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John Lee and Shari Buck are awful human beings who can lead North Las Vegas into the future ,and Anita Wood and Janice Ridondo both support the police even only one is endorsed by the union. The mail barrage intensifies in Northtown as ear;y voting begins Saturday. is anyone paying attention? The latest attached here.  
Who says municipal races aren't partisan? Las Vegas Councilmen Bob Beers and Stavros Anthony are having a joint  fundraiser with fellow Republican Suzette LaGrange, who is challenging Councilman Steve Ross, a longtime union supporter and former labor leader. The event is Thursday and has several ex-GOP officials on the invite, inlcuding former Assemblyman Richard McArthur and former North Las Vegas Mayor Mike Montandon. One name not on the invite despite LaGrange's impeccable conservative...
UPDATE: I have attached the PAC's first mail piece here.   You could have predicted this as many forces array to try to defeat North Las Vegas Mayor Shari Buck: A political action committee, helpfully calling itself The Coalition for Truth in Government, has formed to fund an independent expenditure effort that will benefit Buck's main foe, ex-state Sen. John Lee. Political consultant David Thomas formed the PAC, and he told me Monday he has his first mailer ready to go. So who's funding it?...
When I hear lawmakers tell me they support a bill “in concept,” for some reason, I hear, “I hate this bill and will do everything I can to kill it.” Perhaps something got lost in the translation. But when I asked three members of the state Senate Legislative, Operations and Elections whether they back Secretary of State Ross Miller's transparency bill, which contains provisions only a politicians or lobbyist could hate, their reactions after a hearing Tuesday were echoes. “I support it in...
Mention the phrase “campaign finance reform,” and the NyQuil lobby gets nervous. Nothing puts folks to sleep faster than this concept, which is exactly what the elected elite wants and exactly why you should pry your eyes open. And Tuesday in the Legislative Building, where such notions go to die a quiet (usually) death, Secretary of State Ross Miller (again) will try to deliver a wake-up call to the Gang of 63. Miller, like secretaries of state before him (Dean Heller was noteworthy), have...
In rare testimony before lawmakers 24 years ago and in a mostly forgotten bit of history, Steve Wynn broke with the rest of the gaming industry and vehemently assailed lawmakers for keeping mining tax policy inside the Constitution. Wynn's testimony, which I have attached here, sparked Circus Circus Chairman Bill Bennett to contradict him in a letter to the Legislature five days later asserting Wynn did not speak for the rest of the Strip. Ah, those were the days.... I have already told you...
In 1989, Acting Gov. Bob Miller fulminated against the mining industry in a way that had rarely been heard in the capital. “The fact is this: mining does not pay its fair share to the state,” Miller railed in his State of the State speech.  “A gold mine that would pay a million dollars in state and local taxes in Nevada pays $8 million in Colorado. And you know, that might be tolerable if the mines were taking a renewable resource from the ground. But they’re not. One day, the ore will be gone...
  Just got this -- attributed to conservative Keystone Corp. boss John Gibson:   Keystone Opposes Mining Tax Proposal "We have always rejected industry-specific taxes as bad public policy and detrimental to Nevada's economic development. Just as we opposed Initiatives that were being circulated lasty ear to impose additional taxes on the gaming and mining industries, we reject current proposals to balance the state budget on the back of the mining industry. The budget proposed by the Governor ...
And thus a victory for Senator Dean Heller, who opposed her because of a gun control answer during a campaign, over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who promoted her. Elissa Cadish's withdrawal letter (attached here), surely solicited by Reid, mentions the need to fill the slot. But this is very simple: Heller blocked her and could never move off that position. He could never explain allowing her to go through if he flip-flopped. Heller can change his positions on immigration, but on Cadish:...
  Beyond all the breathless reaction and inevitable misdirection that accompanied the Dirty Half-Dozen mining tax shocker this week comes a fundamental legal question: What does the word "approval" mean? That is, what does it mean in Article 19, Section 2 of the Constitution in regards to the disposition of an alternative to the margins tax should one surface once the dreaded levy is ignored by lawmakers: "If the Legislature rejects such proposed statute or amendment, the Governor may recommend...

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