Cannizzaro’s New Ad and Judicial Watch Docs Point to a Partisan AG Office

Cannizzaro jumped into the AG race last July. In her announcement, she said:

“Our leaders should be focused on making Nevada safer and stronger, but the Trump administration and Congress have continued their assault on ordinary Nevadans.”

Her first ad doubles down on that message, taking direct aim at Trump’s ICE enforcement and election laws.

On ICE, Cannizzaro said federal immigration enforcement activities:

“have created a public safety crisis, including numerous documented instances of violations of residents’ constitutional rights.”

She also called on Congress to reject DHS funding unless authorities agreed to:

“scale down operations that are inflaming tensions.”

She wants to defund immigration enforcement. As attorney general, she would have real tools to obstruct federal law enforcement on Nevada soil. That is not a hypothetical. That is the stated goal.

On elections, her record as a state senator is clear. She has pushed to expand mail-in voting, fought voter roll cleanup efforts, and used her position to resist election integrity measures at every turn.

Now, her campaign is not subtle about fighting Trump’s election policies.

A Record Worth Examining

Before Cannizzaro asks Nevadans to trust her with the state’s top law enforcement office, they should know how she used the power she already had.

Civil asset forfeiture lets police seize your property — your car, your cash, your home — without ever charging you with a crime.

It is widely condemned by conservatives and libertarians as a serious abuse of government power. In 2019, a bipartisan reform bill called AB420 passed the Nevada Assembly 34 to 6. It should have been an easy win for limited government.

But it never got a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Cannizzaro chaired that committee. She was also, at the same time, a deputy district attorney for Clark County — the very kind of office that benefits financially from forfeiture proceeds.

That dual role — serving simultaneously as a legislator and a law enforcement employee — turned out to be more than just a conflict of interest. It was unconstitutional.

The Nevada Supreme Court ruled that such arrangements violated the state’s separation of powers doctrine. Cannizzaro and fellow Democratic Senator Melanie Scheible subsequently resigned from the Clark County DA’s office.

This is the record of someone who used government power to protect government power — and had to be dragged out of an unconstitutional arrangement by the courts.

What Judicial Watch Just Found

Here is where things get very interesting.

Judicial Watch recently received 238 pages of records from current Nevada AG Aaron Ford’s office after filing a public records lawsuit.

The office had ignored a February 2025 records request. What those pages reveal is a years-long, cozy relationship between Ford’s office and the States United Democracy Center, a left-wing nonprofit that helped develop legal theories used to prosecute Republican electors who challenged the 2020 election results.

The records show that in April 2021, Joanna Lydgate, president and CEO of the States United Democracy Center, wrote directly to AG Ford. She described the organization as one that Ford had already been working with and invited him to sign a letter to corporate America opposing state election security laws.

Ford’s own general counsel wrote back:

“It’s great to meet you, Joanna! I look forward to working with you as well.”

Ford then directed his general counsel to attend meetings on his behalf.

Then, in a February 2025 email, Nevada Chief Deputy AG Greg Ott asked that a deputy attorney general be added to States United Democracy Center’s monthly conference calls. The reason? So he could hear the group’s litigation summaries.

The outside group was, in effect, helping coordinate legal strategy with Nevada’s top law enforcement office.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton called it exactly what it is:

“a coordinated leftist lawfare machine — leftist state attorneys general working hand-in-glove with allied activist groups to target political opponents and undermine our election system.”

The States United Democracy Center is also the same group that Judicial Watch found coordinating with Michigan’s AG office. Records requests are still ongoing in Arizona and Wisconsin.

What Conservatives Should Understand

The attorney general is not just a lawyer. That office controls what cases get prosecuted, what multistate legal coalitions Nevada joins, and how aggressively the state cooperates — or doesn’t cooperate — with federal law enforcement. If Cannizzaro wins, she would inherit the same staff, the same institutional relationships, and the same left-wing outside partnerships that Judicial Watch just exposed.

She has made clear that she, like Ford, sees the AG’s office as a weapon against Trump’s immigration enforcement and election policies.

The Republican primary offers a strong alternative. Governor Lombardo has endorsed Adriana Guzmán Fralick, a Reno attorney and former chair of Nevada’s Cannabis Compliance Board, who faces Danny Tarkanian in the primary.

Fralick has pledged to run the office as a law enforcement agency — not a resistance operation.

What You Can Do

If Cannizzaro wins, her record of unconstitutional dual-employment and her current rhetoric are indications that Nevadans can expect an Attorney General more focused on political obstruction than neutral law enforcement.

The choice in November is between a return to constitutional order or four more years of an office used as a political weapon.

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views. This article was written with the assistance of AI. Please verify information and consult additional sources as needed.