Victoria’s Secret: Seaman Not as Conservative as She Would Have You Believe
Victoria Seaman, a Republican candidate now running for Nevada’s 3rdcongressional district, has been touting herself as THE conservative in the race; claiming “I am the only candidate in #NV03 with a proven conservative record” and using hashtags such as #ProvenConservativeRecord.
But is it true? Hardly.
In recent tweets Ms. Seaman has been slamming Republican State Sen. Scott Hammond, also a candidate in the race, for his ratings with the conservative Nevada Policy Research Institute (NPRI) think tank. In one tweet she wrote…
“My opponent @hammond4nevada is now a conservative in a primary for Congress but here is his real record from NPRI before his run for #NV03.”
In typical slipshod Seaman fashion, she left out the words “claiming to be,” but we get the idea.
I’ll let Sen. Hammond defend his own record. That said, let’s take a look at Ms. Seaman’s “real record from NPRI” for the 2015 session; the only session in which she served.
It was just 72.05%.
When I saw that score, I immediately thought of this famous quote by Ronald Reagan: “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally.”
Alas, Ms. Seaman didn’t meet President Reagan’s threshold for being “a friend and an ally” to conservatives, while ten of her Assembly GOP colleagues did - including Assemblywomen Robin Titus, Shelly Shelton,Michele Fiore and Jill Dickman who all scored over 90%.
And if you dig deeper into the NPRI ratings, things look even worse.
For example, Ms. Seaman voted for five bills which NPRI describes as “Spending beyond revenues,” including SB515 (“Bloated State education budget”) and SB504 (“Creates new government bureaucracy to fight bullying”).
On “Increasing taxes/public debt,” Ms. Seaman voted for a “Property-tax extension without a popular vote” (SB207) and a bill that “Creates transferable tax credits for the Governor’s Office for Economic Development” (SB507).
Her tax record is actually much worse than this, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
In the category of the government wrongly “Picking winners and losers,” the self-proclaimed “only candidate with a proven conservative record” somehow managed to vote wrong on seven out of the eight bills NPRI rated – including giving “Transferable tax credits” to liberal Hollywood movie studios!
In the category of “Wasteful education spending and excessive mandates,” Ms. Seaman voted wrong, according to conservative NPRI, three out of five times – including a vote to give $100 million to “Zoom schools” (SB405) and another $50 million for “Victory schools” (SB432).
This isn’t me making stuff up. Here’s the link so you can look it up yourself…
Of course, I guarantee you Ms. Seaman will come up with all kinds of excuses for voting the way she did on these bills. After all, being able to rationalize anything is the hallmark of any experienced politician.
But when Ms. Seaman starts spinning, explaining, excusing, justifying and huffing-and-puffing about her low 72.05% scorecard from NPRI, consider these two points…
1.) There is no one on the planet who questions NPRI’s conservative bona fides. And it’s Ms. Seaman herself who is using NPRI’s ratings to attack Sen. Hammond. So it’s more than fair to hold her to the same standard, right?
I think this is called “being hoisted on your own petard.”
2.) There were a dozen other Republicans who scored higher than Ms. Seaman. So if she’s really as conservative as she’s now claiming she is, why did so many of her colleagues score so much higher than she did?
Again, this is her actual voting record, not her misleading Twitter rhetoric.
Now let’s get back to those tax hikes…
First, give credit where due. Ms. Seaman did, in fact, vote against the Commerce Tax.
However, as I’ve pointed out before, she also voted for nine other tax hikes in violation of her written and signed Taxpayer Protection Pledge to “oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes.”
Any. And all.
Here are the nine bills Ms. Seaman voted for in violation of the written promise she made to her constituents and the people of Nevada…
- AB78: Doubled the elk tag tax on hunters
- AB85: Doubled the government licensing tax for alcohol, drug and gambling counselors
- AB191: Raised taxes on “fuels for motor vehicles”
- AB231: Increased government licensing tax on chiropractors
- AB246: Raised cosmetology government licensing taxes, including on “shampoo technologists”
- AB325: Raised government licensing taxes on “private professional guardians”
- SB44: Increased government permit tax for oil and natural gas drilling
- SB370: Increased the government licensing tax on barber instructors
- SB488: Imposed government licensing tax on “community health worker pools”
So much for her incessant Twitter claim that she “kept my promises in the Assembly.”
No. You. Didn’t.
But here’s how shifty, unscrupulous politicians try to hide and cover-up when they’ve been caught with their britches down: Ms. Seaman has been telling people she didn’t break her word because these tax hikes aren’t taxes but - “fees.”
Sorry, but if you have to take money out of YOUR pocket and give it to the government – it’s a tax. As the old saying goes, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck. And a tax by any other name is still a tax.
But even if Ms. Seaman calls these tax hikes “fee” hikes in order to falsely claim she didn’t break her Tax Pledge…it doesn’t matter. YOU and I are still paying more to fund bigger government.
And that makes it nine bad, non-conservative votes no matter what you call it or how you slice it.
So in addition to being notoriously thin-skinned, hot-headed and easily “triggered” (see P.S. item below), Ms. Seaman also appears to be a “fake news” politician who is misleading voters. At least if you look at her actual voting record.
And all the “proven conservative record” hashtags, bluster and bombast in the world can’t change that.
Phony.
P.S. In a separate tweet on Friday, Ms. Seaman wrote…
“When the pundits call me rude and disrespectful for not going along-to-get-along, I take that as a badge of honor!”
She went on to describe herself as a “#WorkHorsenotaShowHorse!"
This was in reference to a Nevada Appeal story from the 2015 Nevada legislative session that many people either missed or have forgotten in which Seaman wasn’t described as either a work horse or a show horse - but more of a horse’s arse.
The pundit reference (I’ll give you two guesses who the “pundit” is) about Ms. Seaman being “rude and disrespectful” had nothing to do with her “not going along-to-get-along,” but how she behaved like some loud, obnoxious spoiled brat “pouting and throwing tantrums” on the playground.
Can you just imagine someone acting like this in the hallowed halls of Congress?
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