Democrats back Neal’s foe in flier

Friday, Aug. 18, 2000 | 10:31 a.m.

They said it

Quotes from state Senate candidate Uri Clinton's political pamphlet:

"Uri Clinton understands that fighting the storage of nuclear waste in Nevada must be a top priority. We need all Nevada leaders to stand firm against any attempt to make Nevada a wasteland."

"As governor for 10 years, I did everything possible to keep nuclear waste out of our state. Sen. Joe Neal has not been supportive on the nuclear waste issue and I know Uri Clinton will."

State Senate candidate Uri Clinton got some primary election help from two of the state's top Democrats in a new flier that blasts his opponent, Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, on the issue of Yucca Mountain.

Inside the pamphlet, which quotes liberally from a Las Vegas Sun article on a nuclear waste crash simulation, retiring Sen. Richard Bryan and former Gov. Bob Miller are quoted in support of Clinton's stand against making Nevada a nuclear waste dumping ground.

Both Bryan and Miller said they had given Clinton the quotes but that they have not endorsed either candidate in the Democratic Party primary race. Party leaders customarily stay away from publicly backing candidates until after nominees are chosen in primary.

"The senator praised Uri on his knowledge of nuclear waste," Bryan assistant Lou Gammage said. "He was not asked to endorse him."

Bryan spokesman David Lemmon echoed that statement from the floor of the Democratic convention in Los Angeles. "He has not endorsed anyone in that race."

Miller said the same thing. "I did not endorse him, but the quote speaks for itself," he said. "I think he would make a better senator on this issue."

Neal, 65, has held his Senate seat since 1972. He is a tireless critic of the gaming industry, which has given him a reputation as a maverick, as he is consistently the lone voice in a 63-member Legislature that dares criticize the state's dominant industry. Currently, Neal is pressing to increase the state gaming tax from 6.25 percent to 11.25 percent, arguing that the increase is needed to adequately provide for education and other needs that he says are severely underfunded.

Clinton, a 27-year-old attorney, criticizes Neal for being stuck in the past. He says the times have changed but Neal has not changed with them. Clinton is receiving support from the gaming industry, which views him as a candidate who would be more likely to vote with the majority. Clinton charges that because Neal is singly focused on attacking the gaming industry he is not effective in listening to residents who have other issues that need attention.

In the pamphlet released this week, Clinton quotes Neal as saying, "There is no greater place for this product (nuclear waste) than in Nevada," reportedly taken from a 1993 floor speech before the Nevada Legislature.

Neal said he had never supported storing nuclear waste in Nevada. "I made no such speech in 1993," Neal said. "There's nothing in any statement I have made that nuclear waste should come to Nevada."

If the U.S. Department of Energy builds a nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Neal did say, however, that the state should seek benefits from it.

Although it is unusual for major political figures to lend support to a newcomer in a primary race, Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, said he wasn't surprised that it happened in a race with Neal. "He (Neal) is not in the orthodoxy on gaming or nuclear waste," Herzik said.

In the 1998 gubernatorial primary, top Democrats such as Sen. Harry Reid, Bryan, Miller and Assembly Speaker Joe Dini, D-Yerington, declined to endorse Neal as the first black candidate for governor. He was running against former Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones, who is now senior vice president of communications at Harrah's hotel-casino.