Nevada now battleground in effort to skirt Congress on policy issues

Erica Lafferty still can’t walk into a school without thinking of Dec. 14, 2012, the horrible day her mother was killed by a disturbed man who shot 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung was the principal at the Connecticut school, which has since been razed. Her daughter walked through it just once after Adam Lanza’s attack, in what at the time launched a national movement for stricter federal requirements for background checks on gun buyers.

“That was my mother’s sacred ground,” Erica Lafferty said in a telephone interview. “Every time I step through those doors in a school, it doesn’t matter which one, any random school, I’m overwhelmed.”

The 2013 gun control effort failed in Congress, so Lafferty and the organization she now works for — Everytown for Gun Safety — are waging a state-by-state battle to get governors and legislatures to expand background checks.

That campaign is now active in Nevada ahead of the Nov. 4 midterm election, part of a much larger national trend of outside groups bypassing Washington to achieve the same policy goals by spending millions of dollars to back their chosen candidates in local and state elections.

Everytown’s founder, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for example, is putting $50 million behind the gun background check effort in its first year, including generous contributions to lawmakers around the country who back the cause.

In the Silver State, Everytown donated the maximum $10,000 to state Sen. Justin Jones, D-Las Vegas, who is running for re-election in Senate District 9. During the 2013 session, Jones backed a bill to require background checks in gun sales between private parties. It passed the Legislature but was vetoed by GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval.

Everytown also donated $200,000 to the Nevada Democratic Party, which used it to air a TV ad targeting Jones’ opponent, Republican Becky Harris.

Lafferty also plans to be in Las Vegas on Oct. 28 to make get-out-the-vote calls for Jones.

“We definitely need to support him for being such a leader on this issue,” Lafferty said. “Last year, right after Newtown, I as well as thousands of other Americans, pushed for more background checks. But Congress is super broken, which is why we had to take it to the states. I know the long-lasting pain that gun violence can leave on a family.”

Eric Herzik, chair of the political science department at University of Nevada, Reno, said he’s noticed the growing prevalence of outside groups putting money into local and state elections.

“It’s increasing and that’s not just in Nevada,” Herzik said. “What’s also increasing is how far down the ballot, in a sense, outside groups now go. You used to see it, yes, for a U.S. Senate race, and a congressional race. Now you’re into state legislative races.”

Herzik said it’s hard to say whether the tactic works.

“It’s almost a question of how effective these groups are. You can spend a lot of money, but the return for these groups in terms of do they really influence a race and turn it around — that remains to be seen.”

“Rarely are these groups grassroots,” he added. “These are just big money fronts. Democrats do it. Republicans do it.”

MORE MONEY

Nevada campaign finance reports and TV ad buys show far more money than ever before is pouring into Nevada to sway several state races.

The biggest target is the attorney general’s race between Democrat Ross Miller and Republican Adam Laxalt. Both campaigns have raised significant cash from out-of-state donors but that only tells part of the story.

Each candidate is backed by a national political action committee flooding TV with campaign ads. One reason: The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Opponents of the nationwide health care law, who have been stymied in Washington, D.C., see an opening to challenge the law on the state level as attorneys general lead the legal fight to unravel it.

The Washington-based Republican Attorneys General Association has spent nearly $2.5 million on advertising in the Nevada race, including a recurring television ad targeting Miller for his support of Obamacare.

On the other side, the Silver State Committee for Justice &Fairness has spent at least $1 million on advertising, including TV ads centered on a scathing job review of Laxalt’s work at a Las Vegas law firm. That PAC is completely funded by the Denver-based Democratic Attorneys General Association.

Herzik said the big spending is aimed at cutting short the political career of Miller, who hopes to follow in the footsteps of his father, former Nevada Gov. Bob Miller.

“Certain individuals seem to draw the ire of particular groups and so some of the outside money being spent against Ross Miller, it’s like ‘let’s try to take out Ross Miller, not just for attorney general but to put a ding to his political career,’” he said.

