Henderson Councilman Dan Shaw lives in Utah, complaints allege

(City of Henderson photo)

Henderson City Councilman Dan Shaw, who is up for re-election, lives in Utah, not Henderson, and is violating state law as a result, says former Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani, who filed complaints against Shaw last month with Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, Attorney General Aaron Ford, and Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar.

“I was at a meeting and someone said Dan Shaw just flew in from his home in Utah, so I got involved in digging that up, and filed a complaint as well,” Giunchigliani said during an interview.

Giunchigliani says she intends to lobby for legislation to shore up Nevada’s residency laws for candidates and elected officials, which she says are ambiguous.

Shaw says Giunchigliani is doing the bidding of his opponent, Dr. Monica Larson.

“Anyone who knows Chris G. knows she is an experienced and respected community leader and has no tolerance for elected leaders skirting the law,” Larson’s campaign consultant Lisa Mayo DeRiso said via text. “Thank goodness somebody is watching our ethics and transparency.”

“40 years ago, I stopped off in Henderson on the way to a job interview and I’ve lived here ever since,” Shaw, whose campaign consultants initially declined to comment, said in a statement Friday evening. “This is an attempt by my opponent to distract voters from the fact that she only recently moved here and has just lived in Henderson for ‘a cup of coffee’, as the saying goes.”

Shaw, according to sites such as True People Search , lives in Payson, Utah. His candidacy filing lists an address on Blackrock Rim in Henderson. The complaint alleges no registered voters are listed at that address.

Assessor records indicate the property was purchased in May by Shaw’s corporation, Rustler Asset Holdings LLC, and transferred in July to Shaw personally for $5.5 million.

In 2018, Shaw listed his address as City Hall on Water Street, and beginning in 2020, at a home on Serenity Point, which was purchased by Rustler Investments Inc in 2018, transferred to Danny Kevin Shaw in July 2021, and transferred to Shaw Posterity Trust in September 2021.

Shaw is the only Henderson council member of three up for re-election who did not win his race in the primary by receiving a majority of votes. He’ll face off against Larson in the November election.

Since 2022, Shaw has been named as a defendant in six federal lawsuits alleging he made illegal loans, some with interest rates as high as 852.42%, via a tribal lending operation allegedly owned and controlled by Shaw and his business partner Greg Jones. Four of the suits, which are almost identical, have been settled in Illinois, Massachusetts, and Indiana, court records indicate.

Giunchigliani, a state assemblywoman from 1991 to 2006, Clark County Commissioner from 2007 to 2019, and 2018 Democratic primary opponent against Steve Sisolak, who went on to be governor, says she has long perused elected officials’ candidate filings, expense reports, and disclosures.

“I’ve always looked at stuff, but back in the day, we had Common Cause to actually do a lot of this watchdog investigation. We haven’t had anybody in 20-plus years looking at the stuff. Something needs to be done, because since term limits, there’s just been such a turnover,” she says referring to the ballot measure approved by voters in 1994 and again in 1996, limiting elected officials to serving 12 years in office. “We don’t know any background. Candidates don’t even put down their phone numbers.”

The complaint against Shaw is not Giunchigliani’s first residency challenge of the year. Several months ago she filed a complaint alleging School Board trustee Katie Williams doesn’t live in her district. Williams admitted to KLAS-TV that she travels to three states for work.

Five school board trustees filed a similar complaint against Williams with Wolfson, who has the authority to remove her from office.

“She calls in or flies in periodically for school board meetings, but that means she’s vacated her position,” Giunchigliani asserts. “Residency is where you lay your head, and it has to be consecutive.”

Nevada law is less than explicit, perhaps because it’s written by lawmakers for lawmakers.

The law says eligibility for office is determined by “‘actual residence’, which is defined as the ‘place where a person is legally domiciled and maintains a permanent habitation.’”

It goes on to say that in the event a person is absent from their residence “with the intention in good faith to return without delay and continue such residence, the period of absence must not be considered in determining the question of residence.”

Giunchigliani’s complaint notes the declaration of candidacy requires candidates to include their actual, not constructive, place of residence.

But the law says if a person maintains more than one home, the “person’s principal permanent habitation, when filing a declaration or affidavit.. shall be deemed to be the person’s actual residence.”

Giunchigliani says the “really weak language in statute needs to be tightened up,” adding she may call Aguilar “and offer my services, just to volunteer with some other legislators who used to serve with me on the Ethics and Elections committee and come up with a package to give to him” for a potential bill draft.

She’s also interested in shoring up conflict of interest laws, and suggests elected officials are concealing their potential conflicts behind consulting company LLCs.

Giunchigliani says she has not received a response from Wolfson, Ford, or Aguilar on the status of her complaint against Shaw.

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