Before I tell you about my appointed opponent’s very first major vote in the Nevada Assembly, let me tell you about what is happening right now in Los Angeles.
Hollywood’s hometown is in full panic mode. Film and TV productions are fleeing California at a historic rate.
Shoot days in Los Angeles County in 2025 fell 16 percent from the year before, crashing to below 20,000 – with every major film and TV category at least 30 percent below its five-year average.
So what are LA’s political leaders doing about it?
Throwing more taxpayer money at the problem.
The Arms Race California Cannot Win
LA Mayor Karen Bass – facing a tough reelection fight – recently called for eliminating the cap on California’s film and TV tax incentive program entirely, declaring: “We are in a global battle for entertainment jobs, and we must hold nothing back in our fight.”
Her top challenger, City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, beat her to it.
Raman unveiled her own plan calling for uncapped state tax credits, arguing that “Los Angeles is losing Hollywood – not because productions want to leave, but because we’ve made it too hard for them to stay.”
Here is what neither of them will tell you: California already raised its film and TV tax incentive cap from $330 million to $750 million just last year.
Seven hundred and fifty million dollars a year – and productions are still leaving.
So the answer from Bass and Raman is to remove the cap altogether. No ceiling. No limit. Whatever it takes.
New York and Georgia already run more generous programs, and Texas recently raised its film incentive to $300 million every two years.
Every state that enters this game discovers the same truth: there is no finish line. There is only the next, bigger handout.
The studios play every state against the others. They take the money, pocket it, and when the credits run low, they start the bidding war all over again.
That is the arms race. That is the trap.
And appointed Assemblyman Jason Patchett – the man asking Henderson and Mesquite voters to send him back to Carson City – voted to jump right in.
His First Vote. His True Colors.
Here is what you need to know about Mr. Patchett.
He was appointed by the Democrats on the Clark County Commission to represent Assembly District 19 just days before Gov. Joe Lombardo called the Legislature into a special session.
He had barely been sworn in when he faced the biggest vote of that session: Assembly Bill 5, the Hollywood Handout.
AB5 would have handed out $120 million a year in transferable tax credits over 15 years to film productions at a proposed studio campus in Summerlin, backed by billion-dollar corporations Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. Discovery.
Over the life of the deal, Nevada taxpayers would have been on the hook for $1.8 billion.
Patchett initially voted against the bill on a procedural motion, saying he was confused because it was his first vote as an assemblymember.
Then, days later, he voted yes to pass it.
When asked about it afterward, he said, “I support anything that’s gonna stimulate job growth… and this bill does that.”
That is not fiscal conservatism. That is a freshman lawmaker who got rolled by the Hollywood lobby in his first week on the job.
What the Numbers Actually Said
Patchett says the bill was about jobs and the economy. But let’s look at what the numbers actually said.
A fiscal analysis found that for every dollar handed out in transferable tax credits, Nevada would get back just 23 cents in direct revenue – a net loss of 77 cents on the dollar.
Nevada’s own nonpartisan legislative analysts were even more alarming.
They found that the massive expansion of transferable tax credits would push the state’s ending fund balance below the legally required 5 percent threshold by 2030 – forcing lawmakers to either cut tens of millions in state spending or raise taxes to make up the difference.
A nonpartisan analysis showed the tax credit would have created a $62.1 million structural deficit for the state in fiscal year 2030.
That means higher taxes or cuts to schools, roads, public safety, and services that Nevada families depend on every day. There is no third option.
Democrat Assemblywoman Selena La Rue Hatch put it plainly on the floor:
“If we pass this bill, we are either going to have to raise taxes or we are going to have to cut services. And I cannot stand and watch our children suffer as we cut our school budget.”
A Democrat from Reno said what my Republican opponent refused to say.
And there is another layer to this scam that the supporters never advertised. These are *transferable* credits. The studios don’t even use most of them.
As one senator explained, the studios “sell their credits to other businesses, turning Nevada taxpayers’ dollars into corporate revenue” – while the state gets stuck with the bill.
He Says He’ll “Protect the Taxpayer.” His Record Says Otherwise.
When asked about the fiscal cliff his vote could have created, Patchett said he considered the “arguments on both sides” and determined the bill was about jobs and the economy.
He has also said that cutting a tax burden on a corporation “seems a very Republican thing to do.”
Cutting taxes for all businesses is a Republican thing to do. Writing a $1.8 billion check to Sony and Warner Bros. from Nevada taxpayers’ wallets is not.
This is not a close call. It’s not a nuanced policy debate. The state’s own analysts said it would blow a hole in the budget.
The evidence from California – where hundreds of millions in annual subsidies have failed to stop the exodus – was playing out in real time. And my opponent voted yes anyway.
Patchett now says his top priorities are public safety and “protecting the taxpayer.”
Voters in Assembly District 19 should ask him one simple question: if you were protecting the taxpayer, what exactly were you doing when you cast that vote?
The Warning We Cannot Afford to Ignore
California’s political leaders are doubling down on failure.
Bass and Raman are competing to see who can promise more taxpayer money with fewer strings attached, because the studios have made clear they will go wherever the deal is best.
Nevada almost handed those same studios a 15-year, $1.8 billion guarantee. The Senate stopped it – barely, by one vote.
Assembly District 19 voters deserve a representative who reads the fiscal analysis before casting a vote – not one who admits he did not fully understand what was happening the first time and then voted yes anyway.
The studios will be back in 2027 with a new version of this bill. They always come back. And when they do, AD19 needs a representative who will say no.
I will.
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