(Chuck Muth) – The rot within the ranks of Nevada’s Democrat legislators stinks like yesterday’s diapers. The buying and selling of votes by breaking open the taxpayers’ piggy bank during the 2023 session of the Legislature and redistributing the money to political friends, allies and even family is ethical quicksand they can’t escape. Just days after the end of the session, Democrat Assemblywoman Michelle “Quid Pro Quo” Gorelow cashed in on her vote to give The Arc of Nevada non-profit $250,000 from the pork-filled “Christmas Tree” bill (AB525). She announced on social media that she’d taken the executive director’s job at the Arc, which is funded by the public tax dollars she voted to funnel to her new employer.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the scandal got worse and grew almost immediately. Turns out, Democrat Assemblywoman Tracy Brown-May is one of Quid Pro Quo’s new bosses! Brown-May is on the Board of Directors for the Arc. And she also voted to give her organization the quarter-million in public tax dollars without disclosing her obvious and undeniable conflict of interest. Birds of a feather. Democrat Assembly Speaker Steve “Donut Boy” Yeager, proprietor of the Nevada State Favor Factory in Carson City, has said NOTHING about this growing scandal involving these two Raiders of the Lost Arc. And he can’t claim he didn’t know. After Assemblywoman Quid Pro Quo announced her new job on LinkedIn, Donut Boy replied and gave her post the ol’ “thumbs up.” So he knew. He just didn’t care.
Nor has he addressed a similar new scandal involving Democrat Assemblyman C.H. Miller who voted to give his own non-profit $100,000 in the Christmas Tree bill. Miller has the John Kerry-like distinction of being against voting for a bill he was conflicted on before he voted for it. In committee he abstained from voting on the bill. But when it came to the floor, “Show me the money!” These people are absolutely shameless. Meanwhile, back at the ranch… A FOURTH Assembly Democrat has now been fingered for dipping into the taxpayers’ cookie jar and voting to hand out pork to a non-profit that they have a significant involvement with. The Nevada Globe reported yesterday that Assemblywoman Venicia Considine voted to give over $4 MILLION (!) to the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada where she works as the Director of Development and Community Relations. “Development” in the non-profit world means “fundraising.” And boy, did Venicia know where the juiciest pot of OPM (Other People’s Money) gold was! I wonder what her commission was for landing this whale. “These elected officials who voted for legislation that directly benefited their employers at the expense of Nevada taxpayers have failed to uphold the public’s trust,” said Better Nevada PAC spokesman John Burke. “Just like Gorelow, Miller, and Brown-May, Considine seems to think it’s okay to use Nevada’s state government as an ATM to help her employer. The culture of corruption in Carson City must end.” Were there ANY Democrats who didn’t check their ethics at the door and go shopping at Yeager’s “Favor Factory” this last session? But Yeager doesn’t have the exclusive rights to this you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours franchise in the political marketplace. Burke exposed today yet another conflict of interest; this one involving his leadership accomplice across the aisle in the State Senate, Nicole Cannibizzaro… “In 2016 when Cannizzaro first ran for Senate, she was warned about the conflict of interest posed by her husband, Nate Ring, and his lobbying activities – as he would be able to lobby her on his clients’ behalf. “Since taking office, Cannizzaro has repeatedly voted in favor of legislation supported by Ring’s clients, refusing to abstain despite this clear conflict of interest. Now, we’ve learned that Cannizzaro drafted and passed legislation to give $25 million to her husband’s client.” “To make matters worse, The Nevada Independent reports that Ring filed a lawsuit on behalf of AFSCME – who he represents – against Governor Joe Lombardo because he chose to veto SB 440, a bill sponsored by Cannizzaro herself to benefit Ring’s client. “Where to start here… Cannizzaro passes a bill that benefits her husband’s client without disclosing the conflict, and now her husband is suing the Governor for vetoing her bill? “This raises a number of ethical questions for Cannizzaro: • Did she speak with her husband about the legislation? • If so, why didn’t he register as a lobbyist? • Or has she been in on it the entire time with AFSCME? • Will Ring disclose all of his clients? • What other bills from Cannizzaro have helped her husband’s clients?” These aren’t just isolated examples of unethical actions. It’s a clear culture of corruption that runs from the top down in the two Democrat caucuses. As P.J. O’Rourke famously put it, “When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.” Unfortunately, we can’t return ours for a refund. Best we can do is shop elsewhere in the next election. FAMOUS LAST WORDS “The Nevada GOP, wanting to hold a (presidential) caucus, sued the state to block the (presidential) primary – an effort supported by the Trump campaign, which has been involved in efforts to change nominating contest rules in state parties across the country, according to Reuters. …Campaigns will be faced with a dilemma over which process to participate in.” – Gabby Birenbaum, Nevada Independent “Unfortunately, state GOP leaders are so obsessed with appeasing Trump that they’ve rigged their primary to prioritize Trump above their own voters. They’re eliminating important grassroots processes which doesn’t benefit voters, only Donald Trump.” – Spokesperson for Never Back Down PAC “Right now, [there] is a hell of a lot of confusion. And by the way, you can put me in that camp as well. I can certainly see somebody going, ‘we’re going to put our money somewhere we know what the rules are, and we can have the best chance of getting a result.’” – Congressman Mark Amodei (R-NV) Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, publisher of Nevada News & Views, and founder of CampaignDoctor.com. You can sign up for his conservative, Nevada-focused e-newsletter at MuthsTruths.com. His views are his own.
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