Before getting to the meat of this column, let’s hop in the Wayback Machine and whet your appetite by reprinting this Las Vegas Sun headline from November 6, 2012…
“Speaker-in-waiting loses re-election bid to political newcomer.”
The Speaker-in-waiting was Democrat Assemblyman Marcus Conklin. The political newcomer was Republican Wes Duncan. And Conklin became “the first legislative leader in 20 years to lose an election” despite spending a whopping $700,000 on his race.
Well, the man who expects to be the Democrat Speaker in the upcoming 2025 legislative session is Assembly District 9 incumbent Steve Yeager. But first he’s gonna have to get past another feisty newcomer, Erica Neely.
Conventional wisdom, which I rarely subscribe to, says Yeager is a lock for re-election.
And I hope he believes it. Because if so, there’s a real chance Erica could sneak up and bite him right on the keister – just like Duncan did to Conklin a dozen years ago.
Consider…
The Playing Field
Going into the 2022 general election, there were 44,000 active registered voters in the district. There were about 3,000 more Democrats than Republicans with around 14,000 non-partisans.
And Yeager only won by 1,471 votes despite outspending his Republican opponent by a staggering $825,000 to less than $21,000 – a factor of almost 40-to-1!
Now, as of August 1, 2024, the Democrat advantage in this district has shrunk by around 500 voters while the number of non-partisans has sky-rocketed by some 4,000 voters.
So those who think Yeager is a slam dunk are wearing rose-colored glasses and drinking the Kool-Aid. Especially when you consider the whirlwind of scandal that follows him everywhere he goes.
Industrial-strength Mr. Clean can’t make the stench around Yeager’s Carson City “Favor Factory” scandals from the 2023 session go away. And that’s not to mention the jet-setting junket-lover’s worldwide travels.
Even Gulliver couldn’t hold a candle to this guy!
But you can’t beat somebody with nobody, so let’s take a look at Ms. Neely. And, wow, what a story…
Early Life in the People’s Republic of California
Erica’s father quit school at the age of 12 and fled to the U.S. after his own father was murdered in Mexico. Erica’s mother was brought to the U.S. when she was 13 after her own father was killed in the war in El Salvador.
They met in Los Angeles shortly after moving there and had six children together.
Her mom and dad learned English – but not very well – and became citizens after Ronald Reagan’s amnesty program in the mid-80’s. Erica’s little sister was named “Nancy” after Nancy Reagan.
A first-generation American, Erica was born in South Central L.A. Spanish was her first language and the only language spoken in her parents’ home.
“I did not learn how to speak English until the age of nine or read English until I was sixteen,” Erica recalls.
“But even though I could not read English until I was well into my adolescent years, they kept passing me to the next grade level and the next grade level,” she continued. “So I know exactly what poor education looks like.”
Growing up in that “broken-down inner city,” Erica also learned first-hand what violence looks like and what a lack of education leads to.
“I experienced the harsh reality of running home to dodge bullets,” she recalls, “as well as seeing friends not graduate because they got pregnant.”
How Erica Got “Red-Pilled”
Erica notes that her parents got hooked on welfare benefits and consistently voted Democrat. And when she registered to vote for the first time in 2000, she also voted Democrat because, well, that’s what her parents and most Mexican families did at the time.
In 2005, Erica realized she couldn’t afford to buy property in California, moved to Las Vegas, and bought a home. However, she admits, she brought the same liberal mindset with her.
“You could take the girl out of California,” she recalls, “but you couldn’t take the California out of the girl.”
Like many in Las Vegas during the Great Recession, Erica lost her home and realized it was her own fault for bringing the same failed policies to Nevada that she had fled in California.
She recalls being “brainwashed” to despise President Bush because “that’s what the media fed us.” She became angry after realizing she had been “manipulated into hating Republicans and believing Democrats were for the people.”
“I felt like a fool for falling for it,” she says.
Erica admits she voted for Obama in 2008 but got furious over his bank and auto industry bailouts after losing her own home.
