Heller denies growing more conservative, less accessible

I joke that I knew Dean Heller when he was a moderate Republican 20 years ago, back in the days he served in the Assembly for four years followed by 12 years as secretary of state.

As secretary of state, he was bipartisan and had an open-door policy. Really, his doorway in the Capitol was open to passers-by. He fought for election reforms but was mostly thwarted by legislators who liked things just the way they were.

After Heller became a congressman in 2006, he wasn’t nearly so accessible. Newspaper and television reports on positions taken by the Nevada delegation (and there’s only five of them) often note only that Heller couldn’t be reached for comment.

This problem wasn’t just in Southern Nevada. On Thursday night, a Reno television station did a report on bonuses House members paid their staff, and Heller’s office had no response.

I’ve brought his lack of media accessibility up to him before in a 2009 editorial board meeting. Nothing changed. News media outlets continued saying the majority of the time that Heller was unavailable for comment.

So why has the guy from Carson City snubbed Clark County media and voters?

He disagreed with me on that, as well as my contention that he is more conservative than when I met him 20 years ago.

His district includes about 33,000 voters in Clark County. Once a quarter, they are invited via robocalls to a telephone town hall. Once a week, he does a telephone town hall in some part of his huge district, which Heller said “has 90 percent of the land mass, while the other 10 percent just happens to have 2 million people.”

In Northern and rural Nevada, everyone knows him. In Clark County, not so much. He estimated 65 percent to 75 percent of the voters here recognize his name.

He has 20 months to change that in his run for the seat of retiring U.S. Sen. John Ensign. He’s fully aware he has to let people here know him as the personable guy with the easy laugh who still races stock cars at age 50 and has conservative fiscal and social values.

A Capitol Hill observer tells me that Heller isn’t the only House Republican who blows off the news media.

“It’s a Republican trait. That’s how they operate,” the Democrat said. “They’re fearful of making a misstep and have decided it’s not necessary to deal with the professional media.”

Heller denied that’s his style.

“The argument can be made in this day and age of digital communication you can control your message better,” he said, describing it as taking advantage of opportunities to get his own message out better, citing telephone town halls and the social media.

Since announcing his Senate candidacy last week, Heller said he has spent more time talking to the Southern Nevada media than the Northern Nevada media.

He would be foolish if he didn’t, especially if his general election opponent turns out to be Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley, who is readily accessible to the media statewide.

When I asked why he has become more conservative, he took issue with that as well.

“I don’t think that’s quite right,” he said.

So I asked about his abortion position. In earlier days, Heller said he considered himself a libertarian on abortion but didn’t vote on it when he was in the Assembly between 1990 and 1994. But in six years in Congress, Heller, a Mormon, said he has voted a straight “pro-life” position, opposing federal dollars for abortion.

Did I mention he was in Las Vegas when he returned my call Friday? He already is busy building bridges with Clark County, building relationships … and being more accessible.

Doubt that his conservatism takes any left turns.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison.