Democrats and Lombardo both deserve prison sentences for their food fight over free lunch • Nevada Current

My 9-year-old can have free breakfast and lunch every school day. No questions asked.

That fact may come as a surprise to Nevadans, who have heard the recent hesitation over Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo's meanness in vetoing a bill last session that would have funded free lunches for all students. Democrats, it seems, are so eager to paint the governor in a bad light that they are highlighting the veto without making some caveats important to parents and guardians.

Yes, Lombardo vetoed a Democratic-backed bill last session that would have funded free school lunches for the 2024-25 school year. But it's also true that the majority of students across the state already have guaranteed access to free breakfast and lunch—a fact that is continually being deliberately glossed over.

The Clark County School District, which enrolls 63% of Nevada's public school students in preschool through high school, participates in the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows schools and districts in high-poverty areas to offer free breakfast and lunch to all enrolled students without requiring household applications. CEP uses data from other income-based programs – such as the Supplementary nutritional support program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) – to determine eligibility for a district or school.

CCSD is not always easy to like, but in this particular case, it delivered. And that goes for other districts in the Silver State as well. All schools in the Churchill, Clark, Esmeralda, Humboldt, Lyon, Mineral, Nye and Pershing County school districts are CEP certifiedaccording to the Nevada Department of Agriculture. More than two dozen charter schools are also affected.

CEP makes sure no one falls through the cracks. Children are not denied free food because their parents didn't fill out the application form. It helps families whose incomes fluctuate wildly and are struggling some weeks but not others. It helps families whose household income is too high to qualify for free or reduced lunch but who still feel like their budgets are tight. And it helps parents like me who are occasionally too busy or stressed to put SunButter on their bread and stuff it in a ziplock bag.

(In case you don't know, SunButter is the best alternative to peanut butter in nut-free schools. But I digress.)

Democrats can – and should – criticize the governor for rejecting their free lunch bill. But it is irresponsible not to release important information about the status quo for most children in the state. As the Nevada Assembly Democratic Caucus promoted A Daily Beast comment They blamed Lombardo for his veto, saying the Southern Nevada candidate who authored the bill was running “to get the bill passed so that children across the valley can have what was denied to him.”

Maybe he meant the children of a charter school?

The message “Hey, we do a lot of good things here, but we want to do better” isn't complicated. For example, Democrats like to remind us that Nevada currently protects abortion rights by law, but wants to better protect that right by amending the state constitution.

Lombardo was right to call the Democrats' messages “disinformation.” I saw numerous posts on social media from parents asking how they could get free school lunches. The comments sections were filled with confusion and people falsely telling people who need food assistance that it wasn't available because of Lombardo.

Since Governor Lombveto publicly called them out, Democrats have moved on to “EVEN A CHILD THAT DOESN'T HAVE A MEAL IS BAD, BRUH” and “80% insured still means 20% uninsured.” Both statements are true. But that's not the weeks-long campaign we've seen on this issue.

There is much to criticize the governor for – literally a matter of life and death. Even on the narrow issue of free school lunches, Lombardo's argument that “anyone who needs it can get it” ignores the fact that some parents forget, are too proud or too afraid to fill out an application. It is well known that many people who are eligible for social safety net programs do not sign up for them.

Even more outrageous, Lombardo claimed his veto was justified because 73% of free lunches were wasted – a figure taken out of context. The Nevada Independent Facts checked I made this claim months ago, and the researchers themselves told me that the 73% figure “should not be taken out of context and the results should not be generalised to schools around the world”.

In addition, the figure specifically addresses vegetables.

Kids don't eat vegetables. As a father of three young children, I could have told you that. I can safely say that at least 73% of the vegetables I pack for my kids also end up being thrown away, but I pack them anyway because 25% is better than 0% and I can't try to not give my kids anything just because they can be picky rascals when it comes to carrots.

The same newspaper, by the way, found that 19% of entrees, 47% of fruit and 25% of milk were thrown away. I guess Democrats aren't the only ones who like to leave out inconvenient things.

It's absurd that out of his dozens of vetoes, this issue has become the Democrats' central issue. Children are more successful in school when they don't go hungry, but they are also more successful when they don't have to move every year because of rising rents. Children are more successful when their parents can live off a full-time job and have the time and energy to be active and engaged at home. Children are more successful when they have access to extracurricular activities, good teachers, and appropriate class sizes.

If we want to talk about school breakfasts and lunches, we can certainly talk about their nutritional value and quality. But perhaps we should be asking the real question: Why do such large parts of Nevada meet federal standards for free and reduced-price lunches throughout the community so easily? Why do so many households struggle?

The answer to this question is, of course, complicated and does not allow for cutesy headlines like “the governor stole our lunch money.” Maybe Nevada will have that one day.