Harry Reid's failure to deliver ObamaCare exemptions to organized labor in Nevada connected to low Democrat early voting in the state-Las Vegas Review Journal

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11/2/14, "There’s something about Harry," Las Vegas Review-Journal, Editorial, Glenn Cook

"Tuesday’s election could see a top-to-bottom slaughter of Nevada Democrats, thanks to the policies, politics and priorities of the state party’s CEO, the U.S. Senate majority leader.

Early voting ended Friday, and the totals show an incredibly depressed, disconnected Democratic base. Although active registered Democrats outnumber active registered Republican voters by more than 60,000 statewide, Republicans are voting in greater raw numbers than Democrats. Suddenly, Republicans have a shot at sweeping statewide offices and taking control of both chambers of the Legislature.

Blame Harry. Nevada Democrats are staying home because of three critical Reid missteps.

1. Reid is so preoccupied with helping U.S. Senate candidates outside Nevada win re-election — and keeping his job as majority leader — that he isn’t pulling any levers to crank up the turnout machine that won him a fifth term in 2010 and swung the state to President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

2. Reid failed to run a viable Democratic candidate against popular Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, surrendering the state’s biggest race. Democrats had no one to champion the party brand throughout the 2014 campaign, and no compelling candidacy to drive partisans to the polls.

3. Reid alienated the most important part of his state machine: organized labor. The Culinary and the AFL-CIO delivered the congressional majorities that allowed Reid to pass the Affordable Care Act, and they saved him from his own unpopularity in 2010. Then, when unions screeched about the brutal costs imposed by Obamacare on the Cadillac health plans they had spent decades building, Reid and the president refused to give labor with the exemptions they wanted. As a result, unions were slow to spend their resources rescuing the party they feel betrayed them.

There is indeed voter suppression in Nevada, but it amounts to a self-imposed quarantine by Democrats.

Ballot’s best and worst

And now, just in time for Tuesday’s vote, my biennial list of the best and worst down-ticket candidates on the Clark County ballot, based on their backgrounds and my personal interviews with them.

The five best candidates you probably haven’t heard of:

1. Jim Crockett, District Court, Department 24: Seldom do voters have an opportunity to elevate such a highly regarded, experienced litigator to the bench. He’d be an excellent jurist from Day One.
2. Rebecca Burton, Family Court, Department C: The Family Court bench needs a significant upgrade. Voters can start by replacing disgraced Family Court Judge Steven Jones, who used his office to carry out a fraud scheme, with Burton, one of the finest family law practitioners in the state.
3. Jon Martin (R), North Las Vegas constable: We all know what can happen when a municipality elects an unqualified candidate to the constable’s office (John Bonaventura, anyone?). Martin is a 25-year veteran of the North Las Vegas Police Department and a 20-year detective. He has the perfect background and demeanor for the job of serving court papers and eviction notices.
4. Trevor Hayes, Board of Regents, District 2: The Board of Regents desperately needs a First Amendment advocate — a job Hayes is up for. Few people are as passionate and knowledgeable about higher education than this former Review-Journal reporter turned attorney.
5. Annette Teijeiro (R), 1st Congressional District: The valley physician challenging Rep. Dina Titus has first-hand experience with the failures of Obamacare and understands what real health care reform looks like.

The five worst candidates you probably haven’t heard of:

1. Nelson Araujo (D), Assembly District 3: It isn’t that Araujo won’t take a position on Question 3 — plenty of Democrats are in that boat. It’s that he won’t take a position on anything. The reason for his mushiness is just as troubling: He doesn’t understand state policy issues.
2. Doug Smith, District Court, Department 8: The quote of the year from the roughly 200 endorsement interviews the Review-Journal editorial board conducted came from Smith, whose rulings are overturned by the Nevada Supreme Court on a stunningly regular basis. “Sometimes you have to make equitable decisions, decisions based on equity, not what the law says.” We have a sitting judge who admits to ignoring the law. Fire him.
3. Jason Stoffel, Family Court, Department S: When the hacks at Veterans in Politics threatened to file a groundless lawsuit against me earlier this year, they had Stoffel write the demand letter. It included this gem: “Journalism should be information based, not opinion based.” Just what we need: another judge who doesn’t know or read the law.
4. Kenneth Pollock, Family Court, Department J: Only 40 percent of attorneys surveyed in last year’s Review-Journal Judicial Performance Evaluation said Pollock should be retained. Then he proved them right by campaigning in public this fall — while on medical leave from the bench. Survey says: Fire him.
5. Mike “Doc” Javornicky (R), Clark County treasurer: Javornicky is on this list a second time for what he told the Review-Journal in 2010, when he was running for the same office. He said the job of treasurer, which is the county’s tax collector, banker and chief investment officer, is “not too demanding. As long as you’ve got a good deputy, you don’t have to be there all the time.” Laziness is not a platform voters should reward.

Cast an informed vote."

"Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s senior editorial writer. Follow him on Twitter: @Glenn_CookNV. Listen to him Mondays at 4 p.m. on “Live and Local with Kevin Wall” on KXNT News Radio, 100.5 FM, 840 AM."



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