Candidates mostly agree at political forum

Jace Radke

Monday, Sept. 11, 2000 | 11:44 a.m.

Sun reporter Ed Koch contributed to this report.

Debates are generally a good tool to determine differences between political opponents, but voters who attended Sunday night's debates between Nevada's candidates for U.S. Senate and Congress saw a lot of similarities.

Congressional opponents Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and state Sen. Jon Porter, R-Henderson, as well as the candidates for U.S. Senate, former Rep. John Ensign, a Republican, and Ed Bernstein, a Democrat, seemed to agree more than disagree on many issues.

They spoke to about 200 people at a political forum sponsored by the Congregation Ner Tamid Social Action committee and the Council of Jewish Organizations.

All four agreed that Israel deserves more support from the United States to establish peace in the Middle East. The candidates also all agreed that nuclear waste should not be sent to Nevada.

The issue that the candidates differed the most on was health care.

While both Ensign and Bernstein agreed that something has to be done to help get prescription drugs to those in need, they disagree about how to do it.

"Both the Democrat and Republican version of the 'Patients' Bill of Rights' are about 90 to 95 percent the same," Ensign said. "The version I'd vote for stresses an independent appeals process and allows for a limited right to sue employers."

Bernstein said he would have voted for the Democrat version of the Patients' Bill of Rights.

"I would have voted for it to help the people that are having to choose between the health care they need and paying rent," Bernstein said. "Two out of every three employees in Nevada work at a company where the company makes the health care decisions. They have to be held responsible for those decisions. I'm for an independent review process, but it has to be binding."

Berkley said that she thought Porter preferred to deal with the prescription drug problem by using subsidies to insurance companies, when there is already a vehicle to solve the problem.

"I'm an advocate of a comprehensive prescription drug benefit in Medicare," Berkley said. "We already have a Medicare system in place, so why should we go to subsidies?"

Porter, the former mayor of Boulder City, responded by saying that Berkley had publicly criticized Gov. Kenny Guinn and the state Legislature's prescription drug plan.

"My opponent put at risk the prescription drug effort here at home," Porter said. "I support the Nevada plan, and I'm responsible to help Nevada first. We can use tax surplus in Washington to fit the national need."

Ensign, a staunch conservative, is coming off a landslide primary victory over two opponents. Ensign, who came within 428 votes of defeating Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., in 1998, is a heavy favorite to win the seat of retiring Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev.

Through June, Ensign, a veterinarian, had raised $3.4 million -- nearly double what Bernstein, a lawyer, had. Most of Bernstein's money came from his own checkbook, and he had no primary opponent. Ensign, the son of Mandalay Resort Group Chairman Mike Ensign, has received $103,000 from that gaming entity.

Ensign has received $300,000 from gaming, compared to $24,250 for Bernstein.

A key difference in the views of the candidates is that Ensign opposes government-funded abortions, while Bernstein is pro-choice.

Porter is coming off a primary where he won handily, but spent $572,548 of his $855,730 war chest. Berkley, who had no Democratic opponent, has a campaign bankroll of about $1 million.