Jacky Rosen is in her first term as a U.S. Senator from Nevada. Since taking office in 2019, she has pushed for more support for women in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, and she currently serves as chair on the Senate Subcommittee on Tourism, Trade, and Export Promotion.
In this conversation with KUNR’s Noah Glick, Rosen talks about vaccine mandates, election security and how to get tourists back to Nevada.
Note: In honor of Nevada Day, KUNR's Noah Glick recorded interviews with four Nevada lawmakers, including Governor Steve Sisolak, Congressman Mark Amodei, and U.S. Senators Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen. Each interview is lightly edited for clarity and the length of the interview was determined by the availability of each lawmaker.
Noah Glick: First things first, I think we need to talk about the pandemic. I just want to start with some of the bigger coronavirus spending measures. You voted in favor of the CARES Act and other spending programs. What in your view is the right way to handle this pandemic from a federal response standpoint? What else needs to be done to help in this fight against COVID?
Senator Jacky Rosen: Well, I think what we've already done. COVID of course has been one of the biggest challenges I would say of probably the last hundred years. It's has been 100 years since the last pandemic. And it really impact[ed] not just lives, but livelihoods, so we think about all the bills that we've already passed to support people personally and professionally. Nevada's home to, 99% of our businesses in Nevada are small businesses. So, being able to give that support through the economic injury [and] disaster loans and grants. I'm on the Small Business Committee.
Of course, I'm chairwoman of the newly formed [Senate] Subcommittee on Tourism, Trade and Export Promotion. So what we did [was] to try to support, particularly unemployment, all those folks who were out of work, because there was no tourism when we were shut down. Our economy depends on that, and unemployment was at one point, the highest at one point, the highest in the country. And then of course, we think about people's personal lives. We had to do tele-health, tele-education, tele-work. We had to make sure that all those things were there to help people survive through the pandemic and then now thrive beyond.
So, some of the things we're going to do next, we hope is that bipartisan Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act, that's going to, I guess, we'll make the whole country a 'cone zone.' We'll put a lot of jobs back in rebuilding our roads and bridges, improving our airports and ports and bringing broadband out. I was on the broadband, part of the infrastructure investment team, that team that negotiated with the president, and we're going to bring broadband out to every home in America.
Glick: So, I do want to touch on travel and tourism a bit. You did mention that. The Protecting Tourism in the United States Act, which you co-sponsored, would require the Department of Commerce to study and report on the effects that the pandemic has had on the travel and tourism industry, so what do you think, more broadly speaking, needs to be done to help travel and tourism here in Nevada?
Rosen: Well, I'm really glad you asked that question. We've just had our fifth hearing on my subcommittee. We've talked about a lot of things that have happened since COVID, the impact of COVID on traveling, tourism broadly, and outdoor tourism and travel on our airports, all of that. Our last hearing, of course, it was about a package we're trying to put together of different pieces of legislation that we will move together in a package. Instead of calling it the omnibus, we're gonna call it the 'tour bus,' and all those things together, like building 'Brand USA,' like protecting tourism in the U.S., so many other bills are going to be in there.
Tourism is important. It's a key economic driver for every state in this nation, so I believe we'll have broad bipartisan support to jumpstart our tourism economy in every way we can, because everybody benefits from that.
Glick: Do you have any specific ideas or recommendations on ways that you can help the tourism industry? I know airlines are working on potentially having vaccine mandates and that sort of thing. Are there other ways or other levers that can be used to sort of help tourism and travel? Are there specifics that you can think of?
Rosen: Well, I think, really, it's just building consumer confidence. We rely on a lot on international travel in Nevada and of course, all across our nation. So, some of the international travel restrictions are being lifted and they're going to continue to be lifted. Improving those vaccination rates, getting the COVID rates down, that's going to really make a difference. And then just, really, improving our ability to accept more people in Nevada.
The Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act, it's got lots of money in there for airports. We're going to improve our control towers. We're going to improve our runways. We're going to improve our capacity to get more people here. And, of course, if you're driving, we all know that those roads from I-15 from California to Nevada, we know what improvement that needs.
All the goods and services that we get around this country, much of it comes in on ships. We need to improve our ports, so a lot of things have to happen for us to move goods and services around this country, and the next step will be this infrastructure bill. I believe that will really help. And continue to just promote tourism every which way we can. I think there's a lot of pent up demand, as people have been sitting home for a long time, and I hope that Nevada is their number one destination.
Glick: I do want to talk vaccines for a second. First, are you vaccinated against COVID-19?
Rosen: I am vaccinated against COVID 19.
Glick: And do you suggest that people who are not vaccinated get the vaccine?
