EXCLUSIVE: Sisolak talks new mining tax, Nevada's economic recovery

LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak joined Kim and Dana Wagner on Wake Up with the CW Monday to talk about all of the issues facing the Silver State.

He discussed the new mining industry tax passed during the legislative session, plus Nevada's economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the push to get people vaccinated, the possibility of the Oakland A's moving to Las Vegas, and his friendly wager over the Golden Knights' series against Colorado.

Sisolak also revealed the state is exploring a type of prize system for COVID-19 vaccinations.

Nevada cannot introduce a lottery as other states have, but the governor said a plan is coming forward with prizes like cash, scholarships, hunting licenses, dinners and hotel stays.

The governor's comments are listed below. Answers are edited and condensed for clarity.

ON THE MINING INDUSTRY TAX AND CRITICISM THAT REVENUE COLLECTED IS TOO LOW:

"I say when you're hungry, a half a loaf of bread is better than no loaf of bread. This is the first time ... in decades that we've been able to get another contribution out of mining. They were great. They came to the table with all our other business communities and education leaders and legislators. It's tough to get a tax increase. You need two-thirds of the votes, and I had to get some Republicans to come along. And there was some negotiating, if you want to call it that, along the way to get us there, but I'm proud of the fact that we're able to fund education for this extra hundreds of millions of dollars."

ON REMOVING THE CAUCUS SYSTEM & CREATING A FIRST-IN-THE-NATION PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY:

"I'm sure [New Hampshire will] argue about who goes first. They're gonna try to move theirs further up than us, and hopefully we'll be first. And I think Nevada's more representative of the entire country than New Hampshire is, certainly. But a lot of people were dissatisfied with the caucus. It was confusing. They didn't want to go over it so long and they wanted to be able to cast their vote and be done with it. So that was a good thing, I think for everybody, to get rid of the caucuses and have the primaries."

ON CREATING CANNABIS LOUNGES, AND RESULTING CONCERNS FROM LOCAL NEIGHBORHOODS:

"That's all done by local regulation. Y'know, the counties and the cities will have a chance to determine where it would be appropriate to put the lounges. They could say they don't want it, if that's what they want to do, and that's all well and good. But it would have to be done similar to the way an alcohol establishment or bar would be done. There'll be locations that are suitable; other locations are not suitable. ... What happened is a lot of people came to town, they'd buy cannabis, you can't smoke in the hotel rooms, you can't smoke in the rental cars, you can't smoke in public. Where were they supposed to consume the products? It's just the evolution of the industry, and there again, that's gonna bring in more money to our state coffers that hopefully we can use for funding education."

ON KEEPING NEVADA'S DEATH PENALTY IN PLACE:

"It's important to me that that option was kept available. I lived through One October ... and that's affected me and will affect me for the rest of my life. This session was an unusual session. People couldn't come and have the same type of meetings in person and be able to communicate. You'd be able to be on the phone for two minutes, a limited number of people. There's- people are very strong[ly] opinionated on this issue, whether you're a family member of someone who was a victim, some of the people that just feel there should be no death penalty whatsoever. So I think it needs to be vetted a little more thoroughly than it was, and that's what I said I'd like to do, so hopefully that's how we'll handle it."

ON LAST YEAR'S COVID-19 SHUTDOWN AND WHETHER HE WOULD DO ANYTHING DIFFERENTLY:

"There were some things that I wish would have been different. I mean, our unemployment system was a problem. Our system was never set up to handle this many people, so we ended up with backlogs. No, I think we based our decisions at the time on the best scientific evidence we could get. People have complained back and forth about shutdowns and masking and so forth, but you've gotta remember, [there's] a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going on right now. We know a lot more now than we did when we made those difficult decisions. And I remember standing on my balcony ... looking out at that Strip and saying, 'Okay, I gotta shut this down and we're gonna put hundreds of thousands of people out of work.' But it saved a lot of lives, I'm convinced of that. We were looking at projections of ... death victims in the 40-50,000 range, and we're still under 6,000, which is- it saved lives. Our health care system at the time, we were having 2,400, 2,500 cases, hospitalizations. We're under 300 now. So we've come way, way back, and that's a result of the people in the state doing such a great job in fighting this terrible pandemic and coming out of it stronger on this side."

ON WHETHER A VACCINE "LOTTERY" COULD BE INTRODUCED TO ENCOURAGE COVID-19 JABS:

"Not only could it be done, it is gonna be done. We have a plan coming forward. It's a little bit different ... What we're looking at here is, we can't have the same type of a lottery that [Ohio has] because lotteries are illegal in Nevada. So we've got a little different awarding of the prizes. It's gonna be some different prizes, it could be cash prizes. There's gonna be other incentives. There's gonna be some scholarships we're talking about, and hunting licenses and dinners and hotel stays and all kinds of stuff. It's gonna be fun."

ON THE OAKLAND ATHLETICS' EXPLORATION OF RELOCATING TO LAS VEGAS:

"It's a real discussion point, I'll put it that way. There's always been discussion. After the [Golden] Knights came, it kinda set the groundwork for everybody else, for the Raiders and the Aces and some of the other teams that have come here. They're talking. I mean, I met the president at the grand opening of the [Las Vegas] Convention Center expansion, the West Hall, and he asked me if we could get together and talk some more, and I said I'd be happy to talk to him about anything. But I don't know how realistic it is, frankly, to build another stadium. Certainly not with public funding. Now, if somebody wants to come in and we can help 'em with permitting and so forth and so on, but I don't see public funds being dedicated to another stadium, especially at a time where we're desperately [fighting to fund] education. So we'll see how it plays out."

ON THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION FUNDING:

"We do need to find more money to fund education. Some of our education system has done extremely well here. If you get into the - not to pick out particular areas, but more in the Green Valley, Summerlin areas. ... And there's a huge disparity between those schools and what I'd call our urban core schools. And we need to do something, whether it's for the facilities, it's for the teachers, to bring those up to par, to bring 'em up to a chance where - I'm a big believer education's a great equalizer. Our teachers are underpaid, overworked. I think that's one good thing that came out of this pandemic: Parents saw how valuable teachers are, to be able to deal with kids in the classroom and educate 'em. And they've definitely demonstrated their worth and they helped us completely through this pandemic, whether it was through the distribution of food or it was distance education. So we need to do a better job in terms of our education system and funding it for our students."

ON MAIL-IN VOTING AND ARGUMENTS FROM CONSERVATIVES ABOUT FRAUD:

"I share the concerns that it's a potential, but it's something that certainly didn't happen in Nevada. I mean, we had Secretary [of State Barbara] Cegavske, who's a Republican, who did a tremendous job, and our registrar, [Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe] Gloria. They did a great job in terms of implementing this, and I'm a firm believer - I want everybody to vote if it's possible. I think that we get better representation that way. Our government is better. And there shouldn't be an obstacle to voting, if that's your health, if that's transportation, whatever it might be. Everybody should have the opportunity; I think the mail-in voting's gonna make that more possible, and I'm excited about that."

ON POTENTIALLY FACING CLARK COUNTY SHERIFF JOE LOMBARDO IN NEXT YEAR'S RACE FOR GOVERNOR:

"Well, anybody - y'know, we're taking everybody serious that's coming. There's several people that are talking, throwing their name or their hat in the ring, so to speak. We'll see who comes out of a primary. I'm sure there's gonna be several [candidates], and that would be a year from now. I've known Joe for a long, long time and been involved with Metro, so we'll see how it goes. But I'm enjoying the job. I think we've done a good job with what we've had. We've got a lot of work left ahead of us. Anxious about getting into another campaign and looking forward to it."