Republican faces may change by 2012

Several mysteries are shaping up around the 2012 elections in Nevada.

Will scandal-plagued U.S. Sen. John Ensign still be around to run for re-election?

And what will the Republican Party look like by then?

The answer to that question leads to another: Will the relatively moderate Republican Rep. Dean Heller run for Ensign's seat? And will Sharron Angle try to ride whatever's left of the Tea Party wave to run again for the Senate, two years after losing to Sen. Harry Reid in a race that damaged her?

For the moment, the only one betting strongly on Ensign to run again seems to be Ensign.

Ensign announced last week that he would seek re-election to a third term despite several hurdles.

He is having trouble raising money, and he has been spending what he has on lawyers. He still is under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee and the Department of Justice. The probes are looking into allegations stemming from an affair he had with a former aide, including an accusation he broke a federal lobbying law in setting up the woman's husband as a lobbyist and giving him access to his office.

Ensign caught his first break in the case Friday when the Federal Election Commission dismissed a complaint alleging he violated campaign-finance laws when his parents paid his former mistress's family $96,000. But the FEC issue was the least of his troubles in the case involving Cindy and Doug Hampton, the couple who also used to be friends of Ensign and his wife.

Most political observers have been scratching their heads watching the conservative Ensign seek to ride out the scandal, hoping voters will give him another chance to serve. If he does run and Heller jumps into the race, the betting money, for now, is still mostly on Heller to win.

"Ensign will have no money, and the establishment won't back him if Heller's in the race," said Eric Herzik, political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Herzik said it would be akin to Gov. Jim Gibbons, also scandal-plagued and unpopular, losing the Republican primary to Brian Sandoval, who went on to win the general election on Nov. 2.

There are some GOP operatives, however, who privately say Ensign can't be counted out.

They point to other disgraced politicians who have made comebacks, including U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., who won re-election this year despite being named in a prostitution scandal.

As for the more serious questions about Ensign, ethics probes don't always end with the subject's defeat, and the Department of Justice doesn't always get its man or woman. Most of the federal case against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich fell apart earlier this year after he was accused of corruption and misconduct involving, essentially, the alleged selling of a Senate seat.

Meantime, longtime political observers on the Democratic side of the aisle suggest Ensign's fate, if he survives the investigations, might ride on whether his most conservative backers are still on the rise in the Republican Party or whether the Tea Party movement has, well, moved on.

"John Ensign has always been a confident and determined guy, so I'm sure he's very committed to do this," said Billy Vassiliadis, a Democratic adviser. "I think the big question will be: What's the Republican Party going to look like in 2012? That's the biggest mystery to me."

-- Laura Myers

Don't ask, don't tell law

Las Vegas activists emerged from a meeting last week saying they had a commitment that Sen. John Ensign will vote to repeal the military's ban on soldiers who are openly gay.

But Ensign said not so fast. His spokeswoman said that the visitors "mischaracterized" what they were told and that the Nevada Republican remains uncommitted.

The "they said-he said" stems from a Thursday meeting between local gay rights proponents led by state Sen. David Parks, D-Las Vegas, and Margot Allen, a Las Vegas aide to Ensign on military issues.

E-mail and phone messages were left for Parks on Friday. Laura Martin, an activist who was in the meeting, said Parks began by asking Allen whether Ensign was going to vote to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" law that bars gay people from serving openly.

"She said yes, and she said it indignantly, like, 'Yes, of course,' " Martin said. "I clarified it with her three times."

According to Martin, Allen said once the Pentagon sends Congress a report on gays in the military, which is due Dec. 1, Ensign will vote for a defense authorization bill that includes the repeal.

A Las Vegas coalition of gay rights advocates put out a news release announcing Ensign was going to vote for repeal.

But Ensign's office moved quickly to throw cold water on the matter.

"I can tell you that ... how he would vote on this was not discussed in the meeting," spokeswoman Jennifer Cooper said. "From what I can tell you, we believe this meeting was mischaracterized in the press release."

Ensign, a former member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is among a handful of senators who activists think are persuadable on repeal. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said last week that he will call a vote on the issue after Thanksgiving.

A letter that Ensign sends to constituents who inquire about "don't ask, don't tell" says in part, "It is my firm belief that Americans, regardless of their sexual orientation, should be able to fight and risk their lives in defense of this great nation."

But, it also says: "Major changes to personnel structure while forces are undergoing intense training and being deployed to combat operations could be a major distraction and could degrade our troops' ability to successfully complete the mission."

In other words, he could go both ways.

Cooper said Ensign "is not opposed to repeal, but the Dec. 1 report is very important to him to see how it would be implemented and how the military feels about that. The report is very important to him, as is testimony from the military chiefs."

Cooper hinted Ensign also might want to see hearings on the issue before he commits.

-- Steve Tetreault

Contact Laura Myers at lmyers@ reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919. Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.