“That was the last time I voted Democrat,” the “red-pilled” Republican says. “The Democrat Party failed me. I will never vote Democrat or register as one again.”
The Next Generation
In 2009, Erica met her husband. Laurence. Together they have six children, four of whom are currently school-aged. They’re also foster parents and have fostered nine children ranging from newborn to twelve years of age.
Oh, and she also coached youth soccer and won two first-place trophies!
The couple decided to teach their children both Spanish and English at home, believing it would give them a head start in life. But when her daughter started public school, Erica was shocked at being told her daughter was “behind” and struggling with reading because she was bilingual.
“They told me children with more than one language struggle in school,” she recalls. “But I refused to accept that as a reason for her difficulties, especially since the Clark County school district had been ranked 50th in education for years.”
So Erica applied to get her daughter into a charter school and was delighted when she won a seat in the lottery. But that joy quickly turned to anguish due to campus bullying.
“At the age of seven, five of my daughter’s classmates surrounded her, pushed her around, and one even punched her in the face, bloodying her nose,” Erica recalls. “Shockingly, the school didn’t even file a report or notify the parents of the kids involved.”
“I marched down to the principal’s office several times demanding action,” she continued. “But nothing happened.”
Erica recalls she would come home and vent her frustrations at her husband over the poor education quality, the increase in school and classroom violence, and the lack of parental involvement.
“One day,” she recalls, “after passionately venting my frustrations for the umpteenth time, Laurence simply asked, ‘Why are you yelling at ME?’ And he was right.”
Getting Off the Bench and Into the Game
The couple began homeschooling their own children, but Erica remembers how, in 2021, Democrats in the State Assembly tried to pass a bill forcing homeschoolers to teach the same curriculum being taught in the public schools – exactly what she and her husband had worked so hard to escape.
She also remained furious over other families being trapped in failing public schools because they were unable to exercise the homeschool option. So in 2022 Erica filed for a seat on the Clark County school board.
She ran on a platform of ending “restorative discipline,” watered-down standards, chronic absenteeism, campus drug use, over-crowded classrooms, bullying, and the “so-called progressive curriculum” that was leaving kids behind in the core subjects of reading and math.
“Current policies in place have increased violence and suicides in our schools,” she wrote at the time. “The parents and children of our district did not vote for this mess. I’m running as a parent to have a seat at the table!”
Although she lost in the primary, politics was now in her bloodstream.
Don’t Mess with a Mama Bear!
During the 2023 legislative session, Erica watched Democrats dig their heels in and kill Gov. Lombardo’s proposal to restore Education Savings Accounts. In addition, they also defunded the Opportunity Scholarship program that was helping so many low-income families escape the failing public school system.
“At this point, Laurence and I faced a choice: fight or flight,” Erica says. “And while we considered moving to a state with better schools, we decided to stay here and fight – not only for our children, but everybody’s children.”
So back in March, she filed to run for Assembly District 9.
“I know that taking on Speaker Yeager is a ‘David vs. Goliath’ challenge,” she said, “but I just couldn’t sit back and let him get away with defending the teachers’ unions instead of fighting for our kids.
“Win, lose, or draw, Mr. Yeager is going to feel the wrath of parents and the children he’s left behind,” she concluded. “And if enough of them turn out and vote in November, they’ll have a champion defending them in Carson City next year instead of a lockstep partisan.
I remember reading a quote about “Mama Bears” that seems particularly applicable in this case. It went something like this…
“I may seem quiet and reserved, but if you mess with our children, I will break out a level of crazy that will make your nightmares seem like a happy place. You should probably brace yourself. This is going to hurt.”
I’m not much of a gambling man, but I know enough not to bet against Erica Neely in this Assembly District 9 race.
For more information – OR TO MAKE A DONATION! – please visit www.neelyfornevada.com.
Or you can contact her directly via email – erica@neely4nevada.com – or call her at (702) 785-1160.