Carpenter and His Clone Runnin’ Scared

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(Janine Hansen) – In yesterday’s Elko Daily Free Press there was a 1,700 word attack against me by Assemblyman John Carpenter. The John Ellison campaign must be very worried about my campaign. That’s good! Here's my response:

Dear Voter,

I want to thank John Carpenter for his attacks on me. These attacks give me a wonderful opportunity to set the record straight. Thanks John…

Thanks for making it crystal clear for taxpayers that a vote for John Ellison is a vote for John Carpenter’s CLONE. If you are a taxpayer and Ellison is elected, watch out, you are in danger!

John Carpenter received the lowest ranking of the twenty-three Republicans in the State Legislature according to the 2009 Nevada Legislative Session Review & Report Card by the Nevada Policy Research Institute. He was 23 of 23, dead last.

He received just 20.42% out of a possible 100% on tax and spending issues. That was just .02% more than the very liberal Democrat Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford of Las Vegas. Astoundingly, it was even lower than big spending liberal Republicans like Raggio and Townsend who never saw a tax increase they didn’t like.

Senator Horsford was quoted October 21, 2010 on the radio as saying the Legislature is planning to raise your taxes and is looking at a sales tax on food. How comfortable do you feel having a Carpenter Clone like Ellison in the Legislature with tax increases on the horizon? Ellison was already quoted in the Elko Free Press on August 25, 2010 as saying, regarding a tax on food, “It depends on how they are going to do it.” Taxpayers, you have reason to worry!

On the other hand Assemblyman Ed Goedhart from Nye County, who endorsed me, had the best voting record in the Legislature, a 95.59% and received the distinction as the “taxpayers’ best friend”. I accept his endorsement gladly! His personal problems are unfortunate, but unlike John Carpenter’s voting record, his behavior didn’t raise the taxes by a BILLION dollars, affecting everyone in the state.

My Pro-Family record is impeccable and was 40 years in the making. I served as the Petition Chairman for 16 of Nevada’s 17 counties on the Protection of Marriage campaign in 2000. We won overwhelmingly with 70% of voters including Democrats, Republicans and Independents joining together in the very successful effort.

John Carpenter attacked me saying that the fact that the State/Legislature is planning a spending increase of $1.8 billion is untrue. John, here are the facts.

All this year we have been harangued with the notion from Legislators, the media and state officials that the budget deficit is $3 billion. Nevada Policy Research Institute challenged these figures saying they included a spending increase of 23%.

Andrew Clinger, State Budget Director, stated on October 5, 2010 in an interview on “Face to Face” with Jon Ralston that, “What you’re talking about and what NPRI is talking about is the current two-year budget when we look at general fund appropriations…So when you look at just the general fund appropriations we’re going from [$]6.4 [billion[ to [$]8.2 [billion]. SO WE’RE INCREASING APPROPRIATIONS $1.8 BILLION.”

We have it from the horse’s mouth, Andrew Clinger State Budget Director, that the actual spending increase is 28%!!! John, your attacks just don’t hold water.

John disputes the facts from The Nevada Piglet Book 2010 on government employee salaries, government corruption and abuse with statistics of his own. Mark Twain said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

The NPRI Policy Study uses information from the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation. Those figures show that between the first quarter of fiscal year 2008 and the final quarter of 2009, state government employment increased by 5.43%, total state government employee wages rose by 14.17%, while private sector employment fell by 12.82% and total wages fell by 12.63%.

The Hobbs, Org & Associates and Applied Analysis study, commissioned by the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce in 2008, showed that the average public employee in Nevada is paid 28.1 percent more than the average private sector worker doing similar work–even before the exorbitant difference in benefits is considered.

During the debate at Great Basin I noticed that John Ellison never used his full time. He laboriously read his opening and closing statements following along with his finger the large words printed on those pages.

Now, I struggle at times with my blended lenses, but I don’t think that was the problem. At the Legislature there are some 1,500 bills introduced–an incredible amount of reading. One of the complaints by citizens is that lawmakers pass legislation they don’t read. Now what if someone can’t adequately read those bills?

Senator Cegvaske said to me after one difficult Legislative session, “I don’t know what we would do without you Janine. You are invaluable. You read the bills.” Assemblyman Goedhart in his endorsement said, “Janine knows the issues…And she has a unique ability to read through the hundreds of bills that come before the Legislature and find the ‘hidden’ provisions the Left regularly slips in, hoping no one will notice.”

The ability to read and read well is critical at the Legislature, otherwise you are just depending on someone else to tell you what is in the bills.

I say like Ronald Reagan said, John, “there you go again.”

