Former Nevada Attorney General and failed Republican gubernatorial candidate Adam Laxalt’s political action committee has added a former Ms. Nevada to the roster of speakers at the PAC’s “Basque Fry.”

Las Vegan Katie Williams was stripped of her Nevada title by the Ms. America pageant earlier this month after pageant officials determined Williams had combined pageant promotion and her support for Donald Trump’s views on social media, in violation of the pageant’s “No Politics” eligibility requirements.

Since losing her title, Williams has been hailed as a martyr and a heroine by Fox News and other media outlets on the right.

Others scheduled to speak at the event include former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandoski, former Trump administration acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, and Trump administration acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.

The political picnic is also coupled with a conference hosted by Laxalt’s PAC and and the American Conservative Union, which will be held in Reno on Friday, Sept. 13.

If there’s any doubt you’ll win, cheat. And if you get caught cheating, destroy the evidence.

This is what the Republican Party of 2019 considers acceptable election strategy.

The party’s latest attack on democracy was exposed last week in a court ruling in Georgia, where a federal judge blasted Republican state officials over the state’s controversial 2018 election.

The clear takeaway of the ruling is that Republicans maintained a voting system that could easily be hacked, rigged and weaponized against black voters.

For that, the preponderance of guilt falls on Kemp, who was Georgia’s secretary of state from 2010 until shortly after the election. (Yes, Kemp remained in charge of the election during the race, which Abrams aptly compared to a boxing match where one fighter is also the referee and one of the judges.)

The ruling is a scathing rebuke of Kemp and his fellow Republicans.

But the GOP showed no shame. A spokeswoman for the current secretary of state — a Republican, naturally — called Totenberg’s conclusions “silly and unfounded.” This despite the plaintiffs providing statements from more than 130 voters, 15 poll watchers and two county poll workers about the subterfuge.

There’s nothing silly or unfounded about what happened in Georgia. The same goes for Republican attacks on democracy there and in other states through gerrymandering and voting suppression. When those disgusting tactics don’t work and Republicans lose elections anyway, they resort to scorched-earth legislation that undercuts powers of incoming Democratic Party leaders. That happened in Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

Nevadans won’t stand for this. In the past two election cycles, voters here sent a loud-and-clear message to Republicans that we’ll protect poll access for all eligible voters and ensure their ballots are counted accurately.

We took a responsible step forward by passing the motor voter ballot question in 2018, which makes voter registration automatic when someone applies at the Department of Motor Vehicles for a driver’s license or identification card. In last year’s legislative session, lawmakers restored voting rights for convicted felons upon completion of their sentences. Then there’s the remarkable work of the Clark County Election Department, which eliminated the old precinct voting system in favor of election centers allowing eligible county voters to cast ballots at locations across the Las Vegas Valley. The change made voting far more convenient.

The Culinary Union and other advocacy groups also deserve a hand for efforts to register voters, especially among groups where turnout is traditionally low.

Nevada is a model of what can be accomplished when voters elect responsible leaders. We’ve put up a barrier to undemocratic activities of the GOP as shown in Georgia and so many other states.

Thirteen-year-old Joey Ward’s asthma attacks are so severe that he often has to leave school when he is suffering an attack.The cost of the prescription drugs he has taken for years to control his asthma continues to rise, so much so that his mother sometimes has to ask for help to pay for his medication.

“My mom is trying really hard,” he said. “It makes me sad I need this medicine to breathe. I need it to live.”

Ward’s was just one of the stories about soaring prescription costs told Tuesday afternoon in Las Vegas during a roundtable discussion led by U.S. Reps. Steven Horsford and Susie Lee. The two Democrats, whose districts include parts of Southern Nevada, say rising prescription drug costs can be traced to a number of factors, including a lack of pricing transparency, market exclusivity for drug creators and pharmaceutical industry influence in politics.

“There’s not many issues in this country where I think we can come together, but I do think that prescription drug pricing — it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent, it doesn’t matter if you live in rural Iowa or you live in Los Angeles — this is an issue that affects every single American and one that we in Congress need to come together to address,” Lee said.

Lee touted passage of the For the People Act, which she called probably the most important piece of legislation that has cleared the House this year. The act would require political organizations that dole out money to candidates to make their donors public. These dark money donations, she said, are one of the tools in the drug lobby’s arsenal.

“I’m part of a historic freshman class,” Lee said. “We got elected on an agenda of cleaning corruption out of Washington, of bringing government back for the people, and (the act) does that by getting rid of dark money — the dark money that pharmaceutical companies (have) used to control Congress for so long.”

