Tax fighter Beers beats Rawson

Kirsten Searer

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2004 | 10:52 a.m.

Nevada's foremost anti-tax baron took out one of Nevada's most entrenched state senators in Tuesday's primary.

In the wake of the tumultuous 2003 legislative session -- which included a tax hike of more than $800 million -- Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, ran a campaign portraying Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas, as someone who never met a tax he didn't like.

It proved successful on Tuesday when he beat Rawson by less than 1,000 votes, 56 to 44 percent.

Beers continued talking about taxes after his win.

In an interview with Channel 8, Beers said he would wait until the Legislature's membership was set before talking about his plans.

"I certainly hope, personally, that we can scale back some of that spending ... and perhaps refund some taxes to people and refund the (state's) rainy-day fund," Beers said.

Rawson declined requests for interviews on Tuesday night, passing comment to Joe Brezny, executive director of the Republican Senate Caucus.

Brezny blamed the loss on campaign failures, saying Beers stayed on message by focusing on tax reform and the Rawson team had "lost opportunities."

"He picked one message and stayed on it and we didn't," Brezny said. "Sen. Rawson sacrificed so much for this race, and to see that it was management failures that had him come up so short is very tough for me to take personally."

Rawson resigned from his $187,000 teaching position at the Community College of Southern Nevada in March in order to quell concerns that public employees might not be able to serve in the state Legislature.

Beers did stick to his anti-tax message throughout the campaign, promising a taxpayers bill of rights that would curb government growth.

Brezny said he didn't see the race as a referendum on last year's tax increases.

"This was a message that Bob Beers, in a very effective and efficient way, conveyed to the public and captured their interest," Brezny said. "I think it has a lot more to do with Bob Beers and how effectively he campaigns than it does that specific message being any kind of silver bullet."

Rawson and the third-party Committee for Truth in Politics, backed by a Republican activist and former Boy Scout under Rawson's tutelage, got a little more personal when responding to Beers' campaign.

They charged that Beers' $3,000 donation to the ACLU of Nevada and his appearance before the Clark County Libertarian Party suggest he is more of an anarchist than a true conservative.

Beers said his three polls he commissioned over the year consistently showed him with a 20 percent lead over Rawson, and that gap only increased in the past few days as the campaign hit high gear.

Not only did he have the effective anti-tax message, Beers said, but Rawson also levied unfair charges against him that didn't stick with voters.

"Ray's whole campaign was, 'Beers is really a secret flaming social liberal,' and he never produced a single vote to back that up," Beers said.

A variety of groups came to Rawson's aid, including the ACLU of Nevada and several gaming companies. Some throught Rawson -- who has lived in the district for more than 40 years and is a former bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- could carry more votes based on his experience in the community.

Beers will face Independent American Cathie Lynn Profant in the Nov. 2 general election.