The Scoop with Tanya Flanagan

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a Kun V studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

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 Nevada, and welcome to another edition of this group with me. Tanya Flanigan, I used to say good morning Las Vegas that we are up in Carson City most of the time during this indies or legislative session, and so it just seems so much more appropriate to say good morning to the state as a whole. It's been a great time just getting to know both ends of the state and experience, and they're taking some cross state trips to drive from Southern Nevada up here to northern Nevada. And it is beginning to spring is upon us, and so the trees are turning green and things are blooming. The grass is getting green, the snow is melting on the mountains, so just a beautiful part of the of the state. If you haven't ever made a trip north, I encourage those in the southern portion of our state to take some time and visit the state's capital. We, as I mentioned, are in the legislative session, and so it's been exciting to bring a series of stories and shows to you on things that will go on here, surrounding the legislative times that you meet every two years today on the show, I have Tess Offerman, who is the director of government affairs, opinion, Public Affairs, and she wears that hat and a number of other hats. And so I think you're going to find this to be a really interesting show, and she's going to be a great person to get to know in the space that we have. So without further ado, good morning, Tess, and welcome to the show. Good morning.

Tessyn Opferman 2:07
Thanks for having me. Yeah, when I heard about but I know we were talking in your office, I think it was just last week, and you mentioned your show, I was really excited about it. I went and listened to an episode, and now I'm excited to be on it.

Tanya Flanagan 2:20
Well, I am so excited that you thought it was pretty cool and that you were graced me and asked for some of your time. I mentioned that you are the director of government affairs, opinion Public Affairs, but I know you were a number of other hats, so if you'd like to share a little bit of your resume with the listeners, that would be great.

Tessyn Opferman 2:35
Yeah, sure. So so as opinion Public Affairs is a contract lobbying firm. So we have a number of different clients. We work in a number of different spaces. And so, you know, when we say I wear a bunch of different hats, it's because every day is different, and it depends, you know, depending on which client I'm working with, at which which coalition I'm leading, I'm wearing different hats. So, you know, I can go into some of the clients and then sort of what I do with a few of them. So opinion represents, we've got almost, I think, around 30 clients right now, but we represent the Washoe County School District. That means I sit in a whole bunch of education meetings. I'm listening to education in the Senate and then the assembly and getting involved in, really, any bill that would touch the school district. We represent the Nevada Women's lobby and Nevada Women's lobby, I've actually worked with for quite a while. I

Tanya Flanagan 3:29
my first session was in 2017 and I worked with the women's lobby then. And then I served on the board. When I left lobbying and worked for the city of Reno, I served on the MATA women's lobby board. And then I came back and started representing them again. When the Nevada Women's lobby is involved in a number of different spaces. We host a monthly luncheon. We host grassroots lobby days, and I know we'll get into that a little bit. And so they're one of my favorite clients. We represent Pinyon. Represents the mining industry. We've got some healthcare organizations. I represent the National Association of Social Workers, and we brought forward a very interesting AI bill this session, so I've been working on that. And then the ask me retirees, so we also have a labor union, so a whole bunch of different policies that I get involved in, and that means I'm sitting in a bunch of different committees every day. Looks a little bit different for me. You know? That super exciting, and a great, I think, variety of clients that you mentioned. And so, yes, I do, while we're talking today, want to get into the weeks, and a few of them, you mentioned the women's lobby days, which is super cool. And about a couple of weeks ago, maybe three now, beginning of April, to the exact year was kind of like a mini conference, and the women came from different parts and participated in lobby days. So for those who are I'm sure many listeners are familiar with what lobbyists do and how vital lobbyists are to the process. But can you talk a little bit about how. You became a lobbyist and kind of what exactly that interests? There's probably hundreds to I don't know, 234, 100, I don't know, just a ton of lobbyists are in the legislative building every day on different issues, coming to see elected representatives about bills that are going forward, why they're good, why they're bad, where their interest happens to be in that particular field and the group that they represent. So how did you find yourself in this space of advocating? Yeah, as a lobbyist? Yeah, absolutely.

