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The Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West served as co-sponsors of the American Planning Association Nevada Chapter Annual State Conference earlier this month. As such, many UNLV faculty members presented their research on critical policy areas for our state through various conference sessions.  Robert Lang and William Brown (The Lincy Institute & Brookings Mountain West) moderated two keynote sessions on the conference theme "Vegas Growing Up — Welcome to the Big Leagues," featuring Jeremy Aguerro, and on "Growth Management in the Intermountain West," featuring Chris Nelson of the University of Arizona. Karen Danielsen (Public Policy & Leadership) was joined by community leaders, Chad Williams of the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority and Mike Shohet of Nevada HAND, to offer a session on "Housing and Community Development in Nevada. David Damore (Political Science), Caitlin Saladino (The Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West), and Robert Lang (The Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West) presented a session on "Planning and State Politics." Marya Shegog (Community Health Science and The Lincy Institute) and Sara Hunt (UNLV School of Medicine) were joined by Natasha Mosby (Social Work) to present on "Health Equity in Nevada."  Jaewon Lim (Public Policy & Leadership), along with Zachary Miles (Research & Economic Development), offered a session on "Economic Development in Nevada"  Magdalena Martinez (Public Policy & Leadership and The Lincy Institute) was joined by Maria Marinch of the College of Southern Nevada to present on "Latino Education: The Key to Metropolitan Vitality."  Two visiting scholars from the Brookings Institution to Brookings Mountain West also offered sessions: John Hudak, senior fellow in governance studies, presented on "Marijuana Regulation & Neighborhood Impact" and Michael Hansen, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies, presented on "Teacher Diversity & Achievement Gaps.  */

David F. Damore, William E. Brown, Jr., and Robert E. Lang wrote a new policy brief for The Lincy Institute, "The 2017 Session of the Nevada Legislature and the Failure of Higher Education Reform." In the piece, the authors analyze 11 bills introduced during the 79th Session of the Nevada Legislature that proposed to reorganize, reform, and realign various aspects of the state’s higher education system. The analysis reveals the following: Despite bipartisan support for higher education reform, nearly all of the reform bills failed, including two bills vetoed by Governor Brian Sandoval; the failure to enact meaningful reform stands in contrast to the implementation of bills appropriating more resources for higher education; and opposition to reform legislation was strongest among those most invested in legitimizing and perpetuating current arrangements. The report also considers the institutional and cultural factors that reinforce these outcomes. These factors include the mismatch between legislative capacity and the demand for policy reform, the selective manner in which higher education officials engaged in the Legislature, and misconceptions about the components of the state’s land-grant institution and the Board of Regents’ constitutional carve out prohibiting legislative action. The authors conclude with policy recommendations for the Nevada Legislature, moving into the 2019 session and beyond. Robert E. Lang is the executive director of Brookings Mountain West and the Lincy Institute at UNLV. He is also a professor in the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. David F. Damore is a professor of political science at UNLV and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. William E. Brown Jr. is the UNLV director of Brookings Mountain West.

Robert Lang (Brookings Mountain West) and David Damore (Political Science) are the authors of an analysis of the the 2016 U.S. presidential election, "The End of the Democratic Blue Wall?," which recently was published by Brookings Mountain West. On Nov. 8, 2016, the Republicans breached a key portion of the Blue Wall as presidential candidate Donald Trump narrowly carried Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, while also cutting the margin in the once solid Democratic state of Minnesota. Had this section of the Blue Wall held, Hillary Clinton would have won the presidency with 278 Electoral College votes, despite losing swing states such as Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, and Ohio. Abstract Heading into the 2016 presidential election, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton had multiple paths to secure the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency. In contrast, Republican nominee Donald Trump’s path to the White House necessitated winning a number of large swing states and securing victories in states that had been reliably Democratic. Building from a prior Brookings Mountain West brief (Damore and Lang 2016), we consider how the Trump campaign, despite being vastly outspent, was able to use targeted online messages to activate “white identify politics” — long a staple of Republican politics in the South— in the non-metro areas of the upper Midwest. This messaging, coupled with Hillary Clinton’s unpopularity among white working class and rural voters in the region, interacted with the winner-take-all allocation of Electoral College votes to deliver the presidency for Trump. In the brief’s conclusion, we consider the implications that the 2016 election has for Electoral College politics moving forward. A related work, "Beyond Density & Diversity: Understanding the Socio-Cultural Geography of Contemporary Presidential Elections" also is available.