“Don Veto” Guv Leading the Fight While GOP Legislators Hunker in the Bunker

(Chuck Muth) – Democrats in Carson City are threatening that the A’s stadium and a big subsidy for a movie studio are in jeopardy if Gov. Joe “Don Veto” Lombardo doesn’t sign their budget bills.

Most conservatives could care less if they die.  Vegas is doing just fine without either and will survive and prosper one way or the other.  Now, about those budget bills…

Don Veto says he won’t sign them if his reform policies aren’t “addressed.”  Notice the choice of words.  “Addressed.”  Not “Passed.”  And with that he’s attained the high ground.

All he’s asking for is that his reform bills on education, crime and election reform be heard, debated, and voted on.  As conservative State Sen. Jeff Stone put it on Friday…

“Republicans are going to vote no on this budget because we have a governor that has not had his voice heard, his priorities addressed. Everyone, whether you’re in the majority or the minority, at least deserves a hearing.”

Amen.  And then, if Dems kill them, GOP candidates can use those votes as campaign fodder in partisan legislative races next year.

How refreshing to have a Republican governor who understands, not only policy, but the politics of securing your base as well as fighting from a position of strength in the court of public opinion.

An 8NewsNow report on Friday noted that two of the budget bills – AB520 and AB522 – were passed by the Democrat majority on party line votes.  Good, right?

Not that they passed, but that Republicans stuck together and showed support for Lombardo’s veto threat if the D’s don’t hear and “address” his reform bills.

However, there was a sinister dark side to those GOP votes which too many Republican legislators fall into every session: committee votes.  Here’s how it works:

Dems hold hearings on bills in small committees and sub-committees.  And sadly, sometimes Republicans vote FOR these bills in committee, only to later vote against them in floor votes.

John Kerry Republicans.  They vote for the bill before voting against it.

Often, the excuse is something like, “I just wanted to move the bill to the floor so all legislators would have a chance to vote for or against it.”  Dumb, dumb, dumb.

First, Republicans are in the minority.  The Democrats can move bad bills out of committees and sub-committees without any Republican votes.  But they hate doing so on controversial bills.

They want to be able to call such votes “bipartisan.” That way, in future elections when GOP candidates claim Democrats are, say, tax-hikers, all the D’s need is one or more wishy-washy Republicans to cave and vote with them to take that issue off the table in campaigns.

Take AB65 for example.  It was passed in the Assembly 31-11 and in the Senate 15-5.

The bill, among other bad things, drops the “compulsory” school age for kids from seven down to six years of age – so the government can get hold of them sooner. And they’ll keep chipping away at this until they gain control of babies in the womb.

Three Republicans gave the Democrats cover by voting with them in the Assembly (Hardy, Kasama, Koenig), and another two in the Senate (Buck, Gansert).

Another perfect example of this is the current brouhaha over the budget bills.

After passing AB520, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro criticized Republicans for voting against it, saying the bill was “largely, if not completely, unanimous in the subcommittee. Largely, if not completely, unanimous in the full committee.”

She went on to note the budget bills were passed in committees “with *bipartisan*, often unanimous, support.”

And the liberal Las Vegas Sun – which almost daily issues political fatwas against Lombardo, and did so again this morning – characterized the budget bills as having “broad *bipartisan* support” and referred to Lombardo’s veto threats as “reckless foot stomping.”

The editorial continued: “His threats to veto a fiscally responsible and *bipartisan* budget are a deep and profound abuse of his office,” adding its mush-headed opinion that “Lombardo has never been qualified to be governor.”

See?

To Democrats, “bipartisan” means they get the gold mine and Republicans get the shaft.  It means they get the full banquet at the adult table while Republicans get food scraps at the kiddie table.

Yet some GOP legislators keep falling for it and go along to get along.

They are so comfortably numb to being the roll-over minority party that they’re unwilling to be the fighting opposition party even when they have one of their own in the governor’s office.

The other dumb thing Republican legislators do in this regard is co-sponsor and/or vote for significantly bad Democrat bills in return for promises that their comparatively insignificant bills will get a hearing and possibly even a vote.

If they’re really lucky, they then crow about getting their comparatively trivial bills signed into law while the Dems get their liberal, government-growing, cultural revolution bills – that their own base salivates over – passed.

Substantive GOP bills rooted in conservatism (such as school choice), however, are stuck in a drawer, never to be seen or heard from again – leaving Republicans to whimper about promises made that were never kept.  Over and over and over again.

Democrats are Lucy holding the football to the GOP’s Charlie Brown.

Lombardo, on the other hand, clearly understands the game and isn’t being fooled by Democrat promises that they’ll hold the ball for him.  He didn’t just fall off the turnip truck last night.  He’s seen this play before.

Unfortunately for him, however, some of his own GOP allies in the Legislature are weak-kneed “surrender monkeys” or just plain political rubes who need to be injected with a little “tiger blood” before this session ends.

Gov. “Don Veto” is standing firm in his fight for conservative policy principles.  But if he’s backed up by politically adle-minded Republican soldiers with jelly for spines who “go wobbly” and hide in their Carson City bunkers, we ain’t gonna get any sh*t done.

And will pay for it at the polls again next year.

For once, maybe Republicans will blow this opportunity to blow an opportunity.  But I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. Sigh.

FAMOUS LAST FIGHTIN’ WORDS

“Every soldier must know, before he goes into battle, how the little battle he is to fight fits into the larger picture, and how the success of his fighting will influence the battle as a whole.” – Bernard Law Montgomery

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” – Mark Twain

“Better to fight for something than live for nothing.” – Gen. George S. Patton

“I’m not the sort to back away from a fight. I don’t believe in shrinking from anything. It’s not my speed.  I’m a guy who meets adversities head on.” – John Wayne

“When I fight someone, I want to break his will. I want to take his manhood. I want to rip out his heart and show it to him.” – Mike Tyson

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” – Margaret Thatcher

Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, publisher of Nevada News & Views, and founder of CampaignDoctor.com.  You can sign up for his conservative, Nevada-focused e-newsletter at MuthsTruths.com.  His views are his own.