Tessyn Opferman 5:30
So yeah. First of all, to your point of, you know how many lobbyists there are? I don't know how many are registered this session, but usually it's in the realm of like 800 to 1000 so there are, yeah, there's a lot of lobbyists, and obviously they're sort of involved in varying levels of intensity. So you've got, you know, your in house lobbyists, and those are lobbyists who work for an organization and represent from inside that organization. And so sometimes that's business that could be a mining organization itself that could be and the energy that's nonprofits as well. Children's Advocacy Alliance has an in house lobbyist. So you've got in house lobbyists, and then you've got contract lobbyists. And so that's what I am, and that's generally a firm or an individual, but we represent a couple of different organizations, and then you have more what we call grassroots lobbying. And so those are activists that show up and support legislation, and some of those are registered lobbyists, if they're doing it on a regular basis. Sometimes they are not registered if they're just coming in for the day and representing something. I said, you know, how did I come to lobbying? It's funny, I don't think anyone graduates college and thinks, you know, oh, I'm going to go be a lobbyist. It didn't occur to me. I didn't necessarily know. Like, oh, what does you know? What does that mean? So I in 2016 I had graduated college, and 2016 as you may recall, was a fairly major presidential election. I went to school on the east coast, but I was from Nevada originally, and so when I graduated, I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do. Maybe I'm moving to Chile, but meanwhile, we've got this important election, and I want to get involved in it, and my state is particularly important for that election, so I'll move home to Nevada. I'll work on the 2616 presidential election, and then, you know, I'll figure out what I'm doing from there. So I did the election, and then it was November, and I didn't know what I was going to do, and someone who had worked on the campaign was looking for a legislative assistant. The legislative session was starting in 2017 and I was like, All right, you know what? I'll I'll delay my plans to move to Chile. I'll stay here another six months do the legislative session, see what it's about. And so I worked for a woman named Marlene Lockard. She's a legend here in Nevada. Her nickname is dragon lady. So I came into it not not knowing what to expect. But I loved lobbying that first session. I thought it was super interesting. It feels sometimes like playing chess, where you're figuring out kind of which move to make on which Bill at what time. I was very privileged that with Marlene, I got to work on issues that I cared about. So we, at the time, we represented the Nevada Women's lobby. We worked with SEIU, one of the labor unions. We worked with our pen retired public employees of Nevada. So I got to work on some issues that I really liked. I liked the experience. I liked the high paced nature of the Nevada legislature, and so I just stuck with it. So I did that session with Marlene. I went to the city of Rena for a little while, and then pinion called and said they wanted a lobbyist. And so I came and joined pinion. So I've moved around a little bit, but really it was, it was that first session of 2017 where I was like, huh, this is kind of a cool career. Like I said, I was privileged enough that I got to work on issues that I personally cared about, and I still get to do that, you know? I don't, I don't know that every lobbyist gets to say that. So I feel very privileged that the things that I support and bring are things that I think help Nevadans, and I personally can truly support it, which helps a lot. And the other thing I just think worth mentioning is that think sometimes lobbying has a dirty connotation. It's like, oh, there's There's big money behind it, and people are bringing shady policies. And that's not untrue, but it is also important to remember that everyone has a lobbyist, right? Government has a lobbyist. Nonprofits have a lobbyist, and they all need a voice. So yes, there are some shady lobbyists and shady lobbying that happens, but we also need lobbyists to represent the common interest. And just, you know, regular, regular people think, like I said, social workers is one of my clients, so I'm representing social workers, and I don't think I'm doing anything shady or bad for them.

Tanya Flanagan 9:43
I think I appreciate everything that you mentioned in that and especially the fair comments that not all lobbyists are genuinely good, are doing something that's genuinely good. And it's important to say that because it's just a fair statement to make, I also really. Is in coming to understand the space and the process. What are the things I really appreciate about it? Is the freedom that you get to build into a career space. Anytime I've ever watched a person who does lobbying as a career, it is like such a space of value, because you get to decide if you want to work on this or not, because this is something that you're absolutely committed to. It reminds me of that movie with was it Michael Douglas, and I forget the woman's name, that she was an environmental lobbyist, and he ends up falling in love with her. His wife passed away, and so he's a widowed president in this movie, but she's an environmental lobbyist, and she's a really, really smart environmental lobbyist in this movie, and he ends up finding her intriguing, and she only worked on things that she was really committed to and very passionate about. And you mentioned that it's like a game of chat, and you're looking at where other people are on this, on the issue, how it can work to your advantage. And that goes on both sides, even as a an elected representative understanding the process and who you need to build relationships with, and how to work on those relationships, and at the same time, who you you know at the at the root of it, the base of it, it's about what's good for the citizens of Nevada, different populations within the state as a whole, but how something is good for that population, and how do you achieve the best outcome and what the next steps are. So I appreciate the freedom that builds into it as a career, because a lot of times you don't always get to do something that you love to do, and then that also gives you a good quality of life space, if you will, while you're working on it. And I feel sometimes, and what I've come to observe about lobbying as a career is that it allows you to build in, not that it's for everyone, not that it's easy to do, to get into, to make a lucrative career out of it, one that will really actually pay your bills and allow you to do what you need to do, have health care, whatever, put your kids to school. But when you are able to to build that combination and get that that rhythm, I think it's a pretty cool space. So tip my hat to you and the others who found a way to do it. Yeah, no, go ahead. You go for it. No, I was just

