Monthly archive

Three items of interest on a holiday week Thursday: ►A Butte of a move: I’ll do a more extensive post in the next few days (can’t get The Nevada Independent started soon enough), but I’ve confirmed that Gov. Brian Sandoval decided to work with the White House when he realized the national monument designation was an inevitability. He talked directly to the Obama Administration, got the boundaries adjusted and had a serious impact on the final proclamation. Another example of the governor...
It seemed cookie-cutter at the time, but the campaign to use Planned Parenthood defunding against Rep. Joe Heck in the Senate race was remarkably effecive, the group found in post-election polling. The survey found that almost two-thirds of Nevadans found that a convincing reason to vote against Heck. The other parts of the poll also indicate that Nevada, as it has been since 1990 when abortion rights were enshrined in law by a ballot initiative, a solidly pro-choice state. The survey, along...
As well-known supplicants seeking jobs in the new administration traipsed past the watchful eyes of the Fourth Estate at Trump Tower last week, a few less well-known visitors also were going into that now-famous elevator. They were negotiators for the Culinary Union, which just a few days before Election Day had benefited from a stinging order issued by the National Labor Relations Board saying the soon-to-be-president-elect had unlawfully ignored its dictates to negotiate with the Las Vegas...
Harry Reid tried to have me fired a few times over the years, once even had my television program briefly canceled. God, I will miss him. As the minority leader prepares to leave the Senate after three and a half decades in Washington, I have been reflecting on the man so many love to hate but who inspires unswerving loyalty among his supporters, on the man who is arguably the most powerful politician in Nevada history, on the man who is – I will use the words once more – the most ruthless and...
Attorney General Adam Laxalt is asking a judge to amend or revise an order on school choice, insisting it contradicts the Supreme Court's decision that struck down Education Savings Accounts because of the funding mechanism. The filing is in response to this letter threatening to ask for sanctions against Laxalt's client, Treasurer Dan Schwartz, for continuing to communicate with ESA parents as if the program were moving foward. Amid the legalese in the filing comes the nub of an argument the...
A lawyer for plaintiffs in the Nevada school choice case has penned the proverbial strongly worded letter to Attorney General Adam Laxalt, threatening to go to court after the AG's office advsied state Treasurer Dan Schwartz to move forward on Educational Savings Accounts despite an injunction from the state Supreme Court. "Despite the express terms of the Lopez (the case name) permanent injunction -- and the District Court's rejection of your narrower proposed order -- the Treasurer continues...
Attorney General Adam Laxalt has signed onto a letter to the Trump administration asking the president-elect to squash web gaming, a position favored by major Laxalt donor Sheldon Adelson but one opposed by Gov. Brian Sandoval and Nevada's top gaming regulator. The letter , which was put on Twitter by the Poker Players Alliance, was addressed to Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who has a generally anti-gaming bent and the transition team. It asks for the incoming administration to reinterpret...