Hopefuls for public office file

Las Vegas Councilman Larry Brown has been campaigning for the Clark County Commission for months. On Monday, he finally got to submit the paperwork making it official.

"Now the real work begins," he said.

Brown, a Democrat running for an open seat, was one of more than 60 people running for county and state office to submit declarations of candidacy on the first day of the two-week filing period.

For him and many others, there is still a long road to November.

"This is not the beginning," said Sean Fellows, a Republican running for a vacant Assembly seat in Henderson. "Really, it's the middle of a long process."

Fellows has raised more than $100,000 and walked through nine of the 32 precincts in the district he aspires to represent. His goal is to hit every precinct at least twice by the time the November election rolls around.

Another Assembly candidate, Carlos Blumberg, similarly was deep into his campaign effort.

"Tomorrow I have 10 volunteers doing phone calls, and I'll be walking the district," said Blumberg, a Democrat running for a vacant seat in the northwest valley. "It's grass-roots all the way."

There were no big surprises as filing began Monday.

Of the 63 candidates who filed with the Clark County Election Department to run for the U.S. House of Representatives, the state Senate and Assembly, the Clark County Commission, the state Board of Education and Board of Regents, the Clark County School Board and the Overton Power District, 26 were incumbents seeking re-election.

More incumbents whose districts lie outside of Clark County filed with the secretary of state's office or the Washoe County registrar of voters.

Among those was Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, who under term limits will be in his final four-year term if he is re-elected. Raggio, 82, is the longest serving senator in Nevada history, elected for the first time in 1972.

Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., who represents rural and Northern Nevada in Congress, was the only member of Nevada's congressional delegation to file for re-election Monday. No opponent has yet filed to run against him.

Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley and Republican Rep. Jon Porter hadn't yet filed, but candidates were lining up to run against them in the general election.

Four Republicans filed for Berkley's seat, while two Democrats, an Independent American Party candidate and an independent candidate filed for Porter's.

Neither of Nevada's two U.S. senators, who serve six-year terms, is up for re-election this year.

Races in which there is more than one candidate from the same party will be on the primary election ballot on Aug. 12, unless there are only two candidates in the race, in which case they go directly to the Nov. 4 general election ballot.

This year's candidate filing period is expected to see less traffic in the Clark County Government Center than in previous two-year cycles because of a change in election law enacted by the 2007 Legislature.

Judicial candidates now have a separate, earlier filing period in January.

Would-be officeholders flocked to the vacant seats Monday, including:

• Assembly District 2, formerly held by Republican Garn Mabey.

• District 5, formerly held by Republican Valerie Weber.

• Senate District 7, formerly held by Democrat Dina Titus. Titus has announced that she will run against Porter for U.S. Congress.

Republican Lou Toomin, a self-described "gadfly" and "perennial candidate" who served one term in the Assembly 15 years ago, was one of three who filed for Titus' Senate seat. Asked why he was running, he said, "I think I deserve to be there."

Then there were the newcomer candidates who knew they were long shots, but were making a stand on principle.

Tim Williams, a Republican first-time candidate running for Assembly District 18, said he was motivated by local concerns, especially what he described as an out-of-control halfway house that has become a neighborhood blight. The heavily Democratic district is represented by Democrat Mark Manendo.

"Nobody else is doing anything about it," the 35-year-old real estate salesman said. "People say there's nothing I can do. I might be banging my head against a wall, but at least I'm trying."

For longtime elected officials such as state Sen. Valerie Wiener, D-Las Vegas, filing is a ritual.

She ran her first race in 1996 shortly after the death of her father. He had given her a few hundred dollars as a Christmas present that year; she kept using the bills, every four years, for her filing fee.

"He made the first official investment in my campaign," she said Monday, "and he's still investing."

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@ reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.