Ensign urges Bernstein to help pull commercial

Friday, Sept. 1, 2000 | 11:26 a.m.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate John Ensign urged Democratic foe Ed Bernstein to help pull a television advertisement that Ensign said distorted his record as a former congressman.

Ensign said during Thursday's "POV Vegas," the Las Vegas Sun's issue-oriented news program televised on Cox Cable channels 1 and 39, that the ad financed by Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee soft money was full of "lies."

The ad, which began airing Tuesday in Las Vegas and Reno, alleged in part that Ensign voted to "cut" $23 billion from Social Security. That was in reference to a 1995 House budget resolution he supported. Ensign said the so-called "cut" was simply a cost-of-living adjustment to benefits first proposed by the Clinton administration.

"Nothing I did, first of all, cut Social Security or did anything to Social Security," Ensign said. "We just assumed the president's changes. They said we cut Social Security. That is an out and out lie. It isn't even a half-truth."

The ad also accused Ensign, who served two terms in Congress, of being "against stopping HMO abuses," a reference to his 1998 opposition to a Democrat-backed health care bill. He supported the GOP alternative.

"I voted against the Democrat bill because it allowed the employers to be sued," Ensign said. "I voted for a patients' bill of rights that had a limited right to sue. If you allow employers to be sued, employers will drop their health insurance, and we'll end up with a lot more uninsured people than we have already in this country."

The only time Ensign mentioned Bernstein by name on the show hosted by Mark Shaffer was in reference to the ad.

"Ed Bernstein should tell his party to take these ads down," Ensign said.

Bernstein said Thursday he had nothing to do with the ad, but he defended its content, which also included an allegation that Ensign voted for Medicare cuts. Republicans have said that the 1995 budget legislation involving Medicare was simply intended to slow the program's spending growth, and also was not a cut.

"The money that was taken out by Republicans was taken away from people who needed it," Bernstein said. "The problem with the Social Security system is that there is not enough money in the system now."

He also characterized the GOP health care reform bill supported by Ensign while Ensign was in Congress "as having no teeth."

"The Republican version didn't hold HMOs accountable," Bernstein said.

Bernstein, an attorney, also said workers should have a right to sue employers in disputes involving health care plans operated or administered by employers.

Ensign said negative television advertising funded by "special interests" from Washington, D.C., was the main reason his unsuccessful 1998 race against Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., turned nasty. He said advertising financed through soft money by political parties is supposed to be used for get-out-the-vote activities, not to support or oppose particular candidates.

"That's why people are calling for reform," he said. "That's why we've run a 100 percent positive campaign this time."

But Bernstein scoffed at Ensign's remarks about special interests because the Republican has received campaign financing from various interest groups.

"It's almost laughable to believe that I have any special-interest funds because we know who is giving him money and we know who is giving me money," Bernstein said.

On the nuclear waste issue, Ensign said he believes he could persuade GOP senators to change their minds about shipping the radioactive material to Nevada by convincing them to adopt an alternative known as transmutation.

Sens. Reid and Richard Bryan, D-Nev., have long advocated this alternative, whereby high-level nuclear waste can be converted to less radioactive material that can be reused by power plants or for medical research.

"I can work the Republicans while Harry works the Democrats," Ensign said.