Former Nevada Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt won’t decide on moving into the city and running for Las Vegas mayor until after conferring with family members over the holidays; however, if, as most expect, she opts to pass on the race, former GOP official George Harris, co-owner of Mundo’s Mexican restaurant at the World Market Center downtown, might jump in.
And even though this is a non-partisan race, he’d run as the newly-established Tequila Party’s candidate. And heck, the Organized Labor Party just might endorse him, as well!
The wheels of justice do grind slowly, but former GOP secretary of state candidate Rob Lauer is expected to finally face the music for allegedly roughing up a woman with MS at the bar in Stoney’s after last May’s First Friday Happy Hour, an assault captured by the establishment’s video surveillance system.
His date with destiny is now January 6 at 9:00 a.m. in Las Vegas Justice Court, Department 2.
OK, the conventional wisdom is that former Gov. Kenny Guinn was a liberal RINO and Gov. Jim Gibbons was a fiscal conservative, right? Well, not so fast.
According to a chart imbedded in blog post by Victor Joecks of the Nevada Policy Research Institute today shows that during the eight years Guinn was governor, the state’s general fund budget grew at or below the rate of population growth plus inflation – the spending cap formula once proposed by former state Sen. Bob Beers.
However, beginning in 2006, the year Gibbons was elected governor, through this year and projected through next, government spending has exploded well beyond Beers’ proposed TASC cap.
Of course, to be fair it has to be noted that the Legislature in 2009 increased spending beyond Gibbons’ proposed budget; however, even Gibbon’s proposed budget was above the TASC cap and, as we know, the coach gets the blame no matter which players are actually at fault.
Here’s some darned good advice to Gov.-elect Sandoval and the Nevada Legislature from Bob Williams of the State Budget Solutions conservative think tank (HT, LVRJ):
“You have to redesign and refocus state governments around what are the real functions of state government. If it’s not a core function, don’t do it.”
By the way…the Nevada Arts Council? It’s not a core function. Neither is the Civil Rights Commission or high school mariachi classes.
