Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

MEMO FROM RENO:

Democrats’ game of chicken hits snags

Sun Coverage

Livestock can be as troublesome as political animals.

Democrats, refusing to let die GOP Senate candidate Sue Lowden’s remarks about bartering with chickens for health care, brought their animal show to Reno last week.

There were a few hitches along the way.

First, Kathleen Eagan, a local Democrat who supplied the livestock, saw her pygmy goat accidentally lock itself inside her truck. The goat was on its usual leash and hoofed-down the lock, trapping itself inside with the only key.

So, it was chickens only for the demonstration outside Lowden’s Reno headquarters.

That didn’t sit well with volunteers who showed up to help out with the prank.

“I’m not touching that chicken!” squealed one volunteer who opted for a sign instead. “It’s going to cluck me! I don’t want to be around that chicken!”

As the “Chicken Dance,” the most annoying of all wedding reception songs, blared from car speakers, one volunteer scrambled around the parking lot chasing an errant bird.

Eagan followed each volunteer with a bottle of hand sanitizer, noting dangerous bacteria can be transferred by handling live poultry.

The most lamented lapse in the Democrats’ planning? The absence of the promised “dancing chicken.”

A volunteer who wore a bright yellow bird costume didn’t actually know the “Chicken Dance.”

Choosing sides, or not

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, perhaps seeking to maintain the ties he built during the 2008 presidential race, issued some endorsements of Republicans in a few Nevada races.

The candidates receiving nods were: Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki; U.S. Rep. Dean Heller; and former state Sen. Joe Heck, who is challenging Rep. Dina Titus.

Romney, considered an early contender for the party’s 2012 presidential nomination, notably stayed away from endorsing in the highest-profile Republican primaries — U.S. Senate and governor.

A subcommittee is born

Legislative Democrats, cognizant that they could be characterized as wanting solely to raise taxes to cover the state’s expected $3 billion budget deficit next year, announced they will form a subcommittee on spending accountability and efficiency. The group will be tasked with forcing state agencies to justify their appropriations and evaluate programs to determine what can be eliminated.

Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, said the subcommittee will develop a budgeting system “similar to the concept of zero-based budgeting,” a measure conservatives have been pressing for because it forces agencies to justify anew their funding for each budget instead of building on past budgets.

“Agencies are not going to be automatically funded at the same level,” Horsford said.

The committee also will create a “template” for performance measures to be used in the budget process. Republicans defeated a bill with similar requirements championed last session by Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas.

Anjeanette Damon is the Reno Gazette-Journal’s political reporter and writes the “Inside Nevada Politics” blog, which appears at rgj.com/inp.

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