NO TAX ON THE TRUTH: Susie Lee Claims She Backs Tip, Overtime Tax Cuts She Voted Against

Nevada Democrat Rep. Susie Lee is telling voters she supports No Tax on Tips and No Tax on Overtime, an election-year declaration complicated by one rather stubborn problem: when Congress actually voted on legislation containing both tax cuts, Lee voted no.

Asked by The Nevada Independent this week whether Congress should raise federal tax rates, Lee answered, “No.” She then added, “I support policies like no tax on tips and no tax on overtime.” The remarks came in a candidate questionnaire comparing Lee with Republican challenger Marty O’Donnell in Nevada’s hypercompetitive 3rd Congressional District. 

That would be a cleaner campaign line if the congressional record had disappeared.

On July 3, 2025, Lee joined every House Democrat in voting against President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which enacted deductions for qualified tip income and overtime pay alongside additional tax relief. The measure passed 218-214 despite Lee’s opposition. 

Lee did not merely oppose the broader legislation and quietly move on. Weeks later, she savaged the law in a Las Vegas Sun op-ed as delivering “temporary crumbs for working families in Southern Nevada,” while attacking the package as tilted toward wealthy Americans. 

Now those “crumbs” have apparently become campaign talking points.

Lee has since promoted efforts to make No Tax on Tips permanent, signed letters demanding favorable implementation of the Republican-enacted deduction and advertised herself as a supporter of the policy. Her office said last month that Nevada Democrats had fought for tipped workers “long before Trump came onto the scene.” In other words, Lee’s political rehabilitation strategy appears to be voting against the law, trashing its relief, then sprinting in front of the parade once Nevada workers started enjoying it. 

Republicans are gleefully dragging out the receipts.

“Lying Susie Lee must think Nevadans are morons with amnesia,” NRCC Spokesman Christian Martinez said. “She voted against their tax cuts, mocked the relief as ‘crumbs’ and now lies straight to their faces while stealing credit for Republican accomplishments. Lee isn’t running on her record. She’s fleeing the scene of it.”

The issue is especially poisonous in Nevada, where Trump first unveiled No Tax on Tips during a 2024 Las Vegas rally and where bartenders, dealers, servers, valets and other tipped workers constitute an unusually large share of the economy. Cook Political Report previously identified the policy as a potentially significant weapon against Nevada’s Democrat congressional delegation because Lee, Dina Titus and Steven Horsford all voted against the final tax package. 

For Lee, the problem is bigger than one vote. NV-03 backed Trump in 2024 while sending Lee back to Congress, producing exactly the sort of ticket-splitting electorate Republicans believe O’Donnell can pry loose in November.

Lee now says she supports No Tax on Tips and No Tax on Overtime.

Republicans have a simpler response: if she supported them so much, why did she vote against them?

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