Three generations of Rory’s family to volunteer alongside local moms

Las Vegas, NV – The Rory Reid campaign will host a special Mother’s Day phone bank at its Southern Nevada headquarters today, May 8, at 1 p.m.

Rory’s wife [...]]]> From the Rory Reid Campaign:

Apparently the bill was so poorly vetted by the Gube’s crack staff/re-election committee that they decided that their own idea of forcing every office in the [...]]]> Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons plans to defy nature and logic this week when he vetoes a bill which he himself proposed and supported during the Re-elect Jim Gibbons Special Session. (RGJ,Sun)

Apparently the bill was so poorly vetted by the Gube’s crack staff/re-election committee that they decided that their own idea of forcing every office in the state, including the DWV, into a four hour week was a bad idea.

Of course, there may be a few other things at play here, too. Namely, that Gibbons is suddenly not getting any press because nobody really cares what he’s doing when there’s no special session to fret about. Plus, he’s got no money for ads during the primary. So, why not veto a bill that he plans to use administrative gimmikry to institute anyway in order to generate a little press?

Timed the press release just when Rory Reid was signing up to run for Guv, too.

Plus, no doubt, he probably really, really wanted to try out the new veto stamp.

Meanwhile, a new poll indicates that the RIRO strategy is probably the way to go for the Rory Reid campaign. Reid can beat Gibbons, but not Sandoval, sayeth the poll. (Ras) However, Gibbons may be able to beat Sandoval in the primary cuz Sandoval’s just too normal for the GOP core.

In fact, the Reid campaign should look into contributing a couple hundred grand to the Gøøber. Seems like a good investment.

Mark your calendars! Thursday is Napkinhat Day! Rumor has it that Gibbons will be signing up for the election on March 11. Everyone is urged to wear a napkinhat to work to mark the event.

Got this from the Gibbons campaign just now:

In this time of economic challenge, we need a governor who can be relied upon to keep taxes in check and show leadership when it counts! When the Special Session hit an impasse, Governor Jim stepped up and brokered a deal.

His plan to cut the tax burden of higher education while maintaining the quality of education shows how our problems can be solved.  As he tackles each one of Nevada’s issues, we can rest easy, knowing that we are in the best possible hands.

Huh. Nothing there about him creating the impasse with veto threats and “no taxes” rhetoric. And isn’t “cut the tax burden of higher education” such a nice way to say “gutting the universities”?

Well, maybe not abuzz. Mildly interested, perhaps.

According to a poll funded by Gibbons’ old pals the Retailers Association of Nevada (RAN), Gibbons in within 6 percentage points of Gibbons-wannabe Brian Sandoval:

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11

House Party Sturgeon’s Restaurant – 12:00 p.m. 1420 Cornell Avenue Lovelock, NV 89419

Coffee and Pastries with Rory Reid French Ford Middle School Library – 3:30 p.m. [...]]]> In case you’ve taken a wrong turn somewheres and end up in the cow counties, you might run into Rory Reid out campaigning as Gube-replacement for Gibbons…

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11

House Party
Sturgeon’s Restaurant – 12:00 p.m.
1420 Cornell Avenue
Lovelock, NV 89419

Coffee and Pastries with Rory Reid
French Ford Middle School Library – 3:30 p.m. (Might be worth the trip to see a Nevada middle school before public education becomes a dim memory of pre-Gibbers’ days…)
5495 Palisade Drive
Winnemucca, NV 89445

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12

Breakfast with Rory Reid
Red Lion Hotel & Casino – 7:30 a.m.
2065 Idaho Drive
Elko, NV 89801

House Party
Matt Holford home – 12:00 p.m.
388 7th St.
Wells, NV 89835

Meet & Greet
Mt. Wheeler Power, Conference Room – 4:30 p.m.
1600 Great Basin Blvd
Ely, NV 89301

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13

Meet & Greet
Owl Club Restaurant – 8:30 a.m.
Eureka, NV 89316

Nevada Copper Mine Tour
Nevada Copper – Time to be announced
61 E. Purcel Lane
Yerington, NV 89447

Douglas Democrats Fundraiser
Carson Valley Inn – 6 p.m.
1627 US Highway 395 N
Minden, NV 89423

The campaign requests an RSVP in case you want to show up at the events: by e-mails at  rsvp@roryreid.com or by phone at 1-877-767-9201.

Now you all teabaggers out there in the rurals be gentle on him, okay? Go easy on the tar and feathers.

Here’s the press release:

Las Vegas, NV – Rory Reid will attend a house party hosted by Assemblyman Harvey Munford on Friday, January 5, at 6 p.m. near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Washington Street.

Munford, a state assemblyman representing the established neighborhoods of West [...]]]> Tto those of us towards the south of Nor’Town, anyways…

Here’s the press release:

Las Vegas, NV – Rory Reid will attend a house party hosted by Assemblyman Harvey Munford on Friday, January 5, at 6 p.m. near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Washington Street.

Munford, a state assemblyman representing the established neighborhoods of West Las Vegas since 2004, taught Rory ninth grade U.S. history and physical education at Cashman Junior High.

