– With 28 seats in the Assembly, a majority in the Senate, and just a couple of Republican votes the Dems can override a veto by Governor Jim Gibbons.  He is now officially a lame duck.  Or, in light of the constant trouble and controversy surrounding him, maybe just plain lame.

– In light of the above, expect a tax hike in Nevada as legislators contemplate a budget shortfall of (at least) $250 million.

– My condolences to Senator Heck (R) who lost to Breeden by 801 votes.  But, as Chuck Muth pointed out during this morning’s panel discussion on KNPR, Heck’s campaign ignored his advice to court the Libertarian active voting block (which by all counts was larger by far than Heck’s loss margin).  A few calls and mailers to Libertarian types and who knows what could have been?

– Incumbent Senator Bob Beers (R) was outspent and outslimed by a Democratic machine that did not hesitate to twist, lie and libel.  And somehow it didn’t seem to matter to voters that his opponent, Allison Copening, ducked most debate and interview opportunities throughout the campaign. 

– I was dissatisfied with both Beers’ and Copening’s pre-election responses to my “what will you cut, or what taxes will you raise, specifically” question in re: to Nevada’s budget shortfall.  Beers said we’d have to do one or the other (duh!) and Copening said she’d figure it out when she got to Carson City.  These answers are not good enough.  Voters have the right to know what their candidates plan to do before they cast their ballots.

– Congrats to Chad Christensen who is “my” Assemblyman.  A lot of people thought he was done, including Jon Ralston.

– Memo to Senator Raggio:  Please do what you can to convince your fellow senators to cut the budget and raise taxes as little as possible.

Disgusted with Dems Says:
October 31st, 2008 at 3:01 pm

I went to one of the early voting locations today and when I refused the Copening propaganda her supporters thrust at me in the parking lot, I was called a “b*tch” as I walked away. How dare they treat voters with such disrespect.

In this next case, emailed in by my one of my readers, a partisan person was sanctioned:

I voted this morning at the Lake Meade/Tenaya location.   Probably the most excitement was a guy from the Obama campaign that had on a yellow T-shirt that said “voting questions – ask me” or something like that.  He was sitting along the line of people waiting to vote. 

I didn’t think anything of it, until I noticed that all the poll workers had on blue/white/red shirts.  About that time, the guy was escorted out of the area.  He took off the shirt and then was milling around with the ‘poll observers’.   I was ready to grab my cell phone for a picture if anything exciting happened, but nothing did. 

I waited about an hour to vote.  My hubby was on Channel 3 – they were interviewing people about the early voting process – was it easy, what did we think, etc.

There is not supposed to be any partisan canvassing at the polls.  Also, in re: to situation 1 above, here is what item 3 of the Nevada Voters’ Bill of Rights, as outlined in NRS 293.2546, says about voting:

3. Each voter has the right to vote without being intimidated, threatened or coerced.

That first voter should have complained to the poll workers so they could have asked those Copening people to take their handouts and nasty remarks elsewhere.

I checked it out and Beers has never been under investigation by the Nevada Ethics Commission, so if the advertising did state this, it is indeed false.  And if the Dems and Copening knew this, they did libel Beers and should be held accountable.

You can read the complaint here.

The Nevada Democrats have certainly been peddling a lot of lies and sleaze this campaign season.  Their billboard smears against Beers were called “misleading and blatantly false”  by CityLife editor and Democrat Geoff Schumacher, who is no fan of Beers.  You can read more about it here.

And if you care to learn the differences between the candidates’ policies, you can go here.

Apparently, Nevada ranks third in the nation in construction costs per student.  Gibbons reminds us of the billions voters recently approved for new Clark County schools and then does the math.  It comes out to roughly $130M per school (though, to be fair, Gibbons says the school district will use some portion of the funds to refurbish old buildings).

There are quite a few things Nevada could do to shore up efficiency and reduce spending.  Including making it easier to form charter schools and create and use school vouchers, so financing for at least some new school construction can move to the private sector.  

Pushing the risk of building the schools onto the private sector naturally creates incentives to keep construction costs low – because their costs have to be recouped by attracting students – but even if they should spend an excess, it wouldn’t be the taxpayers’ problem.

 If you are a District 6 voter, or just interested in looking in on one of Nevada’s hotly contested state senate races, be sure to see this E!! exclusive “mock debate” featuring a Q & A with incumbent Senator Bob Beers and Democrat candidate Allison Copening.

Copening has been widely criticized for refusing to debate Senator Beers after an initial appearance on Face to Face early in the political season.  Producer Dana Gentry made no bones about her views on the matter, snarking about ”political candidates who are woefully unprepared for the office to which they aspire” and “even worse…who put their name on the ballot and then disappear, refusing to address the very citizens they hope to represent. 

E!! is therefore delighted to be able to present a “mock debate” in which Senator Beers and Ms. Copening will be answering a series of questions pertaining to public policy in Nevada.  Both candidates were given identical sets of questions, and both returned their answers to me without seeing their opponent’s responses.

Enjoy ~ and please feel free to contact me with questions or leave your comments below.

We agreed that the amount and quality of information she/we will get will depend on who answers the phone – and that it would be helpful if other people could also call to see if they get the same or different answers. 

If you want to Do Something, call the Sec. of State’s office at 775-684-5705, tell then you are a Nevada citizen, and ask one or more of the following questions:

How did the election board discover the allegedly invalid and/or fraudulent ACORN voter registration cards that are now in question?

Did ACORN bring the questionable voter registration cards to your attention? If not, who did?

What percentage of voter registration cards received from ACORN are invalid so far?

Are you aware of any one ACORN worker whose voter registration cards were at least 90% legitimate?

How much time has been spent so far weeding through every voter registration card? Is this normal? If not, how much more time was spent than usual?

Did this extra time cost your election board extra money? If so, how much more?

ACORN claims that they have to turn all voter registration cards over, even if they know they are not legitimate. Is this true? Is this requirement a state directive, a county directive, or an election board policy?

If you are able to get some answers, please email me ASAP (address on my Contact page).

For ongoing updates about election fraud in all 50 states, go to:  http://www.voterfraudsquad.com

For text alerts about election fraud, text “voterfraud” to 69302

For Twitter alerts/threads about election fraud, use hash tag #voterfraud

To join the Voter Fraud Squad Facebook group, go to http://www.facebook.group.php?gid=43934732704

Nevada’s budget gap is 16% of the total state budget or $1.2 billion.

Nevada has the worst foreclosure rate in the nation, and falling tourism and gambling revenues has slowed the economy dramatically.

A special legislative session in June resulted in budget caps and cuts, but it’s quite likely another special session will have to be called – after the elections in November.

Heller voted against the $700 bailout bill (twice) and has consistently complained about the spendy RINO (Republicans in name only) in D.C.  Heller represents our second district, which encompasses most of rural Nevada.  A little history:

Heller announced his run for the House in 2005.  He won the GOP primary for the seat being vacated by Jim Gibbons who was then running for governor.  In the primary, Heller received 24,781 votes to Sharron Angle’s 24,353 (squeaker!) and, interestingly, to Dawn Gibbons’ (yes THAT Mrs. Gibbons) 17,328.

In the general election, Heller defeated U of NV regent and Dem candidate Jill Derby by about 5%.  Although he lost Washoe County/Reno, he won in the rural areas by a margin of over 2-1 and took the election by over 12,000 votes.