Charlie Nicole De La Paz is the mother of four kids, a small business owner, a parent and child advocate, and has lived in Nevada for 34 years, moving back to the state permanently at the age of 5 after her father served as Captain in the Army in Germany. She is now seeking to fill Annie Black’s open Assembly Seat in Assembly District 19.

The Globe reached out to De La Paz after witnessing many activists in the Clark County School district disparage her on Twitter.

Outside of the ironic, racially-charged tweet, I am unsure what POC white means. I am assuming it means biracial, but De La Paz’s mother immigrated from Mexico in the 1970’s with her six siblings, raising De La Paz in a large Mexican-American family who were immersed in Mexican and American culture. Many in her family became business owners and military members who De La Paz states, “have contributed and given so much to Nevada and this country.”

When The Globe asked why De La Paz decided to run for office, she stated:

“I am passionate about Nevada and improving areas–especially education. I have watched my children go through Clark County School District (CCSD) like I did. I became active in education and politics in 2014. At that time, the CCSD Superintendent was trying to bring in comprehensive sex education into K-12. I still have curriculum. Within it, they wanted to teach kindergarteners masturbation. This curriculum obviously created controversy and parents woke up and showed up at meetings. At that time, a group of parents formed Power2Parent in a living room and I was invited to join the board. In 2015, we headed to our first legislative session and citizen lobbied for our first time. We weren’t really organized as a C4 until 2016 when Erin Phillips became our President. I then became one of the three original founders.

As a lawmaker, and not a citizen lobbyist, I can push for school and parental choice and have the ability to create the changes we need to fix education. Education isn’t the only issue, but the other issues in Nevada are related and could be improved with a better education system and improved educational outcomes.

I have now stepped away from the Power2Parent board in order to run for office, but I fully support their continued efforts to better Nevada’s education system by giving parents and children a choice.

Phillips just launched a ballot initiative that I support. The initiative would amend the state’s constitution and establish a statutory measure to allow tax dollars to follow the child.

I also ran a small business that was obliterated in 2020. I restarted the business in October 2021, but I have seen, first-hand, what the powers of the governor can do to a small businesses and that power needs to be reigned in.”

When asked what the first three things De La Paz will do when elected, she answered:

“We can look at what other states have done to control how much power the governor has in emergencies and I would propose a bill to limit the governor’s power based on existing legislation. Anything I can do as an Assemblywoman to champion small business and help them thrive and rebuild will be one of my missions. Our small businesses in this state were decimated during the lockdowns and mandates. We need to assist them and encourage entrepreneurs to take that risk and open a small business and know that legislators will support them and have their back.

I would have a third party audit CCSD, and all school districts, to create transparency and accountability. We need and deserve to know what our school districts are doing with our tax payer dollars. Throwing more money at a system that isn’t transparent is not working and is not right, but the teachers unions keep asking for more money. I believe the union could better represent the teachers because teachers are struggling. I was a substitute teacher for three years with hopes to become a teacher and saw what an utter mess the district was in 2006 and it has gotten progressively worse. I changed my entire degree due to what I witnessed as a substitute teacher.

Coming from a large hispanic family, many of them business owners, Republicans need more outreach in the Hispanic community. I am so proud of my De La Paz and Fernandez family. Hispanics are very family and education oriented. We are great contributors to the Nevada economy. We are in our community servicing the community, employing the community, and I would like to be a part of additional outreach to the hispanic community about the Republican values–which are their values. I am excited to continue my outreach as a Republican Assemblywoman.”

De La Pax closed the interview by listing numerous endorsements that she was “proud of” including Councilwoman Victoria Seaman, State Senator Scott Hammond, Assemblyman PK O’Neill and former Lieutenant Governor Mark Hutchinson.

“All of these endorsements came from my building relationships and friendships as a volunteer. These last years of citizen-lobbying the legislator has been a great experience. My campaign is doing very well and I am in a great place. My experience is grass roots oriented and working with the grass roots–the parents, the teachers, the community.  Taking this volunteer experience and bringing it to the legislature as an Assemblywoman is a great fit. If there are any candidates out there looking to develop an education platform, please reach out to me. I can help anyone and I would be happy to help.”