Tessyn Opferman 12:22
gonna say you're right with all of what you said. And it does sort of feel like a privilege to be able to work in a space where I get to do something interesting and every day is a little bit different, while simultaneously working for some causes that I deeply care about, and I get to see the change. And know, you know, even in conversations, people are like, Oh, I get a couple years ago, we worked on a paid time off bill, and so now I know people get 40 hours a year of paid time off, and it's, it's not significant, but it's something, and I know, okay, that's a that's something we got to work on at the legislature. I saw that bill passed. I know exactly what the policy is, and now I get to see people, general people in the state that have no idea how that happened now they get that time off, and that's neat to watch,

Tanya Flanagan 13:04
and it means a lot for families who have small children, who when your kid is sick and you need to stay home, you know, it's the juggle between having enough money come in in this month, monthly earnings, and taking care of my kids and having that support. And I think it's important to try to build in the things that make the country great, that make family great, and to fight for those things. Because people, it's the little things that used to be a part of life sequences, and over time, we move away from those things, and we need to sometimes put some of it back for the good of the family and for the good of the state. So it's nice to be in the work on those things. You mentioned some industries that you guys do lobbying or work with, mining, healthcare, social workers. Ask me, these are huge pockets of critical value to the state mining. Recently, in October, I think it was that the opportunity to go on a tour when the mines up here in northern Nevada, and you hear about, you know, mining as an industry, you hear about gaming in Southern Nevada. You hear about mining in Northern Nevada, and gaming is easy because casinos are in your face that mines are more remote, and so you have to kind of go out and see what happens and how we go into more into a mountain, because there's copper or silver or whatever gold, or whatever it is that is there, and there's all these different minerals. We're such a minerally rich state that provides value to the economic bottom line, to help fund education and some other things, but how it works and to work in these spaces that are critical to the overall well being, I think it's cool that the combination of clients that you have, and then we talked about social workers, and there's a bill recently that talked about artificial intelligence. Is relative to social workers doing their work. So can you talk a little bit about those two spaces? And it gives the bill like two different ends of the spectrum, yeah, yeah.

