Parties rightly control nominating process

Many Review-Journal readers, including Robert Matusiewicz and Marc Perkel in their April 30 letters to the editor (“Count him out” and “Rising up”), think the presidential primary process is undemocratic. Mr. Matusiewicz says, “Why bother voting?” Mr. Perkel says, “In a democracy, the person with the most votes wins the election.”

They misunderstand what is happening.

Political parties decide how they will select their nominees. Before there were primaries, if you wanted a voice in selecting your party’s nominee, you got active in politics and went to your state convention. If you became a delegate, you then went to your party’s national convention, where you supported the candidate selected at your state convention.

Primaries and caucuses were an innovation to give more people a voice in the selection of their party’s nominee, but the parties in each state govern the process. They decide whether they will hold a primary, a caucus or something else, like the Wyoming Republicans do. They decide whether or not their delegates will be bound by the results of their primary or caucus, and whether they will be selected on a proportional or winner-take-all basis. They also decide if they will send any so-called “superdelegates,” who can vote as they choose, to the national convention.

Republican front-runner and self-proclaimed “presumptive nominee” Donald Trump says the primaries are “rigged.” He, like Mr. Matusiewicz and Mr. Perkel, is confusing the selection of a nominee with the election of a president.

Richard McCord

Henderson

Public funding

So Las Vegas wants a pro football team. So do I. However, if any politician votes to spend one cent of state money for the stadium, he or she should be run out of office. This includes “shifting” tax money from one fund to another.

Today’s pro sports owners are all millionaires or billionaires and have access to private money from any number of sources.

William Dotterer

Henderson

Vilardo void

Jane Ann Morrison’s April 28 tribute to Carole Vilardo (“Vilardo made Nevada taxes better for all of us”) was well done and even more well deserved. Ms. Vilardo has been one of the best things that ever happened to the Nevada Legislature and the void she leaves behind is about the size of Nevada’s “Big Empty” itself.

Ms. Vilardo was a quiet, calm voice of reason in a noisy, agitated and many times totally unreasonable process. Watching her do her work, making her presentations while never talking down to people — some of whom she knew were totally clueless about the subject at hand — was a genuine privilege.

Carole may be “retired,” but I believe she will still be around and available to any legislator with the good sense to call her when things have gotten completely crazy, again, in Carson City.

Enjoy the trip to New York, Carole. It’ll all be here when you get back.

Knight Allen

Las Vegas

For the picking

The Review-Journal’s April 19 editorial noted that, “For years, Nevada has welcomed with open arms business owners seeking to escape California’s stifling regulatory apparatus, even running ad campaigns designed to lure entrepreneurs and corporate enterprises looking for a friendlier environment.”

But the reason some have resisted this effort often has to do with the weak reputation of our K-12 education system. Instead, promoters of migration are missing the “low-hanging fruit” there for the picking in California — the retired.

Consider a highly-rated California teacher who has “bought” into early retirement. The teacher could be a valuable resource available for full- or part-time employment to help relieve Clark County’s annual shortage. She would bring to Nevada a sizable monthly retirement check.

These are migration bargains for Las Vegas. We need to pick this valuable “low-hanging fruit.”

Bruce Ricks

Henderson