In my last Muth’s Truths column (And the 2025 Special Session John Kerry Awards Go To…) I noted that Assemblymember Danielle Gallant (R-Clark) had voted to allow remote voting during the special session – which ultimately enabled passage of the studio film bill in the Assembly.
That part was correct. However, it was NOT her vote alone that allowed remote voting.
The motion to kill remote voting needed TWO votes, not just Gallant’s, so one of the other four misguided Republicans who voted for it would have also had to vote against it.
Those four other Republicans: Lisa Cole, Rich DeLong, P.K. O’Neill, and Jason Patchett.
Still, the fact remains that Gallant voted for the studio bill before voting against it (original article has been updated).
Now, in researching this to correct the record, I realized there was a THIRD “John Kerry Award” recipient for the 2025 Special Session.
On Day One – before the vote to allow remote voting and the final vote on the studio bill itself – a motion was made to block the bill from even being introduced.
That motion failed on a 21-21 vote (ties lose).
Republican Assemblyman Jason Patchett (mentioned above) – was appointed by Assembly Minority Leader Greg Hafen to fill the vacancy in Assembly District 19 after Toby Yurek quit just a couple weeks before the special session.
And he voted to block the bill from being introduced. Good, right?
Well, yeah . . . but he then turned around and voted for it anyway!
So he voted against it before he voted for it. Ugh.
And when the Nevada Independent asked him why, he said it was because of his unfamiliarity with how the Legislature worked.
“I didn’t know what was going on procedurally,” he said.
Here’s the thing about that: Patchett never should have been appointed to that seat in the first place.
Annie Black, who held the seat before Yurek, was the natural, experienced, conservative replacement for this extremely “red” district.
But Annie is fiercely independent and can’t be pushed around by the political establishment. And she was also on record as opposing the studio bill.
So Hafen blew her off – even though he, too, voted against the studio bill!
Why the heck did he appoint somebody who was in favor of the bill he opposed rather than the former representative of the district who was against it?
Seriously, these clowns in the Assembly couldn’t organize a two-car funeral.
The bottom line is that the voters of District 19 were force-fed a wet-behind-the-ears RINO for the special session who needed on-the-job-training and didn’t even know “what was going on.”
Republican voters in AD19 should remember that when the GOP primary rolls around next June.
