Two candidates challenge Orentlicher in Assembly District 20

Incumbent Democratic Assemblyman David Orentlicher faces a general election challenge from Republican Stan Vaughan and Libertarian Josiah L. LaRow in Assembly District 20.

Orentlicher has served in the Assembly since 2020 and defeated Patricia March with 62 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary election. When he won election in 2020, he ran unopposed after winning a four-person primary race. He lost a primary election in District 2 in 2018.

LaRow, a Libertarian candidate, decided to enter the race to give voters a choice.

“If nobody else is going to do it, I’ve got to do it,” LaRow said. “I didn’t really want to run, but I felt the need to run.”

But since he’s started campaigning, he’s discovered in one-on-one meetings with voters that they like his ideas as he educates them about what Libertarians stand for.

The first-time candidate, the former director of the local American Cancer Society chapter who is a waiter after being laid off during the pandemic, said he would strive toward finding commonality with his Republican and Democratic cohorts in the Assembly to accomplish his goals.

While acknowledging most of the heavy lifting would occur on the federal level, he said he wants to make efforts at the state level to encourage water conservation and redrafting water compacts with other states in the Colorado River Basin.

LaRow said he is on the fence regarding reproductive rights, hoping to hear from medical professionals about when life begins before addressing policies on abortion.

The candidate said he admires former Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who ran for president as a Libertarian in 1988 and as a Republican in 2008 and 2012. He said he respected Paul’s ability to find common ground on issues and intends to operate the same way as an assemblyman, noting that Republicans will agree with his stance on government overreach and Democrats will like most of his stance on social issues.

“If I can reach a handful of people and get them to re-evaluate their relationship with their state, local and federal government and how that interaction is taking place, then I will consider that a win,” he said.

Serving in two states

Orentlicher previously served in the Indiana House of Representatives from 2002 to 2008 and was unsuccessful in a bid for U.S. House seat from Indiana in 2016.

Orentlicher considers himself “an educator, physician, attorney and ethicist” and teaches courses in health law and constitutional law at UNLV’s William S. Boyd School of Law.

Orentlicher has been the subject of accusations that he’s not a resident of his district.

“It is true that my wife teaches at Indiana University and one of the unfortunate realities of academic life is that academic couples will have jobs at different universities,” he said. “It’s not just academia. It’s become more common now to have spouses with jobs in different cities.”

But he pointed out that he has been a resident of Nevada for five years and teaches at UNLV.

“It’s unfortunate that people say things that aren’t true,” he said.

He said health care is his most important issue.

“As a professor, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how we can improve our health-care system so serving allows me to try to implement some of that policy,” Orentlicher said. “There are many causes of our excessive death rate in this country so reducing the frequency with which people are hit with fatal diseases is most important to me.”

Orentlicher said he had experience in Indiana cross the political aisle to get things accomplished. He said he admires former U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., for their ability to meet with representatives of other parties to find common ground to work toward accomplishing things for the people they represent.

Frequent candidate

Vaughan, the Republican candidate in the race, has been a resident of the area for 36 years and views himself as an advocate for entrepreneurs and small business owners.

He’s lost multiple races over the years. Vaughan was defeated by Democrat Howard Watts in Assembly District 15 in 2020 and 2018 and by Democrat Elliot Anderson in 2016. As an independent, he lost to Anderson in District 15 in 2010 and finished fourth in a four-person race for a U.S. House seat to Democrat Dina Titus in 2012.

But this year, he thinks things will be different.

“I’ve always been given the races that are impossible to win,” Vaughan said. “I’ve run in Assembly 15 four times. Each time, I said I wasn’t going to run again and I’d have 15 or 20 people show up on my doorstep saying, ‘You’ve got to run.’ As Confucius said, you should do the right thing even if you know you can’t win. But this time I think it’s different. I think we actually have a chance to win it this time.”

The reason why, he said, is he believes voters are ready to turn away the incumbent to a fiscal conservative. Seven police unions back him instead of his Democratic foe.

Vaughan was recently identified by the Anti-Defamation League as a dues-paying member of the extremist group Oath Keepers, which played roles at the Cliven Bundy ranch standoff in 2014 and the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot. He hung up on a Review-Journal reporter when asked about his membership in that group.

Vaughan has an anti-Sharia law platform to bring equal rights to women, but also agrees with the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision.

He has an A rating with the National Rifle Association and wants to bring fiscally conservative policies to the state.

An accountant by trade, Vaughan admires the views of politicians Thomas Jefferson, former assemblywoman and failed U.S Senate candidate Sharron Angle and ex-Las Vegas Councilman Bob Beers and is conducting a door-to-door grassroots campaign.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.