Rosen: I do suggest that they get vaccinated to prevent COVID-19. The statistics and the data show overwhelmingly, and we can look at this worldwide, that if you're vaccinated, your chance of dying from COVID is more than significantly reduced. And so, I think that in order to keep people you love safe, to protect those who can't protect themselves, of course, the younger children or there's people going through chemotherapy or have other kinds of conditions, they may not be able to have a vaccine, or they may be more medically vulnerable. This is the best way for us to get our lives back. So I'm recommending it to everyone.
I think it's not just an act of public health and safety, but really an act of kindness to the people that you love, our friends and our neighbors, and I'm hoping that more people do choose to get the vaccine. It's safe, it's effective, and, of course, it's free.
Glick: Well, given that, would you support vaccine mandates? I know President Biden has recently ordered that any companies with 100 or more employees have to have requirements around vaccines. Would you support vaccine mandates on a broad scale?
Rosen: Well, I think the business community here in the United States, the business community is really taking the lead on that. And I think that what they want to do again, a lot about traveling, about going to work about living our lives is about confidence. And so, if you're a big company, you want to tell people, 'Come shop at your store, fly in your airline,' whatever it is, 'my, our company is safe. We're safe because we're vaccinated and that's gonna protect us.' So, I think the companies themselves are doing a very good job at that because they want to promote confidence to the sector of the consumer that they serve. I think that that's a really good way to go to increase our vaccination rates.
Glick: Do you have any thoughts on combating vaccine misinformation? What can be done on a federal level?
Rosen: Well, [...] we might be able to do information campaigns. We're all out there talking about it, but I think these are the kinds of things that have to happen person-to-person, friend-to-friend, coworker-to-coworker. I can tell you that I've had friends pass away sadly from COVID. I think it's important that we turn down the rhetoric and turn down the heat on the conversation a little bit, and talk about what getting a vaccine is going to give to us, what it's going to give to our community, how it's going to help others who maybe can't get the vaccine. Unfortunately, I know some folks who are fighting breast cancer and they can't get vaccines right now. And so for them, it's a matter of life and death if they're protected or not, and so, we can be good neighbors, by getting the vaccine to protect those that we love.
Glick: Well, I'm really glad that you brought up the idea of turning the heat down. One of the things I think we all can agree on right now is that a lot of people aren't agreeing on things. Bipartisanship seems to be a tall order in Congress right now. So, what in your view needs to be done to bring people together? What's getting in the way of Congress getting more things done?
Rosen: Well, I can tell you that, when I was in Congress, I was rated one of the most bipartisan freshmen when I was there, and I still have that rating today in the Senate. A majority of my bills are bipartisan. And what I think we have to do, and what I try to do all the time, is to meet people where they are on the issues we agree on. I believe that the people of Nevada sent me here to find solutions, and so, I might not agree with each person on everything, but if I agree with them on something, let's say, I agree with them on veterans issue. We're gonna get things done. Let's work together on that. Let's do that. And so, my relationships, I try to meet people where they are, find the things we agree with and work on those bills.
And you will find through most of my work that my bills are bipartisan. They have good support in that way. I'm very proud of that, and when they're passed, they will really deliver for people, [...] like my bipartisan Building Blocks of STEM Act. That was one of the first bills I passed, and it really empowers teachers. It's going to give teachers that kind of training and support. They need to teach STEM education in their classroom. It's going to specifically really help young girls. I was a woman in tech. It's really important that they get the message that tech is for everybody, and so, it's things like that.
Tourism as well, every state is beautiful and special in this country, [and] has somewhere great to visit. This is another area. My subcommittee on tourism is so bipartisan because it's important to all of us, and so that's why I'm hoping that this package of bills that we're going to put forward will have really great bipartisan support, and will pass quickly once we pull it together. And those are the kinds of things I think that Nevadans sent me here to do, and I'm going to continue to do.
Glick: I do want to shift gears a little bit here and talk about January 6. I think January 6 is sort of the monumental moment that, I think, we'll all remember from this year. I just want to start by asking, what was it like for you that day and what's it been like in Washington since?
Rosen: Well, January 6 is a day that I won't forget too soon. I was barricaded in my office with my staff. I was just about to go to the Senate floor to listen to Senator Cortez Matso give her speech. We were watching on TV, getting ready to go over there, and if we hadn't seen, if I hadn't had the television on as we were waiting to go over there, I would've been coming up the elevator at the time when the insurrectionists, the rioters, were crashing into the Capitol. And I think about not just myself, but my team that was with me, and what that might have meant to all of us. And so, I really believe that it's a turning point. We have to take, again, tone the rhetoric down. We have to find ways to communicate and collaborate on things that are important for people right at their kitchen table.
People have to have confidence that we're going to be able to talk to each other and work things out just like they have to do in their own family, and so, I'm not going to forget the lessons of January 6. I think we should do everything that we can to be sure it's not repeated again. But we have a role here, all of us who are leaders, to be sure that we continue to work together to show the American people that we are trying to lead and work on things that are important to them, each and every one of them, for their families and for their success.
