Political Eye: GOP presidential hopefuls visit Sandoval, Nevada
GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval has been interviewing a lot of potential job-seekers lately.
You know, folks like Mitt Romney, Haley Barbour and Tim Pawlenty.
That’s for the position known as president of the United States. The list of possible GOP applicants is long.
In addition, Sandoval has been meeting with contenders for another job: the next chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, who insiders say will need Sandoval’s stamp of approval to succeed current leader Mark Amodei this year.
Just three months in office, Sandoval also is working with other Republican leaders to use the run-up to the GOP presidential caucus on Feb. 18, 2012, to rebuild what for years has been the Nevada Rudderless Party, broke and beleaguered by infighting.
"This is a great opportunity," Sandoval said last week. "There’s no doubt in my mind."
Republicans watching Sandoval grab the wheel to steer the GOP ship are breathing a sigh of relief after four years of neglect by scandal-plagued former GOP Gov. Jim Gibbons and U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., distracted by an affair and its fallout.
"He’s really getting hands-on, which we welcome," said former Gov. Robert List, a Republican national committeeman. "To have that kind of visible leadership really makes a difference. It lends a hand in fundraising and party participation."
Heidi Smith, GOP national committeewoman in Nevada, said an April 1-2 state Republican Central Committee meeting in Carson City was the biggest the party ever had, with 311 participants, double its last meeting.
"Jim Gibbons never liked the party," Smith said, adding the senator fell off the map. "Ensign? Ensign who?"
The state GOP, broke a couple years ago, now has more than $300,000 in its coffers. It will need to raise $2 million if the party wants to match the performance of Nevada Democrats for their presidential caucus in 2008.
The Democratic Party registered 100,000 new voters, gaining an edge over the GOP that has slipped to a 60,000 registered voter advantage now.
Republicans plan to use a western regional GOP leadership meeting in Las Vegas in October as a fundraising, recruiting and caucus training event. It also will feature a CNN-hosted presidential debate, boosting GOP engagement in Nevada.
"I think Republicans have a lot of momentum going," said Sandoval, who has been meeting this year with presidential candidates as they make stops in Nevada, usually at their requests. "There’s a lot of excitement."
In 2008, Democrats saw 116,000 people participate in the 2008 caucus that pitted Barack Obama against Hillary Clinton. That’s nearly three times the 44,000 who voted in the little contested GOP caucus won by former Massachusetts Gov. Romney.
Democrats and some Republicans question whether the GOP can match the organizing ability of the Nevada Democratic Party, which U.S. Sen. Harry Reid built into a ground-machine dynamo that helped him win re-election in 2010, two years after Obama won here.
The president’s state-by-state ability to marshal his troops will be tough for the GOP to match, too.
"In terms of the caucuses, we are absolutely gearing up for them to build upon the grass-roots organization that led to our victories in 2008 and 2010," said Zach Hudson, the new communications director for the Nevada Democratic Party.
— Laura Myers
GOP CHAIRMAN’S JOB OPENING
Former state Sen. Mark Amodei, the current Nevada GOP chairman, doesn’t want to keep the job for long. He took it to finish out the term of Chris Comfort, who spent less than a year at the helm. Instead, Amodei is considering jumping into the race for U.S. Rep. Dean Heller’s seat. Heller, R-Nev., is running to replace retiring U.S. Sen. John Ensign.
That opens up the chairman’s job at a key turning point for Republicans.
The top two declared candidates for the chairman’s job are Patrick McNaught, a real estate businessman who is finance director of the Clark County Republican Party, and Mark Hutchison, a Las Vegas attorney.
McNaught, who in 2010 lost a GOP primary to state Sen. Joe Hardy, R-Boulder City, has done the most campaigning. He traveled to Carson City to meet with lawmakers and talked with Gov. Brian Sandoval about the direction in which he wants to take the party.
"It’s great to have a governor saying, ‘I want to take the lead,’ " McNaught said.
Hutchison said he has been encouraged to run by people within the party, but he would not name names.
He is a high-stakes litigator representing Nevada for free in a multistate lawsuit seeking to block President Barack Obama’s health care reform law.
Last week, Hutchison also filed a redistricting lawsuit on behalf of the state GOP and several Republican voters. It’s the Republican’s answer to a lawsuit filed by a Democratic Party attorney in February on behalf of several voters.
The Democratic-led Nevada Legislature is meeting now to determine the new outlines of four congressional districts in Nevada as well as districts for the current 21 state senators and 42 Assembly members.
By law, the goal is to equal out the population among districts following release of the U.S. Census showing Nevada has 2.7 million people. But each party will be looking to gain political leverage for incumbents and in future elections.
Sandoval has said he will veto any redistricting plan he sees as unfair. And as the Republican Party leader, he isn’t likely to sign off on any plan that would favor Democrats, meaning a compromise or a court fight.
"We want to give legislators a chance to do their job," Hutchison said. "But if they don’t, we wanted to be ready."
Amy Tarkanian, the wife of failed U.S. Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian, also is thinking about seeking the chairman’s job.
She has been active in party politics and organizing and has played a big role in her husband’s campaigns.
— Laura Myers
ASSEMBLYMAN DEFENDS TRIP
Assemblyman Kelvin Atkinson said Friday that he and another legislator who last year took a trip from an online poker company were first told by legislative lawyers that accepting such a trip would not violate ethics laws.
"We checked with legal, who said it was a working trip," said Atkinson, D-North Las Vegas, about the 2½ day trip to England furnished by PokerStars.
Atkinson was accompanied by Assembly Judiciary Chairman William Horne, D-Las Vegas. Horne’s committee is considering Assembly Bill 258, which would allow the Nevada Gaming Commission to adopt regulations for Internet poker.
Columnist Jon Ralston earlier Friday questioned whether legislators should take trips when they can find all they need to know about Internet poker on the Internet.
State Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, also took a trip from PokerStars to the Bahamas.
The trips were arranged by former Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, whose 2011 legislative lobbyist client list does not include PokerStars.
Atkinson insisted he and Horne did no sightseeing while in London and that the trip was strictly for legislative business.
"We really didn’t have time" for sightseeing, he said. "They occupied our entire time showing us their products. It might be good for the state, since we are highest in unemployment. I am convinced it would bring jobs to the state."
Legislative Counsel Brenda Erdoes cannot divulge any of the private legal advice she gives legislators, said Lorne Malkiewich, administrator of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.
None of the three legislators reported the trips on their annual financial disclosure statements.
Atkinson said the trip was an "educational, working trip" that he and others did not have to report.
By law, all public officials must report on financial disclosure statements any gifts in excess of $200. The law does not define gifts, however.
The cheapest round-trip tickets to London from Las Vegas now cost about $1,400.
Perkins would not be required to list any legislative lobbying costs he incurred during the interim period before the legislative session.
A bill sponsored by Sen. Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, however, would plug that gap and require lobbyists to report expenses quarterly during the periods between sessions.
Under state ethics laws, public officials "shall not seek or accept any gift, service, favor, employment" that would influence "a reasonable person" to believe they would "depart from the faithful and impartial discharge" of their duties.
— Ed Vogel
Contact Laura Myers at lmyers@ reviewjournal.com or 702-87-2919. Contact Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.
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