Your attacks on my commitment to the land/property/roads issues are unfounded. Years ago, along with you and many others I protested the feds at Jarbidge with the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade. I did so, because I believe that the feds are usurping control over our lands.

I helped create the Nevada Committee for Full Statehood in 2000 which has focused on defending the rights of Nevada property owners assaulted by the BLM and Forest Service.

I was there defending Cliff Gardner of Ruby Valley when he was in Federal Court in Reno. I was there in Fallon at the auction yard to protest the BLM’s confiscation of Ben Colvin’s cattle in Esmeralda County. We successfully shut down the auction. I was there when his cattle were removed to the BLM’s Palamino Valley facility. I was there protesting at the BLM headquarters in Reno when the Dann Sister’s horses and cattle were confiscated by the Feds.

I have worked tirelessly at the Legislature for years to defend the property rights and roads of Nevadans when some of our own legislators have chosen to compromise our rights and roads. In fact, during the 2009 Legislature, I offered a positive proposal to help keep our roads open similar to what Utah is successfully doing. John, once again your attacks are unfounded and false.

John besmirches my 40 years of dedicated service at the Legislature. John has been angry at me ever since I published his pro-tax voting record in my Nevada Families Voter Guide way back in the 1990’s. John has successfully hidden his liberal pro-tax voting record from the voters in District 33 for years, misrepresenting himself as a “conservative”.

I was named Nevada “Conservative of the Year” in 2010 by the Citizen Outreach Foundation. They said it would have been more appropriate to give me a Lifetime Achievement Award for my work at the Legislature. That’s not peanuts, John.

You John, talk about your Legislative accomplishments passing this bill and that bill. Every session about 1,500 bills are introduced into the Legislature. We don’t need more laws…we need fewer…we need less government and lower taxes in order that Nevada’s families and businesses can prosper.

Much of my work at the Legislature has been in stopping bad laws. We need Legislators who are willing to buck the tide, opposing the tax and spend mentality of the Legislature…and say NO to more wasteful government and NO to more taxes. I am that person. Because of that commitment, I have ruffled the feathers of the “good old boys” establishment.

During the 2009 session of the Legislature I worked effectively with Democrats and Republicans in the Senate to stop the so-called National Popular Vote, which would have made Nevada a meaningless zero during presidential elections.

Remember, in 2008 Obama, Ron Paul and Sarah Palin showed up in Elko? If National Popular Vote had passed that would never happen again. Nevada’s voice in presidential elections would come to an end. I successfully organized the opposition to this dangerous bill which circumvented the Constitution.

Again in 2009, the Secretary of State’s election bill AB82 was a dangerous assault on free speech. I was the bill’s main opponent alerting citizens to this critical liberty destroying issue. This bill outrageously would have required that before a citizen could spend $100 to print some fliers or put up a sign in their own yard they would have to register with the Secretary of State.

I worked with both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate to significantly amend and delay this bill, which ultimately died. I was there guarding the Constitutional rights of citizens as many of the Legislators and the Secretary of State pushed to shut down free speech.

I have been the statewide leader opposing REAL ID, since 2005 when the feds foisted REAL ID on the States. Gun Owners of America called REAL ID “an anti-gun monstrosity”. Now, that anti-gun Obama is in the White House this issue becomes even more critical.

In 2009, I fought REAL ID the entire session. Many Republicans and Democrats, like pro-gun Senator John Lee from Las Vegas, joined me in this battle. Finally, on the last day of the session REAL ID and its anti-gun threat went down to defeat. This would not have happened had I not been at the Legislature tirelessly working to protect the Constitutional liberties of Nevadans.

SB 378, a program to institutionalize preschoolers, was to be financed by Obama stimulus money. It was opposed by many Republicans, but they didn’t have the votes to stop the money hungry Legislature from passing it. I went to the Governor and asked him to veto SB378 which he did. His veto was then sustained by a unanimous vote of the State Senate. That would not have happened without my work with the Legislature and the Governor.

In 2009, I worked hard and alerted many Nevada citizens to insure that Annual Sessions of the Legislature was defeated again.

John and the “good old boys” who support Ellison want “business as usual”. They want their perks and their paychecks. I have worked for a lifetime as a volunteer to represent the people, families and taxpayers against the onslaught of bigger more expensive government. It has taken courage and fortitude. There are many battles I have won and probably just as many I have lost, but had I not been there every session since 1971, there would have been a lot more bad legislation that would have passed.

A vote for Janine Hansen is a vote against new taxes, for liberty, and the Constitution.

(Janine Hansen, Independent American candidate for Assembly 33)