Armey visit spurs call for boycott

Erin Neff

Thursday, Jan. 17, 2002 | 9:42 a.m.

When House Majority Leader Dick Armey strolls into town today to raise money for the GOP, he'll also see plenty of Democrats.

Armey, R-Texas, arrives in Las Vegas this evening for a fund-raiser at Tournament Hills in Summerlin and plans to spend time meeting with Republican congressional hopefuls Jon Porter and Lynette Boggs McDonald.

But Democrats are urging Porter and Boggs McDonald to boycott his visit because of Armey's advocacy for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

In a letter sent Wednesday to both Porter and Boggs McDonald, state Democratic Party Chairman Terry Care urged a boycott and asked them to discourage local supporters from attending the fund-raiser.

"By standing beside Mr. Armey at this event, you send a tacit signal to the rest of the country that Nevada stands with the very people who want to send 77,000 tons of the world's most poisonous substance into our community," Care wrote.

Care's letter details Armey's various votes in Congress to ship nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, and also quotes House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., praising Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham for his recommendation of Yucca Mountain.

Gov. Kenny Guinn said he'll be at the event and hopes no one from his party stays away over the Yucca Mountain issue. He chided Democrats for going on the attack.

"I think they're making a mistake when they try to make this a partisan issue," he said. "This is a Nevada issue, and it's against 39 other states who have nuclear spent fuel and want to move it to Nevada."

He said there's plenty of blame to go around.

"It was a Democrat who introduced the (Yucca Mountain) bill, and it was a Democratic president over the last eight years who spent billions of dollars moving forward, and we're not complaining about that."

Boggs McDonald isn't shying away from Armey at all. In fact, her campaign on Wednesday trumpeted news of Armey's endorsement of Boggs McDonald and invited reporters to a press conference Friday announcing the endorsement.

"Like all Nevadans, Lynette is strongly opposed to Yucca Mountain," said Boggs McDonald's campaign manager Tim Mooney. "There's a lot of issues that she can talk to Dick Armey about.

"How much better to be someone in communication with (House) leadership and to be someone who will be a national star the day she gets to Washington," Mooney added, referring to Boggs McDonald's bid to be the nation's first black Republican congresswoman.

Boggs McDonald, who is running against Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., is so undaunted by the recent criticism from Democrats that she also announced Wednesday receiving campaign contributions from Hastert.

Her campaign will report raising $250,000 in 2001 -- allegedly the most by any Republican challenging a Democrat in Congress nationwide, Mooney said.

But Democrats aren't standing idly by. Tonight they plan to protest Armey's $500 a person fund-raiser with a weapon they call "Yucca Man."

Porter's campaign could not be reached.

Sun reporter Jeff German contributed to this story.