Tessyn Opferman 15:09
Well, first, yeah. So you mentioned the the mining tour, and I it was great, right? That's where I got to meet you. We got to go on that mining tour together. That was my first mining tour that I had been on, and when I originally joined pinion Public Affairs, Dylan shaver is one of the partners of Pinyon, and he called me, and I said, Well, yeah, I'm willing to join pinion, but I want to go on a mining tour. So I was super excited to go on that tour. And I will say, you know, as far as we've got seven people who work for opinion, Public Affairs, and I would say I'm sort of least involved in the mining space, but, but I was so excited to go on that tour, and it is amazing. It gives you a whole different perspective of what, what what mines do, what it looks like. You know, the safety requirements at mines are, are very high. People are very, very safe at mines. There's a whole bunch of procedures to make sure that people aren't getting hurt in mines. I thought, you know, we took those pictures by one of the mining trucks. Those mining trucks are huge. The wheels are three times my height. It's also just neat. You know, mining keeps rural Nevada alive, and I think it's important to go out to the mines to fully understand what that means. It's easy in Vegas to, you know, we've got to be concerned about the environment, absolutely. And there's a push and pull with mining. But I think from Vegas, it's easy to be like, Oh, well, we really need to be concerned about where we're digging in, all the environmental impacts, but, but then you go out to the mines and you're like, Okay, well, we also need to be concerned about keeping these towns alive. And what keeps them alive is mining. And by the way, mining is, you know, they provide excellent jobs with very good salaries and very good benefits. So people are really successful because of the mining industry. So I just wanted to hit that because I it was equally exciting for me to go on that tour as far as the social workers. Yeah, so you mentioned one of the bills that we've brought forward this session is 8406 so what that does, Assembly Member Jackson is carrying that bill. It prevents AI from providing clinical therapy. So right now, what we're starting to see is that, you know, on Facebook, if you talk about therapy, you start to see Facebook ads that pop up and it's like, oh, this, this AI chat bot will provide therapy. This AI chat bot provides mental health support. And the social workers, we see it as being really dangerous, and there are times when, and we presented this in the hearing, but where people start to communicate with a chat bot and get more and more involved with the chat bot, and then the chat bot starts telling them incorrect information. There was a kid that was talking to it's called character AI, it's a chat bot that pretends to be a fictional character, and you can start talking to it, and it becomes your friend, and it's all this. Ai, character. Well, this, this kid. He was 14 year old, years old, started spending more and more time in his bedroom. He got more and more depressed. His mom noticed it, and he was going to his room because he had built this, this relationship with the chat bot. And so then he started telling this chat bot about his mental health, how he started to feel depressed, he felt isolated. And in one of the statements, he said, You know, I want to commit suicide, but I don't want it to hurt. I don't want it to be painful if I kill myself. And the chat bot, rather than responding and say, don't talk about that, you should not commit suicide or doing something more to stop it, the chat bot said, No, that's not a good reason to not go through with it. So the chat bot was telling him, hey, don't be afraid of the pain of killing yourself. You should follow through with it. And the kid ultimately did commit suicide. So this 14 year old died, and now there's a legal case around it. The mom feels like this chat bot was very much involved in the suicide. So all to say we're seeing that AI doesn't always follow the rules. Sometimes AI breaks its own rules. Sometimes it says the wrong thing, and in the mental health space, we really don't want AI to be the provider of mental health care. So the bill this session, it doesn't stop AI, chat bots. It doesn't stop, stop chat, chat GPT. All of the chat bots will still exist. All it says is that a chat bot cannot provide clinical therapy. We're also trying to get ahead of the game a little bit. We know that insurance companies are starting to eyeball AI chat bots as an opportunity. So in Nevada, we don't have enough providers, we don't have enough providers of mental health care, and so insurance companies are like, Oh, well, maybe AI is a less expensive option to fill a need in an area where there isn't enough support, there isn't mental health care support, we'll just use AI, and our argument is no ai ai therapy is more dangerous than no therapy. And we don't want that to be an option. And we don't want that to be what insurance companies view as well. This is a cheaper option. Let's create a market around this. So that's what the bill does. We are trying to get ahead of the market. We had a very good hearing. It. Got voted out of committee. There was only one vote in opposition in the committee, and then yesterday was a deadline day in the assembly, and the bill got voted out of the floor, and it was unanimous. So I was really excited that we got that one no voting committee to flip and vote yes on floor. We got all Democrats and all Republicans to support the bill. Now it is going over to the Senate, and we'll do the whole thing over there, and hopefully it passes just as easily.

Tanya Flanagan 20:24
Yeah, that that is it. We get to take a look at really the critical spaces, like it's not just about the reactionary, it's about the proactive. And so relative to yesterday, because we get to talk to you on Sundays and we're here for the entire week. So April 22 to be back was deadline day on the floor for when things had to move out of the Assembly and Senate floor to be able to switch houses. So when you come up, bills are heard in committee, and then bills are work sessions, so they get voted on in committee, to go to the floor to actually get voted on by the Assembly as a whole, or the center as a whole, and then they have to go to the other have the opposite house of what where they're voted on. So anything voted on in the assembly, on the assembly floor goes to Senate, vice versa. Senate floor goes to assembly committees, and we hear the bills again in the opposite houses to hear what's going on, and it's a space where you're not just looking at reactively. We're looking proactively what is coming in the future. For a lot of us right now, what's happening at the federal level, you made the comment that we don't have enough social workers, mental health care workers, and there's a shortage. And I think just nationally, there's a shortage of such an emphasis and an awareness now on mental health. And there's so much happening in society, culturally speaking, in terms of movies, video games, music, there's all these different triggers and sensor points that push and poke in and touch on affecting mental health, how we deal with grief, how we deal with just all kinds of things. And social emotional interaction is a term. Social emotional learning is really the term. So I'm just going to expand it to social emotional interaction and COVID. I think the pandemic brought us into a different time where, with the isolation and us, people being forced to be away, are confined to family settings. And in some cases, people didn't have husbands or children, they really were a single unit. And I think that some of that time in the country really affected people in terms of interaction, and so we find ourselves more isolated, changing mental health, changing emotional wellness. And these are the kinds of things that conversations like this go on a lot at the session to figure out what's the healthiest alternative, or what is a smart pathway to making sure care and resources are available to people and to families, and so that's one of the things that you touched on. And I think that's where the conversation about AI, I have a niece who works as a social worker for the Veterans Administration. That's the VA hospital, and while she says it's useful to her just to assist with the development of notes, but not to but not with the direct care to her patients, so I can understand what you're talking about. It in my role, my responsibility in that space is to do my due diligence, to do my homework, to look at the factors relative to any bill that's coming forward, to try to see it through every lens I can possibly seems to see it through, because it's not just about my life experience. It's about factoring in the life experiences of other people to figure out how this piece of legislation impacts the state as a whole. And I think that's probably the most challenging well. And