“I’m excited to see one of my former students succeed,” Munford said. “Rory is making education and economic diversity priorities in his important campaign. As a teacher and public official those have also been my top priorities.”

Members of the community are welcome to attend this event. An RSVP for space planning purposes is requested by email to rsvp@roryreid.com or by calling 1-877-767-9201. The event will be in Munford’s home at 809 Sunny Place in Las Vegas (click for map).

Munford taught in the Clark County School District for more than 36 years and at the College of Southern Nevada for 25 years. He now serves District 6, which includes neighborhoods in West Las Vegas, as well as part of the downtown casino area and the Doolittle Community Center.

Rory Reid is the first candidate to offer a plan that offers solutions for today and a vision for Nevada’s future success. Reid’s vision includes plans for the future of our state’s economy, workforce, education system, energy production and business development.

Copies of the 30-page document — “The Virtual Crossroads: Rory Reid’s Vision for the Future of Nevada” – are available at RoryReid.com.

I’m guessing they’ll even let in RIROs, like yours truly.

Cross posted from Nor’Town.

Yup, it’s time to dust off that Rove-frogmarch pic again, cuz two of the Republican gube-wannabes got caught playing around with their campaign contributions!

First off, there’s that guy who used to be mayor of someplace nobody in their right mind would ever [...]]]> Ah! What would a gubernatorial race in Nevada be without allegations of wrong-doing and pay-to-play?

Yup, it’s time to dust off that Rove-frogmarch pic again, cuz two of the Republican gube-wannabes got caught playing around with their campaign contributions!

First off, there’s that guy who used to be mayor of someplace nobody in their right mind would ever want to be. Anyways, whatshisname took some foreign cash  from a well-connected pal which is un-legal according to federal election laws. (Sun) I guess the well-known scout leader was taking the Boy Scout oath literally–it doesn’t say anything about following the nation’s laws, just “Scout” law, which remains silent about campaign finances. Of course, whathisname has played fast and loose with campaign contributions before, what with taking big Binion Bucks just prior to voting in favor of Binion projects, and used nutty Utah money to influence Nevada elections.

I’ll leave it to you to decide which is more foreign: Chinese money or Utah money.

Meanwhile, the crack governor’s staff/re-elect Gibbers team couldn’t be outdone. So, they took some money from Gibbons’ old pals the Ozmens just as the Gube was awarding a lucrative contract to–drumroll please–Gibbons’ old pals, the Ozmens. (Sun)

Ah, the Ozmens and their defense contractor company Sierra Nevada Corporation bring back some truly wonderful memories around here at VGO. Who can forget?

• Dawn’s job demonstrating whatchamacallits for Sierra Nevada Corporation while hubby was a congressman taking contributions from the company and working to get its contracts approved behind the veil of secret, defense department “black budgets”? And she even got screwed over in the deal. No wonder she went after the Guv in that divorce.
• The lovely trip to Turkey for the Gibbonses sponsored by the Ozmens in 2000 cuz, you know, back-benching and juicing the “black budget” is awful hard work so they needed a break.

Don’t forget: congress re-wrote how it reports appropriations in the defense and intelligence budgets partially because of Gibbons’ diddling thereof.

Mr. Reid and Mr. Sandoval had to settle for some petty borderline-unethical “bundling” of their campaign contributions wherein candidates skirt the $10,000 maximum allowed contribution by taking in a few extra $10K bundles from shadow limited liability corporations owned by the same guys handing out the first ten grand. Of course Gibbers and Whathisname are bundlers, too, but they wish they could bundle more.

One thing odd about this year, though, is that a bunch of the companies on the bundling list are either in bankruptcy or just coming out. So, how do you explain to your creditors that they have to take a back seat to local politicians? What do they say? “Sorry, I can’t pay you right now! Brian Sandoval’s on the other line!”

Crippled by the size of the money chests gathered against him–Sandoval the [...]]]> Word is out that Rory Reid has raised, with a little help from funds transferred from earlier campaigns, somewheres around $3.3 million dollars for his Gube run. (Sun) The usual suspects threw money into the coffers: the big casinos and goldmines owned by foreigners. (RJ)

Crippled by the size of the money chests gathered against him–Sandoval the Anointed pulled together over $900,000–the Governor has decided to make the poor suffer along with him. Thus, he floated the idea today that Nevada should stop paying Medicaid. (Sun)

Clearly the proposal is a stroke of genius and can only infuriate his Republican rival (yep, that’s pretty much singular, alrighty). The proposal will no doubt raise shouts of “Hosanna!” from the Incline Village choir and energize the base Gibbons’ base.

One wonders, however, just how much wingnutty capital the Gube can expend. How far can he go with these inflammatory proposals to woo the core? A gubernatorial mandate to stop social security payments in the state? Shut off unemployment checks? Privatize fire departments?

Oh, crap! I hope I haven’t given the crack Gube staff/re-election committee any ideas!

