PUBLIC SAFETY
Melanie became a prosecutor to protect Nevada’s families. Melanie works with victims of crime from all parts of our community every day, giving voice to their needs and guiding them through the judicial process. She works hard to hold violent offenders responsible, while helping our most vulnerable. Melanie has successfully fought to uphold convictions in sexual assault, child abuse, and murder cases.
When she was first elected in 2018, one of Melanie’s top priorities was fighting to enforce universal background checks, which passed overwhelmingly by ballot measure in Senate District 9, but had still not been implemented. She proudly cast her first ever vote in the Senate for legislation that did just that, because as a prosecutor, Melanie understands that universal background checks are critical to keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, gang members, terrorists, and the dangerously mentally ill.
During her time in the Senate, Melanie also worked to ban bump-stocks, the gun attachment that was used in the tragic Las Vegas mass shooting that took place on October 1, 2017. Bump stocks allow semi automatic guns to fire rounds as rapidly as a fully automatic gun. She also voted to ban ghost guns, weapons with no serial number or tracing mechanism to the owner. Melanie believes there is no reason anyone should have their hands on these devices, and she fought to outlaw them in Nevada in order to make our communities safer.
Melanie works to keep Nevada families safe under a justice system that works for everyone. She believes we need to provide our law enforcement and first responders with the resources and support they need to protect and serve our community effectively.
Melanie wants our public safety work for everyone, from the police who serve our community to those they are sworn to protect. That’s why she supports increased police accountability and improving training. She worked to pass legislation that reformed use of force policies for law enforcement officers and created a system for early warning detection for law enforcement officers showing signs of implicit bias.
Because of her work with victims of crime and domestic abuse, Melanie wants to make sure we implement policies that protect our most vulnerable. During her time in the Senate, she has fought to crack down on domestic abusers and perpetrators of identity theft who prey on our seniors.
Melanie also supports measures to prevent crime from happening in the first place. That’s why she will always fight for more after-school programs, job training opportunities and mental health treatment options.
Melanie has a record of keeping our families safe and she will always fight to protect Nevada’s families.