Tessyn Opferman 23:55
I think with all of it, you highlighted something that is really important, which is sometimes we need to get ahead of things. So we're seeing a number of AI bills this session, right? The AI bill I'm bringing is just one of many AI bills, but I am I applaud this legislative body, and I hope these bills move through all the session, because I think there's some real value in getting ahead of the technology, putting some restrictions and safety restrictions in place now and then. If we need to come back and fix those, we can't. But if we wait for a whole economy to develop around technology, around AI, it's a lot harder to put those restrictions in. If you have an AI company or meta making a lot of money, if you have insurance companies hospitals making a lot of money around some sort of technology that maybe it is dangerous, but now you've got an economy around it, and it's a lot harder to oppose that. And so if we wait until next session, or we wait until the session after that, when we start to see, oh, okay, now we've got these AI chat bots providing therapy, and insurance companies are funding this. Yes, and now, though, the chat bots aren't totally regulated, and it turns out they on rare occasion, that's infrequent, but here and there, chat bot is telling a child to commit suicide, and then that child does commit suicide. Well, now we're behind the ball because there's too much of an economy built up around it, but it's really hard. We talked about lobbying, right? This whole thing started with lobbying. It's going to be really hard to oppose these huge interests that are coming out if they want to maintain AI, so I think there's a real argument this session to get ahead of the technology, pass some regulations if next session that we find out, Oh, okay, there's a little loophole in this, and this isn't working out great, no problem. We can fix it, but at least we've got some barriers in place. And I think that's important. We've seen right like on the flip side, I worked with David Goldwater here as a partner at the firm, and we worked on a biometric data bill last session, and so it just had to do with facial recognition technology. So you know, most people don't know this, but when you walk into a casino, it recognizes your face, and it scans it, and it knows exactly who's in the casino. And there's a lot of data being sold around that, and so they're gathering data on recognizing my face and selling that to different companies. I have no control over it. When I walk into a casino, I have no idea that that's happening. So we tried to bring a biometric data bill to put just a tiny restriction in it, that got shot down. There's too much of an economy built around it. All of the big data companies came out in opposition. It would have killed the bill. So we had to take our had to take our amendment out, and that didn't move. So you know, my point is, when we're behind the ball, it's a lot harder to get these fixes in place than if we're ahead of the ball. And then if there's a little loophole that we have to close, we can do that. So you know, that has to do with my bill this session, but it also has to do with AI in general, and my you know, hope that the legislature continues to get ahead of this one and put some restrictions in place while you can. And

Tanya Flanagan 26:44
now you have everybody stretched up as their faces catch it every time they went to the casino. We kind of already knew that our faces were being captured, but you're right to the point that it is just we're in a technology world, and we're getting into the last few minutes and seconds of the show, but we're just going to aid the technology, and we have to be super responsible about how it's great. Growth is great. Advancing is great. Thinking about it, and it's even for me, heightened my fighting senses on Oh, wow. That's something to really think about. How things are being used, how they impact. We could talk about so much of this forever, but we're running out of time, and I'm super happy that you were able to come on and spend some time shedding a light on what it's like to be a lobby. Is how you look at things, the lens you view it, through the clients you work with, and just how it covers the state as a whole, in different populations. We didn't get a chance to talk much about education, but I do want to say thank you. It has been a pleasure to have you on the show. I look forward to continuing to see you in the hallways here, up at the legislature, in the in the building, and thank you for the work that you do, for sharing a little bit about who you are. And I hope you have a great rest of your day and great week going forward. Thank you. Yeah, this

Tessyn Opferman 27:59
has been fun, and I'll just say, assembly member, it's been wonderful having you in the building. I think you're a much needed voice in the legislature. So you know, I appreciate you being there, and it's great to work with you so and I'm sure I'll see you later today, somewhere around the legislature. Thank you

Tanya Flanagan 28:15
so much in the building, perfect. Thank you for tuning in. Have a great week. Stay safe, stay hydrated and enjoy yourself and your family. Until next time, 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 tanya.flanagan@unlv.edu Thanks again for joining in. Stay safe and have a great week. You.