Wednesday, November 12, 2014

SILVER STATE CONFIDENTIAL 11/12/2014

DRIVE-BY MUTHINGS

Congratulations to another Nevada winner! 

No, not a political candidate.  Congratulations to Nevada’s own Elizabeth Purtee of Reno for her Top 10 finish in the Senior America Pageant held last week in Atlantic City.

And for the record, she and her husband Jeffrey were very generous donors to conservative, Tax Pledge-signers this election cycle when so many other “doubting Thomas’s” snapped their wallets shut.  Good things happen to good people!

The 2016 election cycle is already in full swing.  The conservative Club for Growth PAC today endorsed six conservative U.S. Senators for re-election: Ron Johnson (WI), Mike Lee (UT), Rand Paul (KY), Marco Rubio (FL), Tim Scott (SC) and Pat Toomey (PA).


And our friend Grover Norquist at Americans for Tax Reform weighed in on Twitter today: “Republicans likely to maintain Senate control in 2016. Watch Nevada. Colorado.”  Let the games begin!

Just a few short weeks ago, a royal stink arose when the members of Hispanics in Politics voted to endorse Republican Rep. Joe Heck in the CD-3 race, but HIP prez Fernando Romero unilaterally over-ruled the election and threw his organization’s support behind Democrat challenger Erin Bilbray-without-the Kohn.

At the time, Nevada’s #2 liberal blogger, Jon Ralston, scribbled on his blog to fellow media types: “This group should be ignored forevermore."

Well, guess who HIP’s scheduled speaker is tomorrow?  Yep, the Hypocrite King himself…Jon Ralston!

Hilariously, Ralston is referring to this year’s national “red wave” in Nevada as the “Sandoval Sweep” - as if Sandoval so much as broke a sweat helping Republican candidates get elected other than Lieutenant Gov.-elect Mark Hutchison.  At best he gave many of them a photo op and a template endorsement statement.

One of the national stories the liberal media is peddling these days is how the Chamber of Commerce-types defeated the tea party movement in this year’s election.  Fortunately, Nevada was the exception. 

Not only did a number of tea party conservatives win their primaries over Chamber-picked candidates, they went on to win their general election races and oust moderate Minority Leader Pat Hickey, the Chamber’s pick for Assembly Speaker.

The tea party will be well represented in Carson City next year! 

And buckle up for inevitable clashes. 

Pete Ernaut of R&R Advertising - the political brains and campaign ATM machine behind Gov. Brian Sandoval - has already gone on record saying that tax hikes will be on the table next session despite conservative Republicans campaigning not only on no new taxes, but no further extensions of the sunsets.

And then there’s this…

Conservatives who backed Assemblyman Ira Hansen in the leadership fight last Friday who were given committee chairmanships are Assemblywoman Michele Fiore (Non-Taxation Committee), Assemblyman Jim Wheeler (Transportation Committee), Assemblyman John Ellison (Natural Resources Committee) and Assemblyman John Hambrick (Government Affairs Committee).

But the chairs of the other six committees are moderates who backed Hickey: Assemblyman Paul Anderson (Ways & Means),  Assemblyman Wes Duncan (Judiciary), Assemblywoman Melissa Woodbury (Education), Assemblyman James Oscarson (Health & Human Services), Assemblyman Lynn Stewart (Legislative Operations), and Assemblyman Randy Kirner (Commerce & Labor).

It will not be pretty if Republican chairmen throttle conservative bills in committee the same way the Democrats used to.

By the way, two unsettled elections remain: First, Kirner only defeated his conservative opponent, Lisa Krasner, by 11 votes (no Democrat filed, setting up an R vs. R general election).  She’s mulling a challenge to the absentee ballots.  And Fiore is reportedly asking for a re-vote this weekend on the GOP caucus majority leader position won by Anderson last Friday night.

Democrats did a little post-election house cleaning this week, too.  Senate Democrats ousted Sen. Mo Denis as their caucus leader and elected Sen. Aaron Ford instead.  That could bode well for education reform.

Ford sponsored a “parent trigger” bill in the last session – which would give parents whose kids are trapped in crappy public schools the right to vote to convert the school into a charter school.  The bill passed the Senate but was stupidly killed in the Assembly by moderate Republicans led by Assemblyman Randy Kirner of Reno.

The new conservative majority in the Assembly this year won’t let Kirner & Company get away with such anti-parent foolishness again.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal is reporting that Uber has persuaded other cities and states to create “a separate ride-sharing category enabling the company to operate under different rules from taxis and limousines.”  Nevada’s taxi cartel is pitching a fit over such a suggestion, claiming “that would give Uber an unfair advantage.” 

Oh, cry me a river.  The cartel has not only disadvantaged potential competitors over the past few decades, but has used its super-strength political juice to keep potential competitors out of Nevada completely!

Hey, here’s an idea: Instead of trying to regulate Uber like the taxi industry, why not DE-regulate the taxi industry instead?  You know, it’s crazy enough that it just might work!

Advocates for legalizing marijuana for recreational use submitted more than DOUBLE the number of signatures needed – over 200,000! – to qualify the measure for the ballot in 2016 if the Nevada Legislature doesn’t approve it in next year’s session.  Which it should do.

Legal marijuana use is spreading all across the nation, just like gay marriage.  It’s inevitable.  People simply shouldn’t be thrown in jail for smoking a plant that God created.  I mean, come on.

But more importantly, it’s estimated that legalizing and taxing recreational use of marijuana could generate a windfall of tax revenue to the tune of some $100 million A YEAR…which would go into education…which I have no problem with…providing parents get, in exchange, school vouchers they can use to send their kids to private schools.

Hmm.  I sense the basis of a win-win compromise between conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats in the Legislature here if everyone remembers it’s about what’s best for the kids, not what’s best for the public schools.

During the primary season, I filed an ethics complaint against Sen. Mark Hutchison for failing to disclose, as required by law, the identity of a government employee he represented while serving as a member of the Legislature. That’s a no-no.

Low and behold, now that the election is over and Mr. Hutchison is the lieutenant governor-elect, the Ethics Committee just sent me notice that a “stipulated agreement” has been proposed but will remain secret unless/until Sen. Hutchison agrees with the terms.  That negotiated agreement will be considered next week at the Committee’s regularly-scheduled meeting.

I’m guessing we’ll hear a promise from Hutch not to be a bad boy in the future, combined with a slap on the wrist more akin to a love tap from the Ethics cops.

NEVADA NEWS & VIEWS


REMINDER: VOTE TODAY IN $100,000 TEACHER CHALLENGE

Remember, you can (and should, please) vote every day for Brenda Moynihan in her effort to secure a $100,000 grant for C.T. Sewell Elementary School in Henderson.

CLICK HERE to vote.  And remember, you can vote every day until the deadline on November 30th.  You know, just like in Chicago elections!

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

“If you had a (health care reform) law which said that healthy people are going to pay in - if you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money - it would not have passed.  Lack of transparency is a huge advantage.  And basically – call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever – but basically that was really, really critical for (ObamaCare) to pass.”  - MIT Prof. Jonathan Gruber, architect of ObamaCare, in a 2013 panel discussion on video that was just unearthed the The Daily Caller


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