Oceguera profits from businesses he rips

If John Oceguera actually lived by the populist rhetoric he spews, maybe he'd relate to the middle-class voters he's chasing.

Grinding it out paycheck to paycheck. No special tax breaks. Nothing in the bank. Retirement a distant dream.

The Assembly speaker's campaign for the 3rd Congressional District is all about attacking corporations, profits, tax loopholes and bankers. The Democrat claims incumbent Republican Rep. Joe Heck is in the pockets of money-hungry banks, Big Oil, Wall Street and health insurers.

All the while, the profits of banks, Big Oil, Wall Street and health insurers are lining Oceguera's pockets.

Oceguera, you'll recall, retired from the North Las Vegas Fire Department last year at the age of 43. After working just 20 years, he started collecting a lifetime annual pension from the state worth about $100,000 annually. You funded the contributions that made his early retirement possible.

Those pension checks don't come from the state's general fund. They come from the Public Employees Retirement System of Nevada, which has about $26 billion in assets invested in approximately 7,000 different securities, especially the stocks of publicly traded companies.

If John Oceguera demonizes it, PERS is invested in it.

Oceguera ripped Heck for "trying to push seniors from Medicare to for-profit insurance companies."

Companies like Aetna, Humana, Cigna and UnitedHealth. Those four companies alone account for about $100 million of the PERS portfolio.

Oceguera savaged Heck for accepting campaign contributions from the oil companies that make sure you can put gas in your car: "If Joe Heck wants to protect Big Oil companies making huge profits, instead of Nevada families struggling to make ends meet, he ought to take a good, hard look at his priorities."

Oceguera should take a good, hard look at PERS' gas and oil portfolio, which has about $1 billion in investments, including more than $320 million in ExxonMobil, the system's second-largest stock investment after Apple, and almost $200 million in Chevron.

Perhaps Oceguera gets a dime every time he criticizes "Wall Street" and "bankers." PERS certainly can afford to meet that obligation, with nearly $1 billion invested in banks and diversified financial services. All the institutions Oceguera blames for our housing and economic woes and predatory lending, from Bank of America to JPMorganChase, from Citigroup to Goldman Sachs, help pay his mortgage.

No Wall Street, no pension. Period.

And let's not forget the tax loophole that lets him collect his full, tax-deferred pension benefits without penalty. Regular folks must wait until they're at least 59½ to withdraw tax-deferred retirement savings without penalty, but not public employees. Think John will close that loophole if he's elected to Congress?

Now, to be fair to Oceguera, obviously PERS' vast, diverse holdings also include the renewable energy companies he champions. After all, he says it's a great investment for the country that will create millions of jobs in "green technology manufacturing," among other fields.

It turns out, PERS doesn't agree.

"We focus on large-cap companies because they cover 95 percent of the performance in the U.S. market. Alternative energy companies are small companies. They're not on our radar screen," says Steve Edmundson, PERS' assistant investment officer. "That's not a place we play. There's a lot of volatility there, a lot of risk."

Oceguera's pension is invested in all the industries he's hostile toward, but it stays away from the ones he wants to "invest" your money in. This is the system Oceguera and his fellow Democrats in the Legislature defend as "sound" and "very well run."

I know what you're thinking: Oceguera doesn't have any say in how PERS assets are invested (thank God). It's really unfair to criticize him for benefiting from a system he can't control. Fine.

Let's take a look at all the investments Oceguera does have control over: his own. According to House financial disclosure statements, Oceguera has more than $100,000 invested in a few mutual funds.

The Maxim Stock Index Portfolio has ExxonMobil and Chevron among its top holdings. The Columbia Marsico Century Fund Z has about 20 percent of its stock in financial services and energy, including credit card giant Capital One and Halliburton. And in the Janus Twenty Fund, one of the top holdings and top performers is - get this - News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, the network Democrats love to hate.

There's nothing quite like having it both ways, right John?

Oceguera's campaign is in deep trouble despite nearly even voter registration in the 3rd District. He has stumbled through just about every TV appearance, which won't help him overcome liabilities from his liberal voting record and his double-dipping during simultaneous service in two branches of government.

In response, Oceguera just launched a new TV ad that highlights his firefighting career and defends his six-figure salary and pension. In the spot, fellow North Las Vegas retiree Kevin Brame says Oceguera "played by the rules, got paid what he earned and deserved."

Too bad Oceguera's campaign couldn't play by the rules when it produced the ad. In it, North Las Vegas Fire Department equipment is everywhere, including an ambulance and an engine rolling out of the station. Taxpayer resources make up the set and all the props. You're welcome, John.

"The production of this political ad is something we are looking into," city of North Las Vegas spokeswoman Juliet Casey said Thursday. "The city has a policy governing the use of its logo and a permitting process for filming on city property." The use of the city's logo and equipment "was not authorized and is not an indication of the city's support or endorsement."

Playing by the rules? Living by his word? Not John Oceguera.

Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is a Review-Journal editorial writer. Follow him on Twitter: @Glenn_CookNV. Listen to him Mondays at 4 p.m. on "Live and Local with Kevin Wall" on KXNT News Radio, 100.5 FM, 840 AM.