Scroggins says he’ll remain in LV

Monday, Jan. 16, 2006 | 8:29 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- If he is elected secretary of state, Brian Scroggins said he will continue to live in Las Vegas, breaking a tradition of others elected to the job.

But he also said that he might buy a house in Carson City, and that he intends to divide his time between Las Vegas and the main office in Carson City.

Scroggins explained that he has six children in school in Clark County and operates his sign business. If he is elected, he said his wife, Barbara, could continue to operate United Signs.

Scroggins is the fourth candidate to announce for the race. The others are Republicans Danny Tarkanian and former Assemblywoman Merle Berman and Democrat Ross Miller, all of Las Vegas.

Scroggins talked with reporters last week on his eighth trip through rural Nevada. So far, he said, he has collected $115,000 in campaign contributions and $49,000 from in-kind donations.

In the recent past, every secretary of state lived in the Carson City area and traveled to Las Vegas to handle the problems in that office.

Scroggins said he has talked with incumbent Secretary of State Dean Heller, who said he spends time every week in Las Vegas. Heller is absent from his Carson City office for extended periods.

On state issues, Scroggins said, he opposes same-day voter registration because it opens up an "opportunity for fraud" on election day. He favors keeping the current law, which cuts off voter registration 20 days before the election.

He opposes allowing ex-felons the right to vote unless they have had their civil rights restored. He said he has hired ex-felons in his sign business and many have been "productive citizens." But he said, "They have lost the right to vote."

It would be a "waste of taxpayer money" to require printing of voter identification cards for voters to take to the polls. The cost has been estimated at $25 million.

He also scoffed at the idea of putting a notation on driver's licenses declaring that the holder is a citizen. Advocates of the notations say it could prevent illegal aliens from voting.

"We have too many laws already," Scroggins said. "There are already safeguards." He said the voter list could be run against Social Security records to prevent abuses.

Scroggins said he opposes raising the fees corporations file to conduct business in Nevada. The office already collects $85 million and boosting the cost of filing would "start to kill the golden goose."

Many of these corporations file in Nevada for tax purposes but don't do business here. These companies, he said, don't use Nevada's infrastructure or services. Nevada is trying to diversify its industry from a gaming state and raising the fees would not help in that effort, he said.

"I'm pro business," he said. "We have to make sure we are treating business well and not driving people away from the state."

The secretary of state is a member of the bi-state Tahoe Regional Planning Agency that oversees development of the lake that sits both in California and Nevada.

"People have a right to develop the land they own," he said. "But we have to look at the pristine lake."

He said he had prior experience as a four-year member of the Enterprise Town Advisory Board that deals with zoning matters in the southwest Las Vegas Valley township.