Congressional races include higher ed funding backers

February 13, 2012 by Jennifer Liese 

Democrats declare candidacy after season of public appearances with students, protestors Some of Carson City’s most vocal supporters of state funding for the Nevada System of Higher Education are bidding for seats on Capitol Hill.

Nevada’s races for the U.S. Congress are dominated this year by candidates associated with higher education. Assembly speaker John Oceguera is running for the District 3 seat and state senate majority leader Steven Horsford is bidding for the newly created District 4.

State senator Ruben Kihuen dropped out of the race for congressional District 1 on Tuesday, leaving former District 3 representative Dina Titus running uncontested for the seat currently held by Democrat Shelley Berkley, who is making a run for the Senate.

Horsford is the only Democrat running for District 4. The Republican race is between state senator Barbara Cegavske, businessmen Dan Schwartz and Danny Tarkanian and Army veteran Kenneth Wegner.

Oceguera faces a primary against Stephen Frye, and incumbent Republican candidate Joe Heck is defending his District 3 seat.

Titus, a UNLV political science professor who took a $162,000 tenure buyout last year, lost a 2010 re-election bid to Heck.

Horsford chaired the Senate Finance Committee and ran budget discussions between it and the Assembly Ways and Means Committee during the 76th legislative session, when the Democrat-controlled Legislature closed the NSHE budget $100 million above Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval’s recommendation.

“We stood our ground and forced an alternative that helped to restore funding for higher education so that students have the ability to go to school and have access to college,” Horsford said.

Horsford now heads the interim Committee to Study the Funding of Higher Education, which is considering reconstructing the state funding formula for colleges and universities.

Horsford and members of the funding committee will be on the UNLV campus on Feb. 29 to ask for feedback from students and faculty on the funding formula discussion. The event will be held at 9 a.m. in the Student Union.

“We increased the funding to higher education and K-12,” Oceguera said. “… I think they’re both very important.”

Horsford and Oceguera both said that they believe higher education and an educated workforce are essential to rebuilding a strong Nevada economy.

“We’re hurting in this state,” Oceguera said. “We have the worst unemployment in the country, we have the worst housing market [and] the foreclosure rate is just terrible. Education has been very, very important in my life and I think it’s the key to our economic recovery.”

Horsford and Oceguera were visible supporters of causes that many students supported during the 2010 session. Before they declared their candidacy for Congress, they appeared at town hall meetings where angry students and school teachers called for resistance to the GOP-backed plan to cut state spending on NSHE and K-12 support, taking the stage at the largest-ever student rally in Carson City in March 2011.

“While some elected officials want to cut higher education, I believe we actually need to be investing more,” Oceguera said. He said that building programs to help diversify Nevada’s economy and build a more educated workforce would help attract businesses to the state.

Horsford said that he thinks lawmakers need to investigate the policies behind funding Pell Grants and student loans so that banks cannot charge students exorbitant fees.

“There is a lot of policy happening at the federal level that we need to make sure that are in the best interest of Nevada students, their families and our colleges and universities,” Horsford said.

President Barack Obama is calling on federal lawmakers to stop the interest rates on federally subsidized Stafford loans from doubling to 6.4 percent in July as scheduled. He is also asking to reallocate $60 billion that would have gone to pay banks to process federal student loans to fund Pell Grants and extend a tax credit for students that is set to expire at the end of this year.

Nevada has been carved into three congressional districts since 2000, but the 2010 Census created a fourth district, which will be appointed a representative for the first time in elections in November.

“We’re a small state still,” Horsford said. “We have a small delegation compared to other states, [but] having another member of Congress, another representative that can fight on behalf of the people of this state … is very important.”

The boundaries of Nevada’s fourth congressional district were drawn by the 2011 Legislature.

Contact Jennifer Liese at jennifer.liese.ry@gmail.com.