Glick: On the topic of January 6, you did vote to impeach former President Donald Trump for his role in the Capitol breach. Do you feel that he bears responsibility for that day? And if so, what would that look like?
Rosen: Well, I believe the House is doing an investigation now. I did vote to impeach the former president. I do believe that he had a responsibility and a role on January 6. People were there in that crowd, we know now with weapons, with an agenda. And they were definitely, um, incited to march up to the Capitol, and I believe use those weapons against us. I spent hours barricaded with my team in my office before we were taken to a safe place, not knowing where everyone was, where they might be, and if they were going do harm to us. That's not what we do as Americans. Our government, our democracy, we show people that we can disagree, that we can debate, that we can do it in a public forum, but we don't riot against each other. What they did was wrong, and I believe that the former president did have a role in inciting the insurrection that day.
Glick: Who is the current president of the United States?
Rosen: Joe Biden is the current president of the United States.
Glick: I do want to stick around this theme of democracy and preserving democracy, especially after January 6. Do you believe that there is currently a problem with election security in America?
Rosen: There is no problem with election security in America. We have shown that this was the safest, most secure election in recent memory. A record number of people voted in the middle of a pandemic. We used mail-in ballots. We had extended voting hours on weekends, on evenings. We had ballot drop boxes. And I want to tell you one thing, that whenever you talk to people, especially who aren't Americans, if you talk to people who come here from somewhere else, the whole world looks at us and says, 'Look, you have a free right to vote. Your vote is your voice and you, every vote counts. And that is important to who we are. It's important to our democracy. And when we begin to erode that, when we take that away, I believe that the world has less respect for us, so we should be promoting free, fair, open voting, robust voting. Everyone who's eligible to vote should be able to vote, and their vote should count. That is preserving our American democracy.
Glick: As you know, Nevada, as well as in California this year, has seen lots of wildfires. They're getting bigger. They're more intense, they're more destructive than ever before. We're in an historic drought in our region, as you know. What is the government doing to help restore the climate, and what else needs to be done to help us reach the carbon targets outlined in the Paris climate agreement?
Rosen: Well, there's so much going on. Wildfires and drought, of course, [are] affecting all the Western states. I'm on some legislation that is going to try to make, permanent, 1,000 more wildfire firefighters. Because what happens is we used to have a season. Now, we don't have a season. We need year-round firefighters who are trained to do this special kind of work.
Of course, the drought is going to exacerbate our ability to fight fires, and it also makes everything drier, so we have to address both of these issues robustly. The continuing resolution that we just passed had money in there to help, of course, states impacted by hurricanes and wildfires. Of course, on each coast of our country, different dilemmas of money for FEMA to help with that, but these are the upcoming issues of our time.
Again, no state is without challenges in this regard. Even the state of Minnesota, they have 10,000 lakes and they had raging wildfires, so we're trying to pull together a coalition for all of us from Western states to address the ongoing drought and wildfire issues. [We're] seeing what we can do to mitigate that, whether it's legislation, whether it's working with different agencies (Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, of course, our Fish and Wildlife Services), all of that, to be sure that we are prepared and we're going to protect, not just our beautiful forests, but we're going to protect homes and we're going to protect people and all of our communities. It's really important and is going to be an ongoing challenge for us going forward.
Glick: What would you say is your biggest or proudest accomplishment over the last year and what's your biggest disappointment over the last year?
Rosen: Well, I think I spoke to this earlier. One of my first bills that I introduced was the Building Blocks of STEM, so that being my first bill, I believe, signed into law that I introduced, that was really a proud moment. We spoke about that a little bit earlier, but more recently, I do want to say that I was one of the negotiators on the bipartisan Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act that [...] addressed issues that are unique to our state. It's going to make investments all around our country. I was on the airport and broadband subcommittee, and so very proud of the work that we did there.
And, I will also say considering that we're in the pandemic, we spoke earlier about lives and livelihoods. Some of that has to do with my tourism subcommittee, so I'm chair of the newly formed [Promoting] Tourism, Trade and Export [Senate] Subcommittee. Like I said, we've held five hearings. Tourism [is] key to our economy. I'm very proud of what we're doing and what we're going to do.
And I also have to say that I sit on the Armed Services Committee. I sit on six committees; Armed Services and Homeland Security being two of them. And so, what we're doing to keep our nation safe, keep our homeland safe [is] critically important. We have a lot of defense in Nevada and, of course, some parts of Nevada - Hoover Dam or Las Vegas - could be potential targets for other kinds of issues that we worry about. And so, I sit on all those committees, and I'm very proud of the work that I've been able to do to put Nevada's voice in the room.
