Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Letter to the editor:

Nevada GOP lacks leadership

The general election in November was a stunning victory for Nevada’s Republicans. The conventional wisdom was that Republicans would pick up one seat in the state Senate, giving them the majority there, and a few seats in the state Assembly. No one anticipated an Assembly majority.

The first leadership selections were made, and immediately the new speaker designate and majority leader came under fire by the press. There were reports at the time that some members of the Republican caucus would align themselves with Assembly Democrats to replace the speaker and majority leaders.

A libertarian blogger used the phrase “the nuclear option” to describe that potential action. Nuclear option makes a person think of war. That’s the response he wanted, stirring up the fight between the conservative and moderate factions within the Republican Party, and it worked. The speaker has been replaced and the majority leader has been removed, reinstated and removed again. The Assembly has been in turmoil ever since.

The Republican Party could have been the peacemaker in this situation, but it chose to be confrontational and achieved exactly what it always achieves: nothing!

I have advice for the Nevada GOP: Before you chose a course of action, look beyond the end of your political nose and see how those actions may affect the next election cycle. Make decisions based on the party’s future. Then again, maybe it did since the Libertarian Party seems obsessed with taking over and the turmoil seems to aid that possibility.

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