how you went, but what the evolution of your process was. But what would you say to someone who's thinking I want to be more engaged, or maybe I'd run for office one day, I would

Selena La Rue Hatch 13:05
say, we absolutely need you. And I think that you just explained why we need to have a diversity of voices in this building, and we need to have a diversity of elected voices, but we also need a diversity of community voices. And that's what I always tell folks, is you don't have to run for office, although I would love for that to be the case, and I am happy to help anybody that wants to do that, but you have to be involved. There are over 1000 registered lobbyists in this building, and most of them do it as a full time job, but a lot of my constituents, and I'm betting a lot of your constituents also don't actually make it to this building. Don't necessarily know what's going on because they have full time jobs. They even my constituents, it'll take them 45 minutes to drive here in order to participate in a hearing. For years, they'd have to go and participate remotely. It's not easy to engage. And so I think what happens is we don't always get ordinary voices of working folks in these hearings and in this building as much as we should and as much as we need. And so what I say to folks is you need to be involved. How you can whether it is emailing legislators, writing in public comment, testifying or going to a protest or going to a rally or going to your local school board, but engaging someone in getting your opinion to us is, I think, one of the most important things, so that we can make sure we are making holistic decisions that reflect the community and don't just reflect whatever special interest happens to have the money to get folks in this building.

Tanya Flanagan 14:37
Absolutely and I want to say to that add to that point. We always tell people how important it is to vote, and it is crucial that you vote democracy. Your voice being heard is so crucial. But, and I know we're all busy, as you mentioned, families, work, children, extracurricular activities, everything. It doesn't stop at the ballot box, where you drop your vote in. They engaged, stay connected, because, as I mentioned, it is the most citizen centric space. It touches your life so personally. And in order to know what what we should do, some of what we do is based on what you bring. Because my life experience is different from the life experience of the person who lives in my district, down the street around the corner for me. And if I don't know what you're going through, I don't know that's an issue, but if you talk to me, I may discover that that's an issue, that there's a hole. Because a lot of times what's going on up here is what they call, what we call clean up legislation. So there will be something in Nevada, revised statute. This is a little bit incomplete that someone didn't think about when that was first introduced. And so there's an opportunity to submit for a simple change to the Nevada Revised Statutes that will make things work smoothly and more cohesively and just work better. And part of those, those types of ideas come from constituents sharing what they're experiencing in life, staying connected to the process. Wouldn't you agree?

Selena La Rue Hatch 16:08
Oh, absolutely. You know, I always say it's not our job to come up and say, I know everything here's all the problems that I think we should fix. Our job is to figure out who's not at the table and how we can pass them the microphone, and that, I think, is a partnership, because I want to pass the microphone, but if people are not telling me what's going on, and they're not reaching out, I don't know who's not being heard. And so I think that that is what is essential, is that we need to hear from folks. We need to hear from the community on what your needs are, so we can accurately represent it. Now let me

Tanya Flanagan 16:39
say the collaborations recently, Senator Dina Neal from down south and Assembly Member Natha Anderson presented a piece of legislation before the revenue committee. And folks, it was just, I was like, Wow. I was like, blown away by the thought process behind this piece of policy legislation that was introduced by them centered around the sales tax concept. But so happy to see Senator Dana Neil back in the building absolutely and just to watch her brilliance on display in this committee session. It was, it was, it was awe inspiring. I was like, Wow. I tip my hat. I mean, it left me like, oh my gosh, she's a beat, She's a beast, she's amazing. And I was like, oh my goodness, that is beautiful. Like it was just, it was just so smart. I was like, oh my god, her and NASA Anderson, Assembly Member Natha Anderson, did it together, and it was just like, between the children, it was just very, very impressive piece of legislation. And other folks do good work with her every day. I just happen to have the privilege of seeing that particular one, but it's quite a space. What would you what do you see yourself doing? I don't know, after this or adjacent to it. That

Selena La Rue Hatch 17:54
is an interesting question that not many people have asked me. And I think you know what I always tell folks, when you run for office, I think the first thing people ask is, what's your next office? Where are you climbing to? They just assume, I think, that we all have this ambition to be president. And you know what I always tell people is, I ran for office to fix life for my kiddos and to fix education in Nevada, and I am in the place to do that. And so my my future plans are to stay here for as long as I can, or until that is fixed, and then go from there. I think that whatever steps I need to take to make sure that we have a world class education system, those are the steps that I want

Tanya Flanagan 18:37
to take. Thank you for that. What is one of the things you're most proud of that has been accomplished, or most pleased that it has been accomplished,

Selena La Rue Hatch 18:48
you know, I last session, one of my greatest sorts of pride was our significant investments into our education system. You know, we, we invested an additional $2 billion into Nevada education, and I think it made a huge difference. I you know, when I first ran for office, I said I had classes of 38 to 45 this year, I have classes of 30 to 35 which is still over the national average, but it has made a significant difference, and I'm going to continue to bang that drum, because we have been underfunded for decades upon decades, and it's not going to take one session to dig us out of that hole, but I think we made a real investment in our students, and I'm really proud of us trying to protect that investment and make sure that we're not going backwards. How do

Tanya Flanagan 19:33
you feel about some of the things that we're seeing? I know people ask these questions, so I don't want to not talk about it, how things are evolving at the national level, and let's just stay in the education space, affecting education at the state level, because we have some very serious things happening at the federal level, affecting the

