Amodei Slap Down: Now That’s Got to Leave a Mark

(Thomas Mitchell/4TH ST8) Who’d’ve taken soft-spoken, polite-to-a-fault, in Congress-only-nine-months Rep. Mark Amodei for a triple-play threat.

In one simple declarative statement released via email Wednesday, Amodei wove in just-beneath-the-surface nuances that stabbed fellow Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley in the back, stroked fellow Republican Sen. Dean Heller and tweaked the upturned, imperious nose of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The topic at hand was the passage of H.R. 4039, the Yerington Land Conveyance and Sustainable Development Act, which was bundled with more than a dozen other water and land use bills as the Conservation and Economic Growth Act. The Yerington bill would allow the city of Yerington to buy 10,400 acres of federal land to facilitate development of the Pumpkin Hollow copper mine and potentially create 800 well paying jobs. The package passed on a vote of 232-188 with Berkley voting nay and saying the legislative package has no chance of passing in the Senate and “faces strong opposition in Nevada,” which she failed to explain in any manner whatsoever.

In his statement, Amodei goes through the routine of thanking various bill supporters, pledging to work with the Democrats who voted for the bill and touting various aspects of the bill that include grazing improvements, border security and recreational shooting.

Amodei, without ever mentioning Berkley, who is trying to unseat Heller with the unabashed backing of Reid, concludes his statement thusly:

“Having sat on the jurisdictional committee that passed the bills in this package, the allegation of ‘strong opposition in Nevada’ is a statement whose foundation is unknown to me.

“I look forward to well-deserved support and leadership in moving the Yerington bill forward in the U.S. Senate. As the junior member of the House Republican Conference, I am sure the Senate Majority Leader will have no problem advancing Senator Heller’s Yerington legislation in much less than 120 days.”

So Berkley doesn’t think her puppet master Reid has the clout to pass a bill that would create a significant amount of jobs and have a major economic impact on an economically hard-hit part of the state. With one swing of the gauntlet, he slaps down Berkley and calls out Reid with a duel-like challenge: Can you — the great and powerful Oz of the U.S. Senate — manage to pass a Nevada-centric bill in less than 120 days, which is all the time the aforementioned junior congressman from Nevada, who took office in September, needed to pass his first sponsored bill?

Subtle.