Here’s what Rory Reid had to say:

On the governor’s plan, released today:

“If the governor really cared about education, he would have been talking about these issues during the two legislative sessions he’s been in office. Now that his back is up [...]]]> That title didn’t seem too biased, did it?

Here’s what Rory Reid had to say:

On the governor’s plan, released today:

“If the governor really cared about education, he would have been talking about these issues during the two legislative sessions he’s been in office. Now that his back is up against the wall and his own political future is at risk, all he has done is taken an old right-wing playbook down off the shelf, blown the dust off and written a press release. Clearly he hasn’t spoken to any experts or looked for any new ideas – he’s using ideologically-driven talking points from a day gone by.”

On class size:

“I’m running for governor but I’m also a parent, and I’d rather have my child in a classroom with 19 other children rather than 50. Everyone recognizes that teaching works better with more individual attention. It’s not just research that supports smaller class sizes, it’s also common sense. To suggest that doubling class sizes will somehow solve our education problem is absurd.”

On collective bargaining:

“If the governor has an issue with labor costs, he needs to speak to the people involved. Collective bargaining is not the problem. We need leadership. In my experience when you ask people to sit down at the table, at the end of the day they are usually willing to work together to get things done. That’s been my experience in Clark County. The governor skipping that step to the detriment of educators shows nothing but disrespect for people who have dedicated their lives to the public good.”

Don’t get me wrong, though. Gibbons is still the best candidate in the Republican Gube primary because his views best reflect the ugly heart that beats deep within the core. And because he thinks Nevadans are whiny:

It’s time to stop whining that education in Nevada doesn’t work because of lack of funding.  We need to quit throwing money at programs which have not accomplished their stated purposes despite two decades of funding. (Gube)

That means YOU, Mister and Missus Whiny Nevadan! How dare you think Nevada ever threw money at anything, except casinos and foreign mining companies and phones on which the Gube can text his sweety??

]]> http://votegibbonsout.com/2010/01/rory-reid-responds-to-gibbons-idiotic-education-proposals/feed/ 1 http://votegibbonsout.com/2010/01/whats-missing-from-rory-reids-ethics-reforms/ http://votegibbonsout.com/2010/01/whats-missing-from-rory-reids-ethics-reforms/#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 04:51:12 +0000 Nevada Scandalmonger http://votegibbonsout.com/?p=3029

Two words express what’s missing from Rory Reid’s proposals for Ethics Reform.

Campaign Finance.

It cost the winning candidate for Mayor of North Las Vegas half a million dollars in the last election. That’s half a million for a lousy seat on a backwater council. The major contributors may not have violated the letter of Nevada campaign finance [...]]]>

Two words express what’s missing from Rory Reid’s proposals for Ethics Reform.

Campaign Finance.

It cost the winning candidate for Mayor of North Las Vegas half a million dollars in the last election. That’s half a million for a lousy seat on a backwater council. The major contributors may not have violated the letter of Nevada campaign finance laws, but they certainly violated the spirit. Major casinos and developers openly contributed tens of thousands more than the $10,000 limit.

The North Las Vegas election was not atypical. Candidates at all levels of Nevada government look the other way as large donors use  dummy Limited Liability Corporations to get around the $10,000 limit. Indeed, I expect you will find the same on Reid’s reports due on January 15th.

The need for large campaign funds virtually guarantees that incumbents will hold on to their offices, since large corporate givers usually prefer maintaining the status quo. Gibbons, of course, is the rare exception where a politician is so ineffectual even the big donors run away.

So, what’s to do?

Minimally, campaign reporting should be modernized. The current Nevada Secretary of State promised searchable campaign finance reports, perhaps something like one sees on the Federal Elections Commission site. That promise wasn’t kept and the latest Legislature killed reforms requiring electronic filing of campaign reports by candidates.

Campaign reform advocates still give Nevada an “F” for it’s neolithic practices.

Furthermore, steps should be taken to disallow corporations from donating more than the maximum $10,000 through LLCs that contain corporate officers in common. In addition, corporations should be required to list all corporate officers in the state database.

Frankly, the $10,000 is too much. The maximum allowed should be much lower, forcing everyone to campaign on less money, thus giving less-juiced candidates a better chance.

For further ideas, Rory Reid should look over the list of reforms proposed by another gubernatorial candidate by the name of Dina Titus. Titus proposed 12 reforms. Her suggestion for dealing with the LLC “bundling” was the following.

Require candidates to detail in their campaign disclosure statements the identities of corporate officers, directors, and
principals with an ownership interest of 10% or more in any contributing corporate entity, including for-profit and non-profit corporations, limited liability companies and limited partnerships. These filings also would require that occupations and addresses of individual donors be disclosed, similar to Federal Election Commission requirements.

That wouldn’t get rid of the LLC shell game, but it would make it a lot more obvious when it happens.

One other thing. Reid wants a one year cooling off period in which state employees cannot work as lobbyists. However, shouldn’t that go the other way as well? Lobbyists shouldn’t be allowed to work as state employees without a year break from their lobbying. Or would that empty out all those state boards?