Gov. Guinn urges GOP inclusiveness in the face of differences

Scott Sonner

Saturday, May 27, 2000 | 10:10 a.m.

CARSON CITY, Nev. - Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn and a host of GOP leaders are preaching compassion and inclusiveness, urging bickering party members at today's state convention to rally around common goals.

"I ask each of you to put aside individual differences," Guinn said in a speech opening the convention on Friday.

"Remember those things we share in common as Republicans - a belief in personal rights. We believe strongly in personal rights," he said.

"We want limited government. And we want to become more and more a party that cares for all and be inclusive, which I truly believe we are."

Guinn's words were directed, in part, at divisions among moderates and conservatives over a series of hotly contested platform planks, from abortion to tax increases to same-sex marriages.

"We have legitimate differences but we cannot let them tear us apart," he said before his speech at the Ormsby House.

Party leaders repeated that theme throughout the day.

"We need to remain cognizant of what we're here for. We're here to elect Republicans," said Joe DiLonardo, the Carson City chairman of the convention.

"We've got to remember one thing - the enemy is the other party."

Former U.S. Rep. John Ensign, who's running for the Senate, said party infighting didn't concern him.

"Every year we do this. We always have our fights. But when we walk out that door we join hands together and we're going to elect Republicans in the state of Nevada," he said.

Both Guinn and Ensign urged the delegates to remember the words of President Reagan.

"Everybody's got to have a little give and take," the governor said.

"Ronald Reagan always said those who agree with me 80 percent of the time are not my enemies, they are my friends."

Bob Seale, a former state treasurer who was elected Friday as the new state GOP chairman, said he will work to include all flavors of Republicans under the party's banner.

"I'm going to work as hard as I can to make the tent as big as I can make it," he said.

The calls for unity came as delegates battled Friday afternoon over a variety of potentially divisive party policy statements called platform planks.

They include all-out bans on abortions, same-sex marriages, openly gay members of the military, and adoptions and foster care by homosexuals.

Another plank calls for support of Elko County's reopening of a Forest Service road near Jarbidge - a flashpoint in the debate over federal land policies in the West.

The platform panel, chaired by Assemblyman Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, also opposed a Nevada teachers' proposal for a business profits tax and another proposal by Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, to raise taxes on big casinos.

Guinn touched on education in his speech, urging GOP candidates at all levels to emphasize their party championed Nevada's Millennium Scholarships, which guarantee $10,000 to high school graduates with B averages who attend Nevada universities.

"That translates into a tax cut. ... It's an issue to take door-to-door in your campaigns because it demonstrates we care.

"We have, without a doubt, become the party that cares. We care about people."

The convention ends today after its members elect party officers, choose delegates to the national convention and approve the platform.

Tom Wiesner, a former Clark County commissioner and current member of the state board of regents, was re-elected Friday as Republican national committeeman for Nevada, a post he has held since 1984.

He defeated outgoing Nevada GOP Chairman John Mason for the slot by a vote of 261-133.

Patty Cafferata was vying for the national committeewoman slot previously held by her mother, former Rep. Barbara Vucanovich, against Beverly Willard of Carson City. Delegates cast votes in that election late Friday, but an announcement of the results was postponed until today.

Seventeen delegates from Nevada will attend the national convention July 31-Aug. 5 in Philadelphia.