The Clark County Education Association, the largest teachers union in Nevada, endorsed Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and invested heavily in his re-election campaign this year.

But Attorney General Aaron Ford, a former public school teacher, is now the governor-elect, and the union is considering how it will lobby for its education agenda with a Democratic trifecta in Carson City.

“One party controls all state government. That’s not the ideal situation from our experience, but we’ll work with it,” said John Vellardita, executive director of the union. “We prefer split government where it forces people to talk, to reach compromises, to pass bills.”

Vellardita said Ford now has an opportunity to fulfill his campaign’s promises on education.

“We have a philosophy: we work with anybody that works with us,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what party they’re part of.”

Vellardita said the teachers union still intends to advance its No. 1 priority: a controversial data center plan that could inject more money into public K-12 schools.

The eight-point plan includes a call for data centers to pay the Local School Support Tax, a statewide 2.6 percent tax on retail sales. Vellardita said the plan would generate almost $548 million per year to fund public education, as well as money for pre-K, special education and workforce development for professions that could be displaced by artificial intelligence.

Vellardita said the union found a bill sponsor for their data center plan, but declined to name the sponsor. He added that a bill draft request for their legislation is already in the works.

On top of education funding, Vellardita said the bill will require that data centers face stricter regulations, be water-neutral, not pass power bills onto ratepayers and not be built in communities that don’t approve of them.

Critics of the plan fear reliance for education funding on an industry that is creating environmental and infrastructure challenges. Vellardita is hoping to collect feedback and win them over through town halls beginning “in the near future” and throughout the 2027 Nevada Legislature, which starts Feb. 1. He said the union has polled its plan “and it polls very, very high.”

“If data centers are going to be around here, this is a new model for them to operate where it’s not a one-way street where they get everything they want and they leave the state and people with nothing,” Vellardita said.

Ford’s campaign did not respond by this story’s deadline to questions about Ford’s stance on the union’s data center plan, what relationship he hopes to build with the union and how he will accomplish parts of his education funding platform.

Ford’s campaign website said he supports increasing Nevada’s per-pupil funding to meet or exceed the national average and will invest in Nevada educators’ salaries and benefits to make them competitive with other states.

On data centers, Ford will pause new tax abatements for data centers, extend Southern Nevada’s ban on evaporative cooling statewide, hold public hearings on potential data center buildouts and make data centers pay for the energy they use, according to his platform on his campaign website.

‘Politics is purely transactional’

Both Lombardo and Ford sought the teachers union’s endorsement, Vellardita said, but the union endorsed Lombardo because he helped pass bills that the union sponsored.

“We had a relationship, he delivered, and so we owed it to him to endorse him for his re-election,” Vellardita said of the decision, though he added that the endorsement was not a foregone conclusion. He added that the union’s relationship with Lombardo “far outweighed whatever Aaron Ford had ever done.”

Past years have seen the teachers union use more limited, targeted voter turnout tactics, Vellardita said. But once endorsements were made for the midterms, Vellardita described a full-force effort by the union to get out the vote for their preferred candidates.

Union volunteers made over one million phone calls, knocked doors and advertised via mail, email and text, according to Vellardita. On election eve, Lombardo visited the union’s Las Vegas office where volunteers were phone banking, the governor posted on X.

Strategic Horizons, a political action committee linked to the teachers union, spent more than $1 million on advertising this year ahead of Tuesday’s election, according to state campaign finance reports.

Ads paid for by Strategic Horizons and posted on the union’s X account praised Lombardo for prioritizing teacher safety in the legislature and called him “a leader that fights for our students. One showed the governor surrounded by people in teachers union shirts chanting “Go vote Joe!”

Another ad by Strategic Horizons called Ford’s record into question, including his recommendation that the Nevada Board of Pardons Commissioners review a request for probation by Norman Smith, who was convicted of voluntary manslaughter with a deadly weapon and robbery with a deadly weapon.

“Clark County educators can’t trust a career politician to be our governor,” the ad said of Ford. “Can you?”

The teachers union now finds itself needing Ford’s signature to pass its legislative priorities.

Asked what the union’s relationship is like with Ford, Vellardita said “we endorsed his opponent, and so therefore there’s no relationship when you’re endorsing the other candidate to be re-elected.”

Vellardita recognized, however, that Ford is well aware of the union’s priorities. “He came for our endorsement because he knows who we are,” Vellardita said.

“We know that politics is purely transactional,” Vellardita added. “People running for office come and they look for your support and they look for resources from you.”

Vellardita said he is interested to learn more details about Ford’s stance on data centers and see if the union’s plan aligns with the governor-elect’s campaign promises.

On Wednesday morning, after the governor’s race was called for Ford, the teachers union made a post-election X post.

“We have a rare opportunity to bring school funding to the national average, and we intend to seize it!” the post read in part. “Nevada’s students and educators can’t wait. It’s time to fund our schools.”

Contact Spencer Levering at slevering@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0253.