Friday, Nov. 10, 2006 | 6:53 a.m.
In the Culinary Union's headquarters just north of the Strip, there is a room with a placard saying "War Room" next to the door.
Throughout the election, the wall was covered by various political district maps, including a sprawling one of Clark County Commission District F.
Tuesday's election results provided a clear lesson to public officials: You do not want a map of your district on that wall.
District F was held by Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, who lost her seat Tuesday by one of the largest margins ever suffered by a commission incumbent, drawing only 31 percent of the vote, compared with Democrat Susan Brager's 59 percent.
The major reason: She crossed labor.
It's a fate shared this year by state Sen. Sandra Tiffany and County Commissioner Myrna Williams, whose losses can be attributed heavily, if not completely, to attacks from unions.
While labor often endorses candidates and uses its membership to get out the vote for favored candidates, this year has been unusual in the extent to which unions launched effective and dramatic attack campaigns on enemies. With laserlike focus on local races, they also made a strong statement in the process.
Michael Green, a history professor at the Community College of Southern Nevada, summarized that statement: "Not only can the union giveth, but the union can taketh away."
Boggs McDonald, a rising star in the Republican Party until recent weeks, took a $50,000-a-year board membership with nonunionized Station Casinos, even though she was a Las Vegas councilwoman at the time.
Culinary, the state's largest union with 60,000 casino, food and service workers, did not forget.
Its efforts - and those of other unions in other races - to unseat incumbents were unprecedented, many political observers and labor leaders said.
"I don't remember the Culinary Union being this successful in targeting somebody," Green said.
Boggs McDonald also crossed the Police Protective Association when she led opposition to a requested pay increase from Metro Police.
Together, the unions hired a private investigator and gathered weeks of videotape in an attempt to prove Boggs McDonald lived in a second home outside her district, not the one she listed on election forms. In early September, the unions filed a lawsuit against the commissioner in an effort to force her out of the race.
Local media obtained some of the footage, which showed Boggs McDonald hauling trash cans and picking up the morning newspaper in a pink bathrobe at the home outside her district.
Two weeks after the residency allegations surfaced, the unions filed a complaint against Boggs McDonald for paying her children's nanny with campaign money. Their allegation included a signed statement from the nanny supporting the union's claim. Boggs McDonald repaid her campaign but insisted she did nothing wrong.
From there, the commissioner's political life spiraled downward. A Sun story highlighted a land deal in which Boggs McDonald failed to disclose that a developer whom she had helped with a county zoning issue sold her nearly five acres of land in Arizona in 2005. To pay for it, she got a $25,000 "credit" and a $100,000 interest-only loan that she didn't start making payments on until August. She and her husband are now selling the land for $135,000 as part of a divorce agreement.
The torrent of unflattering headlines swamped Boggs McDonald, who lost by a nearly 2-to-1 margin despite a huge fundraising advantage over Brager.
That was not the only race in which a labor union upended an incumbent Tuesday.
The Nevada State Education Association turned up the heat in a way it hasn't for years in its challenge of Tiffany, a Republican state senator from Henderson, pummeling her in a series of nine attack mailers. Many exploited 20 pending ethics charges against Tiffany, who is accused of using her public position to gain information about other states' Internet auctions that allowed her to obtain a contract with a state agency for her own auction business.
Tiffany has been the leading proponent of splitting up the Clark County School District, a move that the union and Tiffany's challenger, longtime teacher and administrator Joyce Woodhouse, oppose.
Woodhouse won, 48 percent to 45 percent.
And during the August primary, the Service Employees International Union, which represents county workers, funded an independent expenditure campaign that assisted Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani's effort to oust embedded commissioner Williams. The union flooded mailboxes with 15 mailers attacking Williams.
Rarely in recent memory has labor engaged in such public and effective political takedowns, said Danny Thompson, executive secretary-treasurer of the Nevada AFL-CIO.
"I think it's a more visible example of what happens when you know someone is totally opposed to almost everything you stand for," Thompson said.
Although the Culinary Union did most of the work, the police union's involvement was especially notable. That union, which traditionally has held the view that its law enforcement endorsement is enough to aid candidates, took its political operation to an unusual level this year in the Boggs McDonald race.
For a long time, "we have stood silent," said David Kallas, executive director of the police union. But this year, it jumped into a race "like we never had before," he said.
"We sent a message to elected officials," he said, although he added that Boggs McDonald brought much of her trouble on herself.
"We're going to be watching you," he said. "If you're doing the things you are supposed to be doing, then you are not going to have a problem with us."
Dan Hart, a political consultant who helped with the teachers union's efforts, said if there were any suspicion that unions were losing their clout, this election year should have erased it.
"I certainly think the unions were flexing their muscles in this cycle, and it was noted by candidates," he said. "It's hard to say whether in fact there was a disregard for the unions. Whether there was or wasn't, there certainly won't be after this."
Jane McAlevey, executive director of the service employees union, said its efforts in the Williams race will become something politicians and voters should expect in future contests.
"There's an idea nationally that while unions once were good for phone banks and getting out the vote, they are not so much anymore," she said. "We wanted to say, 'You're wrong.' "
Republicans, however, are skeptical about whether such strong union tactics can continue to be effective without labor being seen as a bully.
"Their tactics were over the top," said Ryan Erwin, a campaign consultant who worked on Boggs McDonald's campaign.
One of the Culinary Union's mailers, for example, called Boggs McDonald "dirty laundry" in need of washing. And one of the teachers union's anti-Tiffany pieces included a photo of the state senator behind digitally inserted prison bars.
"If they continue to use tactics like that, they will not win very often," Erwin predicted.
Regardless, labor is likely to have a much more receptive County Commission when Brager and Giunchigliani take office in January.
The county is in the midst of contract negotiations with firefighters and the service employees union, which represents about 9,200 county workers, according to McAlevey.
County workers are pushing for a ban on mandatory overtime and negotiating rights on county subcontracts.
With the new County Commission makeup, many of those issues could stand a better chance of getting into a new contract.
Less likely is a decision like the one that commissioners made last year, when they removed Commissioner Tom Collins - the sole supporter on the board for a proposed new contract with the police union - from the Metro Police Fiscal Affairs Committee.
With Brager and Giunchigliani on the board, Collins said, "It wouldn't have been a 6-1 vote with me being the only one voting to keep me on."
Both new commissioners also have said they would be less beholden to developers.
Hart, the consultant to the teachers union, argues that the tactics seen in this year's campaigns could help unions gain influence, especially in light of the state's early 2008 Democratic presidential caucus.
"A lot of contenders will take a look and see who was effective and who wasn't," he said.
Despite the muscle-flexing in some races, the Culinary's endorsed candidate for governor, Democrat Dina Titus, lost her bid.
Eric Herzik, a UNR political scientist, said that high-profile setback reveals that it's easier for unions to boost their credibility in smaller races, especially those with vulnerable incumbents such as Tiffany and Boggs McDonald.
"In a smaller arena - state Senate or County Commission district - that kind of focused attention can make a huge difference," he said.
Sun reporter J. Patrick Coolican contributed to this story.
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