Governor faces GOP challengers

North Las Vegas Mayor Mike Montandon's campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2010 is gearing up.

Montandon told the Las Vegas Review-Journal he planned to run for governor back in November. But besides talking to journalists, he had been pretty quiet about his intentions until last week, when he suddenly dropped a campaign news release.

He's not the only one getting ready for the next election. Sources say former state Sen. Joe Heck, who has also been feeling out a run for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, plans to make an announcement today.

The two would be pitted against Gov. Jim Gibbons, who plans to run for re-election, in a tough, three-way primary contest.

Montandon's campaign release began: "Mike Montandon, the Mayor of North Las Vegas and the leading Republican Gubernatorial candidate in 2010 ...." The topic was the issue of union elections, being considered by Congress in the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier to unionize workplaces.

Montandon, the release said, "is running on a platform that includes protecting the rights of all Nevadans to vote by a secret ballot for all elections including union organizing elections." In the release, he takes issue with the "card check" bill, which would allow unions to form without secret-ballot votes.

"It's important to all Nevadans that we have strong, experienced leadership in Carson City that can stand up to those who wish to deny this fundamental right to all of our citizens," Montandon says in the release.

Bryon Geddes, Montandon's campaign manager, said the campaign is up and running with "office space and staff." Although the union debate is unfolding at the federal level and Montandon's bid is for state office, Montandon wanted to voice his thoughts because he feels strongly about it, Geddes said.

If Congress does pass card check, it's possible states still could make policy on the issue, added Steve Wark, an adviser to the campaign.

The campaign, Wark said, is meeting its fundraising goals and identifying supporters. He didn't say what those goals are, but said they're well beyond the disappointing $15,000 Montandon reported in his campaign account back in January.

"We raised more than that in one day last week," Wark said. "We're very encouraged by the response we've gotten since the first of the year."

Montandon's campaign also has a Web site that proclaims the slogan "A New Nevada." It has a nifty flash interface and not much else at this point, though there is a link to "Mike's blog," where the mayor muses semi-regularly on matters personal and political.

MUTH HAS ENOUGH

For conservative activist Chuck Muth, Gov. Jim Gibbons' equivocations on the hotel room tax hike were the final straw.

In a blog post and e-newsletter last week, Muth declared, "Time for Jim Gibbons to Resign."

Plenty of liberals have called for Gibbons' head, but these kinds of declarations always mean more coming from one's own ideological camp.

Muth, who is not a registered Republican, hasn't exactly been a Gibbons loyalist -- in fact, he's frequently criticized the governor's actions. But until now, he's always held out hope that Gibbons could rehabilitate himself politically based on the one principle Muth holds most sacred and Gibbons claims to uphold: No new taxes.

Now Muth judges Gibbons to have not only definitively broken from that ideal, but to have been unforgivably dishonest about it. Gibbons proposed the room tax hike, claimed doing so didn't violate his opposition to tax increases, and now says he will let the proposal become law without his signature, a move that has infuriated legislators on both sides of the aisle.

On top of everything else, Muth writes -- the scandals, the feuds, the controversial appointments -- this kind of spineless flip-flopping is too much to bear.

Counting off six "strikes" against Gibbons, Muth concludes that the governor can no longer simply be ignored:

"Some people are now saying the governor is 'irrelevant' to the legislative process for the remainder of this session. I disagree. He's toxic to it. And in the process he's doing irreparable harm to the Office of the Governor, the state of Nevada, the conservative movement and the Republican Party.

"Botched swearing-in ceremony, botched appointments, botched staffing, botched agenda, botched budget, botched media relations, scandals, a messy divorce, lawsuits and unending investigations. This administration is a Category 4 disaster.

"I voted for Jim Gibbons in 2006. Seemed like the right thing to do at the time. But he's betrayed our trust. So now it's time for him to resign. And that's no lie."

Gibbons spokesman Dan Burns responded, "It is easy to stand on the sidelines and criticize and point out things that you aren't happy with. What we need are fewer whiners and more people with solutions that would help the citizens of this state."

DISTRICT OF ENSIGN

Few people on the streets of the District of Columbia would recognize Nevada Sen. John Ensign among all the well-dressed and well-coiffed professionals in town. But Ensign has been playing a big role lately in matters affecting the locals.

Replaying the periodic clash between conservatives and liberals on the issue of school vouchers, the conservative Ensign defended the D.C. program that allows low-income children to attend private schools.

He lost that one last week, as the Democrat-controlled Senate voted to set the program aside for review after this school year. The argument against vouchers is that they shift resources and public support away from publicly funded education, and President Barack Obama is unenthusiastic about them.

More notably, Ensign last month was successful in adding an amendment to the D.C. voting rights bill that would strip the district's gun laws, currently among the toughest in the nation. The 62-36 vote included support from 22 Democrats from rural states. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., was among them.

It was called a killer amendment to the bill that seeks to give D.C. (where license plates say "Taxation without representation") a vote in the House. That might prove to be true, as district officials so far have been unable to figure out a way around it, and the bill is in limbo.

While it is unlikely that D.C. elected officials will be inviting Ensign to attend Redskins games with them, the issue has burnished his credentials with the gun rights folks.

The senator penned an op-ed in the Washington Post on Friday arguing in favor of his proposal.

Ensign's twin forays into capital city policy prompted Politico to run an article last week headlined, "D.C. Mayor Ensign?" The Post quoted a city councilman, David Catania, complaining about congressional meddling: "There are bigger issues facing this country other than turning Congress into a city council on gun rights."

Spokesman Tory Mazzola said that by trying to influence D.C. policy, Ensign is working on issues of importance to his Nevada constituents, namely Second Amendment rights and education reform.

"It doesn't distract him from his responsibilities to Nevada at all," Mazzola said. "He's back in Nevada almost every weekend, always keeping an eye on Nevada issues. His interest is the best interests of Nevada, that's unquestionable."

Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault contributed to this report. Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball @reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.