Word on the street is that somebody is doing robo-calls into Sen. Bill Raggio’s district in an effort to assess support for a recall. Where in the world did they get THAT idea? What a bunch of agitators.
Interesting pair of emails I received on Gov.-elect Sandoval’s trial balloon suggestion on raising the cost of driver’s, fishing and hunting licenses.
Betsy wrote: “Hey Chuck: Give the guy a break. Stop second guessing. What good are you doing with this one?” On the other hand, Craig wrote: “I’m serving in Afghanistan and read the article about Sandoval going wobbly. Why are we such suckers in voting for these guys. Need to recall him immediately. That’s how we see it on the battlefield. He needs to be stopped before he even gets started.”
I gotta go with Craig on this one. Jim Gibbons started wandering off the no-new-taxes reservation in his first term over a relatively minor tax hike advisory question in Washoe County. He then came back the second session with a whopping $292 million tourism tax built into his budget. If we don’t nip this “a fee is not a tax” crud in the bud, we’ll, as they say, rue the day.
In one of the most blatantly transparent efforts to pull the wool over the electorate’s eyes, Nevada state Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford on Monday renamed the “Taxation” Committee the “Revenue” Committee.
Not only should no one be fooled by this effort to insult our intelligence, but Republicans should refuse to use the new name and refer to the Taxation Committee by its proper name until they get back into the majority and can change it back officially.
Which reminds me….
While there was good news in the GOP picking up one net seat in the state senate last week, there *should* be even better news at the end of the day in 2012. With Sens. Raggio and Rhoads finally term-limited out….and odds being the GOP picks up two net seats (Copening and Breeden)…not only will the GOP once again have the majority, but they’ll have a conservative majority under Barbara Cegavske going into 2013.
And after that, a whole new next generation will take over in the upper house.
Harrah’s says it submitted yesterday “over 200,000 signatures on a petition that would facilitate the construction of an arena in Clark County.” Alas, I can tell you, without a doubt, that the folks circulating the petition were lying their lying arses off to get those signatures – including the fact that the project would result in a tax hike.
Indeed, when I was asked to sign the petition outside a Trader Lee’s (had to stock up on Three-Buck Chuck!), I specifically asked if it was for Sue Lowden’s arena proposal for the old Wet ‘n Wild property. After asking specifically if that was specifically the project they were specifically gathering signatures for, I was told “yes.” Which was an outright lie. And I’m not the only one these folks lied to.
“I remember being approached by one of the signature-gatherers for the arena proposal outside a Vons grocery store earlier this year,” writes CityLife editor Steve Sebelius in his SlashPolitics blog today. “The woman proffering the petition asked me if I wanted to see a new arena built ‘downtown.’ I promptly informed her that the arena for which she was gathering signatures was not planned for downtown, but rather for the Strip. ‘Strip, downtown, it’s all the same,’ the woman (actually) said. Um, no actually.”
Indeed, you’d be hard-pressed to make a case that the petition circulators didn’t lie their arses off to every single person they got signatures from. I wonder if there’s a class-action lawsuit in here somewhere?
In other news, Assemblyman Pat Hickey (R-Reno) announced last week that he was introducing a bill to move Nevada’s primary election back to September from June. This is a very bad idea in general, and an even worse one for Republicans in the Legislature. Why?
Because a short primary of just two months benefits incumbents who already have plenty of money, plenty of endorsements, plenty of volunteers and name ID. Also, incumbents rarely attract serious primary challengers. So a September primary is nothing more than an incumbent-protection measure, with Democrats accounting for most of the current incumbents.
A June primary, on the other hand, allows nominees who come out of bitter primary races to heal the wounds, make peace with their opponents, unite the party, get organized and refill the coffers before the general election campaigning starts right after Labor Day. Let’s hope this idea gets squashed before it even gets out the gate.
And finally, the stupidest 2 ½ minutes in politics. “>Click here
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