Nevada Senate rivals share stage and credit at VA hospital dedication

U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley and U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, Senate rivals on the campaign trail, shared the stage Monday at the dedication of a new VA hospital in North Las Vegas, but Berkley took most of the credit for getting the facility built.

And rightly so, VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki said. He thanked U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., Berkley, D-Nev., and Heller, R-Nev. But Shinseki, a political appointee in President Barack Obama's Democratic administration, added a special thanks to Reid and Berkley, noting they were in on the project from the start a decade ago. This was before Heller began serving in Congress in 2007.

"To Senator Reid and Congresswoman Berkley, not all of us were here in 2006 when ground was broken, but you were," Shinseki said as Heller sat behind him to his left and Berkley and Reid sat behind him to his right. "Your commitment to provide veterans and service members of Southern Nevada access to high quality and state of the art health care, have been crucial to delivering today's magnificent result."

Berkley and Heller are competing fiercely for every slice of the vote in their tight Senate race. Berkley has a head start with veterans because of her seven terms in Congress, where she once served on the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. But Heller, too, has supported the VA hospital, which needed more money to be completed.

In 2008, Heller voted to raise the budget authorization for construction to $600 million, an increase of $194 million, as the VA hospital project went over budget. Heller's predecessor, U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., backed the project as well before he resigned, and did as much as Reid and Berkley to get it built.

At the dedication ceremony, Berkley spoke for more than a dozen minutes - twice as long as Heller or Reid - to tell the story of how the hospital got built and her role.

She began working to get a new hospital built in 2002 after it was clear the old veterans clinic in Las Vegas couldn't be repaired, she said. She got a bill passed to transfer the land on which the facility is built, 147 acres, from the Interior Department to the VA.

Then Berkley said she got funding for a feasibility study and then to draw up plans and finally to begin construction - $350 million in the largest single earmark on the federal budget one year.

"For those who don't like earmarks, don't ask me to give that earmark back," Berkley joked.

"Throughout it all we had the steady hand of Senator Reid, fighting it through," she said. "Whenever we had any issues or challenges, I went to Senator Reid, and we were able to work it out."

In 2010, when the powerful Senate majority leader was running for re-election in a close race, Shinseki came to the VA construction site and praised Reid for leading the effort to get the hospital built.

"He's played a vital role securing the funding," Shinseki said in July 2010, adding that Berkley also "played a role in ensuring that this project got off the ground."

Heller, in his remarks Monday, focused on the joint effort by Nevada's delegation to serve veterans' medical needs. He thanked Reid and Berkley and other VA leaders and officials for their efforts.

"I'm deeply humbled to be part of this dedication," Heller said. "What an honor to be part of this delegation who works together to make good things happen. As I've said before in speeches, good things happen - great things happen - if no one worries about who takes the credit."

After the ceremony, Berkley and Heller barely acknowledged one another as they walked off the stage.

Contact Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919. Follow @lmyerslvrj on Twitter.