The For the People Act, however, has hit a roadblock in the Senate, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, keeping it and many other Democratic-backed bills from the House from being debated in the upper chamber.

Horsford recently introduced the Stopping the Pharmaceutical Industry from Keeping Drugs Expensive Act — SPIKE Act — with Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., as a co-sponsor. The act would require drug companies to justify large price increases to the secretary of health and human services. If a drug increases in price by more than 10 percent, or $10,000, over one year, if a drug increases in price 25 percent, or $25,000, over three years or if a drug has a launch price higher than $26,000, then the price must be justified.

“Until we can get the transparency of cost, it’s hard to then write legislation to hold them accountable on the oversight and enforcement side,” he said.

Horsford also said House Democrats were working to allow the federal government to negotiate directly with drug manufacturers the price it pays for prescription drugs used by Medicare patients.

“It’s asinine that that provision is even in federal law,” he said. “It was passed in the ‘80s when they did Medicare Part D and it literally it is just a phrase in a federal law that prohibits Medicare from being able to directly negotiation with drug companies, and we all know that that’s how costs are set for private plans, for Medicaid, employer-sponsored plans.”

Environmental groups, Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Steve Sisolak celebrated the clean energy agenda passed during the 2019 legislative session, but there were also calls to take more aggressive action to protect public health from auto emissions.

The RenewNV Coalition, members of which include are but not limited to the Nevada Conservation League, Chispa Nevada, Battle Born Progress, and the Sierra Club, released a clean energy scorecard on the 2019 legislative session last week. Sisolak and several legislative leaders attended an event marking the scorecard’s released. The governor and Democratic lawmakers all earned a score of 100 percent.

“I haven’t gotten a 100 percent in a lot of years,” Sisolak joked. “I think it was second grade, the last 100 percent." “We are well on our way to reducing carbon emissions from our energy sector, but actually now transportation is the number one source of carbon emissions,” Assemblyman Howard Watts said at the event. “We have health impacts related to that transportation pollution.”

The most important next legislative steps is figuring out how to move away from fossil fuel transportation to electric transportation, said Watts.

Watts was the sole sponsor of successful legislation that provided weight and length exemptions for electric semi-trailer trucks.

“Those put out some of the worst diesel pollution. We’ve all been blasted by them,” Watts said.

In an interview, Watts said he believed there is support in the Legislature to emulate California’s mandate to increase sales of zero-emission vehicles and auto emission standards, the nation’s toughest. Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have adopted California’s standards.

State Sen. Yvanna Cancella, who chaired the Growth and Infrastructure Committee where much of the session’s clean energy legislation was passed, similarly touched on the environment and health impact of pollution on air quality.

“The number one reason that kids miss school in Southern Nevada is because of asthma,” Cancella said. “And that’s a direct result of air pollution and air quality.”

The Clark County Department of Air Quality lists one basin in Nevada as an “ozone marginal nonattainment area,” meaning it does not meet EPA national ambient air quality standards for ozone.

That basin is home to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area, where 7 out of 10 Nevadans live.

“When I began my campaign I promised to support legislation and executive action that cleaned our air and cleaned our water increased renewable energy standards and put Nevadans on a path to 100 percent carbon free emissions.”

For the most part, conservationists agree that Sisolak has kept those campaign promises.

During his campaign Sisolak said he would support community solar projects and later signed a bill, AB465, sponsored by Democratic Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe Moreno that promises to expand solar access, reduce rates for some low-income customers, and expand job training and placement opportunities in the solar industry.

“Expanding access to solar especially among low income customers must be included as part of a comprehensive plan to reach our renewable energy goals,” Sisolak said.

In May Sisolak signed Nevada on to the U.S. Climate Alliance— a group of governors committed to upholding the Paris Climate Agreement— after pledging to follow the agreement and the Clean Power Plan.

He also said he would raise the state’s renewable portfolio standard to 50 percent by 2030 in order to move Nevada towards 100 percent renewable energy. In April Sisolak signed into law SB358, a bill by Democratic Sen. Chris Brooks which increased the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard to 50 percent by 2030 with a goal of 100 percent carbon-free energy by 2050.

“By signing SB358 Nevada has finally reclaimed its clean energy leadership role by having one of the highest RSP standards in the country and the benefits are endless and more to come,” Sisolak said.

While Sisolak did not call out President Trump by name he said, “Nevada is making it clear that we will act together to combat global warming even when others on the national stage fail to do so.”