Buck, Watson, Hagen seeking open Senate District 5 seat

A trio of candidates, including two education advocates on opposite sides of the political spectrum, are facing off in the race for the competitive and open state Senate District 5.

Incumbent Democrat Joyce Woodhouse is term limited and cannot run again.

Two of the candidates, Republican Carrie Buck and Libertarian Tim Hagan, ran for the seat in past elections unsuccessfully. Buck narrowly lost to Woodhouse in 2016, while Hagan ran for the seat in 2006 and again in 2016.

Democrat Kristee Watson is a newcomer to the race, but not to elections: She ran for Assembly District 22 in 2018, losing to Republican Melissa Hardy. None of the three faced a primary opponent this year.

Buck currently works as the executive director of Pinecrest Academy, a charter school with four campuses in the Las Vegas valley. She previously taught elementary school and was the principal at C.T. Sewell Elementary in Henderson.

Buck favors school choice and said that she disagrees with what lawmakers did in 2019 by capping Opportunity Scholarships, a program that provides private-school tuition aid to low-income students.

“I believe that more competition makes everybody better,” Buck said.

On the budget, she said she’s not in favor of raising taxes on a single industry, such as the trio of proposals that would change how mining companies are taxed in Nevada that Democrats passed during a recent special session. Those proposals would need to be approved once more next year by lawmakers and again by voters in 2022 to go into effect.

Buck, whose husband is a captain in the Henderson Police Department, said that police officers should be held accountable in cases of misconduct, but doesn’t agree with eliminating qualified immunity.

No taxes on people

Watson most recently worked as a program facilitator for Spread the Word Nevada, a literacy nonprofit that partners with Title I schools in the state to help distribute books. She said she’s running because the state needs people “who are willing to stand up and run and not play into partisan politics and do more to divide rather than unite.”

When it comes to addressing the budget crisis, she said that she’s happy that the mining industry looks willing to come to the table in 2021 and said she wants to work towards finding a solution that both sides can live with.

But Watson said she doesn’t think new taxes on Nevada residents to generate more revenue is the answer.

“I don’t think we can levy taxes on Nevadans at this time. I think that’s a nonstarter,” she said.

Instead, the state should be continuing to work towards diversifying the economy, she said. That includes looking to expand jobs in the clean energy sector, which would double as helping the state move towards its clean energy goals, she added.

Watson said the state needs to re-imagine what police forces should be doing, and said it is lawmakers’ jobs to respond to the outcry from citizens.

“I don’t think punishing police officers as a whole is the right answer, but I do think building back trust is a priority,” she said.

Reform asset forfeiture

Hagan supported the litany of cuts made by lawmakers during the special session to close the $1.2 billion budget deficit, and said that he would not support raising any taxes, on residents or businesses.

Like Buck, Hagan supports more school choice for parents, and would support having more charter school options in the state.

On policing, he said the state should get rid of qualified immunity for officers and believes the state needs to reform its asset forfeiture laws.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.