RGJ analysis of Sandoval's calendar sheds light on stadium vote, Reid relationship

Sept. 21, 2016 was a busy day in Gov. Brian Sandoval’s office.

It started with a 9 a.m. phone call to a prominent Southern Nevada labor leader and soon-to-be outspoken supporter of the Oakland Raiders’ new 65,000-seat, $1.8 billion stadium now under construction in Las Vegas.

It ended with the announcement of a special state Legislative session to examine a controversial $750 million public funding package for the Raiders new home near the Las Vegas Strip.

In between, Sandoval put in a flurry of phone calls to a string of high-powered casino executives and Southern Nevada public officials who would soon ramp up their support for the Raiders’ move to Sin City.

More: Raiders practice facility may be headed to Henderson, chafing Northern Nevada lawmakers

Related: One step closer: Sandoval signs Raiders stadium bill

Six of the nine heavy hitters Sandoval spoke with went on to lavish praise on the stadium in early October remarks before state lawmakers.

In fact, three in that group met with Sandoval only minutes before addressing the special session, according to a copy of the governor’s calendar obtained under a records request from the Reno Gazette Journal. (You can see the entire calendar at the bottom of this story.)

A week after legislators heard their testimony, Nevada’s perennially popular governor signed the largest taxpayer handout for a stadium in NFL history.

Sandoval's potentially legacy-altering stadium, finally approved by NFL owners just last week, won’t be finished until August 2020, more than a year after he leaves office.

But details on the groundwork Sandoval laid out in front of that deal, and the people he embraced ahead of other key decisions, are available via the typically spotlight-shy governor’s calendar.

An RGJ analysis of the governor's calendar shows some of the schedule’s more detailed entries, which date back to 2016. It paints an eclectic, bipartisan picture of the term-limited Republican’s closest confidants.

Other, more heavily-redacted parts — including entries blotted out around the time Sandoval was flagged as a possible pick for the U.S. Supreme Court in early 2016 — may speak volumes without divulging anything at all.

Among the RGJ's findings of Sandoval's calendar:

Meetings with titans of the gaming industry : 22 scheduled interactions with top Nevada casino executives, including disgraced Wynn Resorts CEO Steve Wynn and Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman Sheldon Adelson. MGM Resorts CEO Jim Murren in particular had Sandoval’s ear. He, together with his wife, logged eight known meetings or phone calls with the governor, more than most Sandoval staffers and all but one of the governor’s cabinet members.

: 22 scheduled interactions with top Nevada casino executives, including disgraced Wynn Resorts CEO Steve Wynn and Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman Sheldon Adelson. MGM Resorts CEO Jim Murren in particular had Sandoval’s ear. He, together with his wife, logged eight known meetings or phone calls with the governor, more than most Sandoval staffers and all but one of the governor’s cabinet members. A regular relationship with Reid, not Heller : 13 phone calls and visits with former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, the stalwart Democrat and former Senate Majority Leader. Reid was by far Sandoval’s most frequent contact among fellow elected officials. U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., by contrast, had two recorded interactions with Sandoval.

: 13 phone calls and visits with former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, the stalwart Democrat and former Senate Majority Leader. Reid was by far Sandoval’s most frequent contact among fellow elected officials. U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., by contrast, had two recorded interactions with Sandoval. Talks with major companies : Eight combined meetings and phone calls with lobbyists and executives from Amazon, SolarCity and Switch — the Las Vegas-based beneficiary of more than $20 million in taxpayer-backed development incentives doled out by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. Steve Hill, the state’s former economic development director, was also the governor’s closest cabinet confidant, garnering more calendar appearances than any other cabinet member.

: Eight combined meetings and phone calls with lobbyists and executives from Amazon, SolarCity and Switch — the Las Vegas-based beneficiary of more than $20 million in taxpayer-backed development incentives doled out by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. Steve Hill, the state’s former economic development director, was also the governor’s closest cabinet confidant, garnering more calendar appearances than any other cabinet member. Power-brokers behind the scenes : Three interactions with top political power brokers Billy Vassiliadis and Sig Rogich, the CEO and founder, respectively, of celebrated Las Vegas advertising and public relations firm R&R Partners. Vassiliadis, a top Democratic advisor, has famously been called the most powerful unelected man in Nevada.

: Three interactions with top political power brokers Billy Vassiliadis and Sig Rogich, the CEO and founder, respectively, of celebrated Las Vegas advertising and public relations firm R&R Partners. Vassiliadis, a top Democratic advisor, has famously been called the most powerful unelected man in Nevada. One known conversation with Attorney General Adam Laxalt: He's a fellow Republican and the GOP favorite to succeed Sandoval. Laxalt, known as a staunch conservative, has split with the more moderate Sandoval on a handful of well-known policy issues, including support for the governor’s hallmark 2015 commerce tax increase.