In the race to replace Miller as secretary of state, the Democrat-backed iVote Fund has spent $600,000, almost all of it in advertising, in support of Democrat Kate Marshall in her race against Republican Barbara Cegavske.

The PAC, which has run ads against Cegavske, has identified Nevada as one of four battleground states in the growing partisan fight over election and voter registration issues, such as requiring identification at the polls. Cegavske backs voter ID laws while Marshall opposes them, saying they limit ballot access for some voters.

As for the Nevada Senate, it’s getting extra attention from inside and outside the state because Republicans are trying to take control of the body, now run by Democrats with an 11-10 seat edge. Three swing races hold the key to control.

Leading the fight for the Republicans is the Nevada Jobs Coalition PAC, which has spent more than $1 million on political ads, many targeting Jones in Senate District 9 and Marilyn Dondero Loop in Senate District 8.

Nevada Jobs Coalition is largely funded by Gov. Sandoval’s New Nevada PAC, but one-fifth of its campaign cash came from the Republican State Leadership Committee. The national group, which supports GOP candidates running for statewide office, has donated about $200,000.

Democrats have their own deep-pocket allies from beyond the Silver State, including the Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund and union group UNITE Here, which spent $50,000 on neighborhood canvassers in support of Jones. The state Democratic Party also has pumped out more than $600,000 in political advertising, much of it on ads targeting Harris and Dondero Loop’s Republican opponent, Patricia Farley.

And numerous Democratic candidates across the state have received cash from U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s Searchlight Leadership Fund, which has funneled $329,000 in donations from throughout the country to Democratic committees and candidates in Nevada.

‘BIG IDEAS’ CLOSE TO HOME

And those dollar figures will rise just before Election Day.

The State Government Leadership Foundation, a subsidiary of the Republican State Leadership Committee, ran at least 353 television ads targeting Miller, according to the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity, which has been tracking outside spending at the state level.

The Republican State Leadership committee, meanwhile, has spent at least $15,700 on ads targeting Assemblywoman Lucy Flores, D-Las Vegas, in the lieutenant governor race. She’s running against state Sen. Mark Hutchison, R-Las Vegas, who is backed by Sandoval. Meanwhile, the Latino Victory PAC aired a Spanish-language ad to support Flores.

The State Government Leadership Foundation’s website said it believes “the big ideas that will solve America’s problems are going to be found in state capitols and not Washington, D.C.”

The nonprofit foundation doesn’t have to disclose its donors because it is registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a “social welfare” organization. It also can receive unlimited contributions. The group is aligned with several GOP organizations, including the Republican Attorneys General Association, and typically targets Democrats.

A former Miller aide filed an elections integrity complaint against the group in March, saying it must register with the Nevada secretary of state’s office and disclose its political donors.

“We’re seeing these outside state groups get involved because it’s easier to get policy made at the state level,” said Pete Quist, research director for the National Institute on Money in State Politics, which tracks independent spending in state races.

That includes ballot measures for issues such as renewable energy standards and legalization of marijuana, he said.

Erica Lafferty, whose mother died at Newtown, said she’s not active only in Nevada this election cycle. She’s also working for re-election of the current Connecticut governor because he approved stricter background checks. And she plans to travel to Washington state ahead of Election Day to promote a gun control ballot measure there.

“It’s not like background checks are going to stop every single gun death,” Lafferty said. “But it’s a good start.”

Jones said he’s grateful for any help he can get. He said a recent poll shows 86 percent of Nevadans support expanding background checks. He said he isn’t giving up and in fact believes it’s easier to change policy at the state level than in Washington, where gridlock is more prevalent.

“Hopefully we can come up with a compromise,” he said of his proposed legislation, which he vowed to re-introduce if re-elected. “I think we do a better job in Nevada of working across the aisle to get things done.”

Contact Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919. Find her on Twitter: @lmyerslvrj. Contact Brian Haynes at bhaynes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0281. Find him on Twitter: @HaynesinVegas. Contact Ben Botkin at bbotkin@reviewjournal.com or 702-405-9781. Find him on Twitter: @BenBotkin1.