Selena La Rue Hatch 19:50
state level. No, I'm, I'm very concerned about the federal changes in education, especially, I think the dismantling of the Department of Education is going to have a. Of a stating effect on our students, our Title One money, which goes to our students in poverty that have some of the greatest challenges in schools, that potentially is going away, and that I taught at a title one school, at those schools don't function without that money. Our protections for students, our idea is the basic law that protects students with disabilities, even our civil rights protections that ensure that we can't segregate in our schools. All of that is run through the Department of Education, and it really scares me that we are going to potentially get rid of those protections, and some of our most vulnerable kiddos are now going to be left to the whims of state legislatures, and it's why I'm really grateful that we have a strong majority here that recognizes this and is trying to write protections into state law, because I can't control what happens in other states, but I can at least try to protect our kiddos, but I think that it is going to have devastating effects across the nation. Yeah,

Tanya Flanagan 20:59
there's so much happening. Every day you see something different happening. I remember having a conversation, I said, it couldn't be a more critical time to choose to be engaged at this level in the political space, because so much is happening. There's so much change is occurring, and it's so much uncertainty we have this week up United States senator Jackie Rosen, and we also had United States Congressman Mark Amodei. So we had both southern statewide, southern and northern federal level elected officials up to talk with us about the critical climate and very different views on this climate in our country, you know, Congressman AMADE didn't say a lot. Senator Rosen did say a lot, you know, but both at least touched on the need to the work to the attempt to work together, as I guess, the fairest way that I can put that, the attempt to work together, to look at the citizenry as a whole. You know, who's going to get it right? How we get it right? How we keep working it? It's a very interesting time. You know. No,

Selena La Rue Hatch 22:13
it is. And, you know, there's some legislation I'm working on that some folks say, Well, shouldn't that be a federal thing? Can't Congress make that change? And I just keep telling folks, we cannot wait on Congress to protect our citizens, because it is dysfunctional. I don't know that. There's a whole lot of folks working together, and there's a lot of chaos and unpredictability. And I think the most important thing we can do as state leaders is make sure we are shielding our citizens from the worst impacts you and I can't do anything if Medicaid gets cut, and that is devastating, right? And we will have to react with our state budget. But what we can do is we can write into law, state law, the Affordable Care Act, protections, the idea which protects students with disabilities, and I think that is my biggest focus, is, yes, Washington is chaos. I have to focus on that, and I have to focus on what we can do for

Tanya Flanagan 23:07
our people. And, you know, and you made a point earlier, that we're working to look at those spaces where there's holes, and to try and plug them into plan ahead and and you're right, those conversations come before us every day. Well, can't this happen at the federal level? There is so much chaos, still so chaotic every day. There's something different in the headlines that the move is to act now, to right, be proactive, to be as proactive as possible, versus as reactive. And there will still be some things where we're pivoting and adjusting for what has occurred, but where you can be proactive, there's a responsibility to see that. That's part of what being in this space is, to be visionary, if you will, as much as possible. We're getting into the last couple of minutes of the show, or last few minutes, but I want to make sure that if you have social media handles or anything where people can continue to get to know you better and stay connected and talk with you. They have an opportunity to do that. So if there's some social media handles that you like to share for ways to stay connected with you,

Selena La Rue Hatch 24:11
go and do that. All right, I will. Thank you. So you know my website is a hub for everything. It is just Selena for nevada.com. Totally spelled out, S, E, L, E, N, A for Nevada. And that's actually all my social media handles. They're all Selena for Nevada. So if you just look up that website, it has links to all the social media or you can just look up Selena for Nevada and find me on pretty much any platform. I like that

Tanya Flanagan 24:35
nice and simple to the point, well, I like to let people get to know you a little bit too outside of the political space. And we are into last couple minutes, so we'll do what I kind of call the rapid fire thing. And so it is where you share fun stuff about you quick one answer responses. So your favorite movie? Oh,

Selena La Rue Hatch 24:57
probably Fiddler on the Roof. We. Hmm, favorite book, Lord of the Rings.

Tanya Flanagan 25:03
If you could go to a live concert, who would you want to see? Green Day? Favorite place to travel, best vacation. Oh, Boston, hands down. You know, that is a great city. I've been to Boston. That is a great historical city to tour, and you can walk in and see so much. Best type of food, favorite food, favorite sushi, favorite dish. And then favorite type, I would say sushi, is that your favorite type overall, like there was a

Selena La Rue Hatch 25:30
sushi is definitely my favorite type of food.

Tanya Flanagan 25:35
And one thing you love place you love most in Nevada. Oh, Lake Tahoe, for sure. You know, I went up there. I someone asked you that, and I'm like, You know what? Actually saying, Lake Tahoe? Yeah, coming from the south, impressive. I was like. I was like, Lake Maine is beautiful. You're driving through the mountains. But I got to Lake Tahoe, and I said, oh boy, oh boy, oh, wow, it is, folks, if you've never come up here to the top part of the state, and if you're in the top part of the state, I don't care where you are in the state, if you can do it and you can get there, Lake Tahoe is not to be missed. You want to see it well. Assembly Member, LaRue hatch, I appreciate you coming on, spending some time with me here on the scoop and thank you everyone for tuning in and listening to another edition of the show right here on KU MZ, 91.5 jazz and more. We will continue to do all that we can to bring you top quality programming and good listening music. So to my fellow assembly member, thank you so much. Happy resurrection day, everyone, thank you for being on the show. I want to thank you for tuning in to the scoop with me. Tonya Flanagan, and I want to invite you to get social with me. I'm on Facebook and Twitter. My name is my handle, T, a n, y, A F, l, a n, a G, A N. You can also find me on Instagram, at Tanya almond eyes Flanagan, and if you have a thought, an opinion or a suggestion, don't hesitate to shoot me an email to tonya.flanagan@unlv.edu. Thanks again for joining in. Stay safe and have a great week. You.