Comings and goings

Sandoval's office did not answer questions about the substance of his September 2016 talks with prominent Las Vegas stadium backers, including his Sept. 21 calls with AFL-CIO boss Danny Thompson, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Rossi Ralenkotter and Clark County Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak.

Hours before calling a special session, Sandoval also spoke to Wynn and Murren, as well as Boyd Gaming CEO Keith Smith and Jan Jones Blackhurst, the Caesars Entertainment executive.

Two of his final calls went to Station Casinos CEO Frank Fertitta — a long-rumored potential investor in the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas — and Adelson, a one-time financial backer of the team’s stadium near the Las Vegas Strip.

Over the next four weeks, Blackhurst and Sisolak, now a Democratic front-runner to take Sandoval’s seat, headlined events and hit the airwaves to build support behind the project’s record-breaking public funding package. Thompson, Wynn, Murren and Ralenkotter each joined the pair in praising the project before state lawmakers.

The governor’s office did not answer questions about his role in lining up that support, instead deferring to a statement from Kathryn Reynolds, Sandoval’s top attorney:

“In reviewing these documents, it is important to understand that the Governor’s Outlook calendar is a tool; it is not a definitive record of his activities,” Reynolds wrote in an email. “On any given day, meetings or interactions may occur that were not previously placed on the calendar.

“Similarly, events that appear on the calendar may have been cancelled due to the circumstances of that day.”

Reynolds replied with the same statement when asked about more than two dozen meetings and phone calls Sandoval had with undisclosed participants since the start of 2016. Many of those get-togethers were held in the run-up to the Las Vegas stadium deal and at the governor’s mansion during the 2017 Legislative session.

Raiders and health care talks

Sandoval has said he spoke with Raiders owner Mark Davis the same week he announced the special session on the stadium.

There’s no evidence of the call in his calendar, though there is a record of three get-togethers with the Raiders and their representatives dating back to March 8, 2016. That first meeting, with Davis and top Adelson aide Andy Abboud, came roughly one month before Sandoval sat down for a “stadium update” with top aides.

Sandoval’s calendar shows he wouldn’t speak with Davis or Raiders president Marc Badain for almost another year, when he scheduled a pair of chats on Feb. 8 and March 23, 2017.

The governor had plenty on his plate by the time that last conversation rolled around.

Six days earlier, Sandoval had joined four other Republican governors in coming out against House Speaker Paul Ryan’s ill-fated plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Calendar entries show the decision to oppose a long-awaited Trumpcare proposal was preceded by a bevvy of phone calls with top White House staffers, insurance company executives and political advisors.

Sandoval — who in 2012 became the first Republican governor to embrace expanded Medicaid coverage under Obamacare — said at the time he was worried about what Ryan’s bill would do to 300,000 Nevadans who had already gained expanded Medicaid coverage.

He spoke publicly about his discussions with then-White House deputy Rick Dearborn and then-Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, Trump’s first pick to helm the massive agency charged with administering Medicare and Medicaid.

It’s not clear he said anything about his talks with Republican kingmaker Rogich and Aetna President Karen Lynch, each of whom he called just three days before accelerating his attack on the health care proposal.

Empty entries

There’s perhaps also something to glean from what was left out of the governor’s calendar.

Take Sandoval’s February 2016 schedule. Apart from an apparently unrelated trip to Washington D.C., a pair of phone calls with Sen. Reid and a string of redactions, there’s little to suggest Sandoval was being eyed as an appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Yet that’s exactly what the Washington Post reported late that same month, citing two sources who said President Barack Obama was considering the former federal judge to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Sandoval took himself out of the running for the seat a day later.

Sandoval’s split with his wife Kathleen, first announced in December and finalized in late February, is also not explicitly mentioned in his calendar, nor are the names of either spouse’s divorce attorneys.

Also missing is week-long stretch ahead of a famed October 2016 press conference that saw prominent Nevada Republicans — among them Sandoval and Heller — withdraw support for then-candidate Donald Trump. The move came amid a wave of “dump Trump” announcements put out by GOP politicians in light of vulgar comments Trump made about women in a 2005 conversation with the then-host of "Access Hollywood.”

Another gap: The six-day stretch surrounding Sandoval’s vote to pardon 54-year-old Fred Steese, who spent more than two decades in prison for a murder he did not commit.

Sandoval and all seven state Supreme Court justices voted to free Steese. Laxalt cast the lone no vote in a move critics suspect was politically motivated.

Calendar entries from Nov. 6, two days before the pardon vote, show Sandoval met with Connie Bisbee, chairman of the Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners. He also scheduled a Nov. 6 meeting with “Katie and Mike re: execution.” Sandoval’s chief of staff is Mike Willden. His general counsel is Kathryn Reynolds.

One week after the execution meeting, Willden said publicly that it was too late for Sandoval to stop the execution of twice-convicted murderer Scott Dozier. Dozier wants to die and has dropped his legal appeals, but his death sentence has been tied up in court amid an ongoing shortage of legal injection drugs.