POLITICAL EYE: Republicans dream of Senate control

Democrats could lose as many as five seats in the Nevada Legislature next year, a conservative Republican leader says.

Dan Burdish, executive director for Citizen Outreach, cited changes made to election districts during redistricting in October and a recent switch of 63,582 voters from active to inactive status by the Clark County Election Department.

He predicted Thursday that Republicans will pick up two state Senate seats, giving them a 12-9 majority in that house, and three Assembly seats, leaving them trailing Democrats 23-19.

Shifting demographics and redistricting give him cause for optimism.

Just one state Senate district in Clark County had more active Republican voters than active Democratic voters for the general election in November 2010. With the changes made by redistricting and the election department, five Clark County Senate districts -- 8, 12, 18, 19 and 20 -- now have more active Republican voters than Democratic voters.

In the Assembly, eight districts now have more active Republican voters than Democratic voters, compared with five just 13 months ago.

Voters were switched to inactive status because they moved away without leaving forwarding addresses. While they still can vote, they seldom do.

According to Burdish, Republicans even have a good chance of beating Assembly Majority Leader Marcus Conklin, D-Las Vegas, in the District 37 race because his district is now virtually even in registration. There now are just 38 more active Democrats than Republicans in the district, compared with 2,998 more Democrats during the general election in November 2010.

Conklin is one of three Democrats vying to become speaker at the next legislative session. He has a track record of soundly beating his opponents in past elections.

Conklin did not respond to questions on whether his seat is now up for grabs. He did say in an email message that he intends to run for re-election and not seek a state Senate seat as Burdish and others have speculated.

"It's a Republican district if the Republicans turn out to vote like they usually do," said Burdish, a former executive director of the Republican Party. "Everyone in the Republican Party in Southern Nevada has been complaining how bad it was, but it is not bad at all."

While no longer directly associated with the Republican Party, Burdish and Citizen Outreach actively have been trying to persuade legislative candidates to sign no-new-taxes pledges.

Democratic Assemblyman William Horne of Las Vegas, another candidate for Assembly speaker, said he had not seen the latest registration figures, but his caucus will look at the new figures and work to raise the funds needed to retain the majority. Assemblyman David Bobzien of Reno leads those fundraising efforts.

Burdish is confident Republicans can gain seats even in districts with slight Democratic advantages because Republicans "traditionally" vote in higher percentages than Democrats during presidential elections.

Even during the off-year election in 2010, Burdish said 71 percent of Republicans voted compared with 62 percent of Democrats.

If 75 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of Democrats vote in the November election, then Republicans would win seats even in districts where Democrats hold 500- to 1,000-vote leads, he said.

But Burdish expects that infighting in the party, such as a battle between Assembly members Pat Hickey and John Hambrick for the caucus leadership, could hurt their potential chance to pick up the six seats needed to become the majority party in the Assembly.

Republicans have not controlled the Assembly since 1985, although the two parties deadlocked in membership in 1995.

-- Ed Vogel

MACK MAY BE BACK

A colorful political personality from years past may attempt a comeback to Las Vegas City Hall.

Michael Mack, a fourth-generation pawnbroker, former ethics investigation subject and stripper lap dance recipient says he might make another run for a seat on the City Council.

Contacted recently at the pawn shop on Jones Boulevard he manages, Mack said several people have approached him about running against Ward 6 Councilman Steve Ross in a pending special recall election.

Mack said he doesn't plan to run for the Ward 6 seat because he now lives in Ward 2. But if current Ward 2 Councilman Steve Wolfson is chosen to replace departing District Attorney David Roger, Mack said he would consider running for that seat.

"I'd consider it," Mack said. "I had some great years on the council."

Indeed.

In 2003 Mack, then representing Ward 6 on the City Council, made headlines when word surfaced of a videotape depicting him receiving a lap dance at Cheetah's, a strip club at the center of an FBI corruption investigation.

The video was described in documents supporting a search warrant for the office of club manager Michael Galardi.

Although the video didn't show Mack doing anything illegal, and he wasn't implicated in the corruption investigation, he told the Review-Journal at the time it was an embarrassing incident.

"I made a commitment to myself, my family and fiancée. I do not need to be involved or go into these establishments at all," he told the newspaper.

It wasn't the only sordid incident of Mack's council tenure, which ended in 2005.

Earlier, Mack faced an ethics investigation for voting to block development of a car dealership without acknowledging he had received a $60,000 loan from a competing car dealer.

Joe Scala, the dealer who loaned Mack the money, is a key instigator behind the Ross recall, spending more than $50,000 in an attempt to oust Ross after the councilman opposed a waiver that would have allowed Scala to run a dealership without a manufacturer's affiliation or new vehicle sales.

The ethics investigation ended in 2002 with a ruling by a Las Vegas Municipal Court judge that Mack did not intentionally violate city ethics codes.

-- Benjamin Spillman

DEMOCRATS SLOW TO PLEDGE

Less than a month before the Jan. 21 Democratic presidential caucus, only 3,400 people have "pledged" to attend, according to the party's website dedicated to organizing the meetings.

That's a fraction of the 2008 participation when 117,000 registered Democrats attended the highly competitive caucus contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The top two contenders split the delegates, and Obama went on to win Nevada and the White House in the general election.

Thousands more Democrats are expected to "pledge to caucus" in the next few weeks.

The Democratic Party plans to shift into high gear with the new year to ensure a strong turnout at the caucus, which will be the third presidential vote in the nation behind Iowa and New Hampshire.

In 2012, Democrats will use the meetings to organize and energize volunteers to work for Obama's re-election and to win a U.S. Senate seat and three congressional districts in Southern Nevada, where Democrats dominate Republicans.

"Next year, Nevada will once again be a national political battleground, and it will be up to each of us to stand strong and fight to get Nevadans back to work," Democratic state party chairman Roberta Lange said in a holiday message to supporters. "That fight will be long, and it will be tough."

Last week, Nevada Democrats launched an online tool to let people know what political precinct they live in and where they must go to caucus. In those party meetings, they will vote for delegates to the convention to support Obama and help put together the party's platform.

The locator tool can be found at finder.pledgetocaucus.com while the informational website for the Nevada Democratic caucus is at pledgetocaucus.com online.

Only registered Democrats can participate in the presidential caucuses, but people can register to vote Democrat or change their party registration on the same day and at caucus sites.

Nevada Republicans will hold the GOP presidential caucuses on Feb. 4.

Things will pick up in January for Republicans, as they gear up for the meetings.

In Clark County, the party has a caucus website at ccrp2012caucus.org that will allow registered voters to find their precincts numbers and caucus sites as well starting Jan. 5.

Only registered Republicans can participate in the GOP caucuses. Nevadans have until Jan. 21 to register to vote GOP or change their party affiliation since no same-day registration will be allowed.

-- Laura Myers

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901. Contact Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 702-229-6435. Contact Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919. Follow @lmyerslvrj on Twitter.