Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Assemblyman says fellow Republican tried to intimidate him into changing his vote

Legislature Opening Day

AP Photo/Lance Iversen

Everyone stands as the Navy color guard presents the colors during the opening of the Nevada Assembly in Carson City, Monday, Feb. 2, 2015.

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Assemblyman Paul Anderson

Saying he was threatened to change his vote on a controversial education bill, GOP Assemblyman John Moore filed a written complaint today with the legislative police against Paul Anderson, the Republican Assembly majority leader.

The incident happened in a stairwell of the Legislature following Moore’s no vote on an incendiary school funding bill, SB119, in an Assembly committee, Moore said.

According to the complaint, the two went into a stairwell after the vote. Anderson was 6 inches from Moore’s face when he told the freshman legislator that "nobody is going to support you, you are done, dead, you’re finished."

Moore asked him: "Are you trying to intimidate me, threaten me?" Anderson said yes, according to the complaint.

Moore pushed him aside and told him to never "try to threaten or try to intimidate me ever again." Anderson chuckled, according to the complaint, and said "or else?"

Moore then pinned Anderson against a wall in the stairwell with a door, his complaint said.

Per legislative protocol, unless Moore fills out a formal report with the Legislative Counsel Bureau, his complaint won't prompt an investigation.

Rick Combs, LCB director, said the quarrel is something Moore and Anderson "can work out."

Confrontations behind closed doors are commonplace in the Legislature. But this session is different.

The quarrel is emblematic of the partisan bickering and Republican infighting about SB119, right-wing backed recall efforts against Assembly Speaker John Hambrick and an ongoing extortion investigation involving Assembly Republicans.

Democrats have panned SB119 because it would likely reduce the amount of money construction workers make on the job. Rural Republicans have opposed it because the bill strips voters of the right to vote on school bonding measures. The Senate passed it last month.

Republicans were expected to clash on the matter. The quarrel dovetails with an emergency measure, SB207, in the Senate. The bill untied the prevailing wage requirement from the school bonding provision. Republican leaders announced the bill Monday night as a preemptive measure to counter the potential death of SB 119 on Tuesday.

Shortly after Moore’s first vote on SB119, the Senate passed an emergency measure with a 15-4 vote, sending it to the Assembly. But lawmakers in the Assembly Government Affairs Committee held another vote and Moore changed his vote from nay to yea.

Now the two bills sit in the Assembly, the wild-card chamber of the session, and the future of the matter is uncertain.

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