REPUBLICAN BENCH IN NEVADA SUFFERS A SEVERE BLOW, LOSES A REAL GOP SUPERSTAR

A little over a year ago, a special session of the Nevada Assembly voted unanimously to impeach Republican Controller Kathy Augustine "for her use of state workers and equipment during her 2002 re-election -- on state time." The 2 highest ranking elected Republicans in the state, Governor Kenny Guinn and Senator John Ensign have both asked Augustine to resign after she admitted breaking 3 state ethics laws. She was fined $15,000 but not removed from office.


It seemed that Kathy Augustine had become an embarrassment for the Republican Establishment in this swing state. But for anyone paying even the slightest amount of attention, it shouldn't have seemed "sudden." Augustine's political career as a member of both the Assembly and the state Senate was troubling for many, but not atypical for a Republican right-wing politician. Outrageous lying as well as pandering to racism and anti-semitism were woven through Augustine's rise to the top of the Nevada GOP. When running for her current job-- the controller is like the state's chief accountant-- she cited as her only relevant experience making change while serving drinks as an airline stewardess.

Last week the State Republican Chairman, Paul Williams, demanded that the party's former rising star not seek another electoral job in Nevada as a Republican. She is about to be term-limited out of her current job and Williams (speaking for most of the state GOP) called her "an embarrassment to the Nevada Republican Party."
Augustine -- who is deciding between running for either Lieutenant Governor or State Treasurer -- is the only state official ever impeached and convicted in Nevada's 141-year history. "I think I have quite a stellar work record, in what I've accomplished in office," she said, and then hinted that there is more to her case than what has come out so far. The Republican Chairman wrote her a letter saying that the party "cannot embrace a candidate who has been censured, fined and impeached for an ethics violation" and then made sure it got into the hands of the press.

The context of all this Republican drama are a challenge to a U.S. Senator, Jon Ensign, (although his colleague Harry Reid has stupidly signaled that Democrats won't target his seat: “We’ve got other places where we’re going to focus our attention”) and potentially-competitive races for two Republican House seats. Jon Porter, whose swing district (the 3rd) covers the suburbs of Las Vegas and is frantic that Augustine not be on the ticket with him, is particularly vulnerable. The 3rd is a creature of redistricting, drawn after the 2000 Census so that the new district would have almost a precisely equal number of registered Democrats and registered Republicans. Porter is far to the right of his moderate constituents and if 2006 continues to shape up as a Democratic year, as it has been so far, he will need a miracle to retain the seat. The 2nd district is currently held by Jim Gibbons, who is giving it up to run for Governor. His wife wants to run for the seat. The Democrats have a very strong candidate in Jill Derby, a respected and popular State University System Regent. The district is basically all of Nevada north of Vegas and is usually considered safe GOP territory.

Although there is no way to know how honest the 2004 vote count was in Nevada, Bush supposedly beat Kerry by 3 percentage points. Today approximately 60% of Nevada adults give Bush a negative approval rating, the lowest rating of any state that supposedly voted for him in 2004. And despite being "protected" by Reid, Ensign has pretty bad approval ratings (49% favorable-- even lower than prime Democratic targets Burns and Chaffee). Republican Party officials in Nevada are nervous about 2006 and they feel that if Augustine is on the ticket, and her blatant corruption is debated in the media again, it could be enough to sink the whole party in what looks to be a very tough year for Republicans.