Nevada Republicans confronted with taxing choice in primary

CARSON CITY ­— Rarely have Nevada Republican voters had such clear choices about the future of their party as they do in Tuesday’s primary election.

On one side is Gov. Brian Sandoval and the GOP state lawmakers who stood with him on the 2015 budget, which included $1.5 billion in new and continuing taxes aimed primarily at funding public education.

Their support in the Assembly and Senate was crucial to getting the two-thirds vote needed to pass the omnibus tax measure, which included a new commerce tax now being implemented on businesses that earn $4 million or more in revenue.

On the other side are anti-tax Republicans who are outraged that the party, which controlled the governor’s office and both houses of the Legislature for the first time since 1929, failed to enact a stronger GOP agenda.

Many Republican voters have the chance to weigh in on the schism, as the GOP lawmakers who backed Sandoval face anti-tax opponents in the primary. The moderate GOP wing and the anti-tax adherents are also battling it out for several open seats in the Legislature.

WILL SANDOVAL REALLY HELP?

Sandoval has been pulling out all the stops to help Republicans who supported his budget, including endorsements and financial support. The targeted lawmakers showed leadership during the session and made courageous votes to increase funding to Nevada’s education system, he said.

Sandoval called the effort “the most comprehensive improvements to our education system, frankly, in the history of Nevada.”

“And they had to make a very difficult vote because that included the approval and adoption of the commerce tax,” he said in an interview last week. “These are folks who have shown some strong vision for Nevada by investing in our children. They are the people Nevada needs in the Legislature.”

The latest labor market numbers appear to belie any concern that the tax package has hurt Nevada’s economy. Nevada has nearly regained the 175,000 jobs lost during the Great Recession and should fully recover later this year.

Bill Anderson, chief economist for the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, told the Economic Forum last week that Nevada added 140,000 new jobs from 2010 to 2015. An additional 30,000 jobs have been added in the first four months of this year, he said.

TAX CRITICS SAY GOP FAILED THEM

Laurel Fee, a Republican activist supporting a number of challengers to Assembly incumbents, said turnout so far in early voting is low, which should favor their anti-tax, less government positions.

Historically, more conservative grass-roots activists vote in the GOP primary.

Through Thursday, 11.8 percent of Clark County GOP voters had participated in early voting, which ended Friday.

If the results are as favorable as expected, the vote “will send a strong message to the incumbents that we’re not going to give them the majority for the first time in 85 years and then let them vote like Democrats,” she said. “You have to follow the party platform.”

No-tax incumbents Ira Hansen of Sparks and Brent Jones of Las Vegas are leading the fight against the incumbents who voted for the tax package.

Assembly Majority Leader Paul Anderson of Las Vegas is leading the Assembly incumbent effort.

GOP LEGISLATIVE DOMINANCE AT STAKE

Not only is the future of the GOP in question based on what happens Tuesday night, but Republican voters may also be determining whether the party can hold onto their majorities in the Senate and Assembly at the general election in November.

Republicans have a 1-vote margin in the 21-member Senate, and a 25-17 edge in the Assembly. Republicans are at risk of losing the Assembly and face a battle for GOP seats in the Senate as well.

There have been divisions within the state GOP for several years, but the primary presents a unique opportunity for voters to chart the course of the party in coming years.

Both sides are hitting voters with mailers critical of their opponents.

TAX VOTE AFFECTING CD3 AS WELL

The Legislature’s tax hike is also casting a long shadow over the race for the Republican nomination in the 3rd Congressional District. It’s a competitive primary because incumbent U.S. Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., is running for the Senate seat of outgoing U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

The GOP primary lineup includes state Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson, who took a lead role in getting Sandoval’s tax package through the state Republican-controlled Senate. Roberson is campaigning on that accomplishment while his opponents are doing everything in their power to remind voters about the tax increase at the heart of it.

Roberson is in a seven-way primary fight in which he has heavily battled Danny Tarkanian, the son of the late UNLV basketball coach and a real estate developer. Both campaigns, the two with the largest campaign war chests on the GOP side, have released ads attacking each other.

Other GOP candidates in the primary race include Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, R-Las Vegas, who vehemently opposed the tax increase in the 2015 session; and Andy Matthews, former president of the anti-tax Nevada Policy Research Institute.

The list also includes Kerry Bowers, a retired Air Force officer; Sami Khal, an assistant general manager at a store, and Annette Teijeiro, a medical doctor.

TURNOUT WILL BE DECIDING FACTOR

Fred Lokken, a political science professor at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, said turnout will be the deciding factor in many of the contested GOP races, and so far very few voters are showing at the polls in early voting that ended Friday.

But it is also true that Sandoval kept his word and has supported the incumbent state lawmakers who stood with him on his tax and spending bills, Lokken said.

A lot depends on how hard the candidates work and how they connect with voters, he said.

“I don’t think the incumbents are going to be punished as much as the anti-tax group wanted them to be,” he said. “A number will get through. But conservatives matter, and they really matter at the primary level. There will be a few candidates sweating bullets until the votes are counted.”

But getting through the primary is only half the battle for Republicans. Lokken said he believes Democrats will retake control of the Assembly and have a good chance of taking the Senate in November given the Democratic voter registration edge and the challenges Republicans face with Donald Trump as their presidential nominee.

MANY LEGISLATIVE RACES IN PLAY

There are nine Assembly Republicans running for re-election who voted with Sandoval and who face anti-tax primary opponents. A 10th, former Assemblyman Erv Nelson, faces anti-tax GOP Assemblywoman Victoria Seaman in the open Senate District 6 race.

An additional seven open Assembly seats that were held by Republicans in 2015 have drawn multiple GOP candidates.

Among those being challenged are Speaker John Hambrick and Anderson, the GOP majority leader.

David Damore, a political science professor at UNLV, said it is difficult to read too much into the early voting numbers, but the fact that Sandoval is so actively involved in the primary may be a signal that there is concern among the moderates.

“I’ve never seen a governor do so much in primary races,” he said.

Damore said he lives in Derek Armstrong’s Assembly District 21, and he noted that challenger Blain Jones is working hard and “being a good foot soldier.” Armstrong voted for the tax package.

There are a number of competitive races, so there likely will be at least a few upsets, he said.

But since the Assembly is expected to return to Democratic control in November, the race to watch is Nelson and Seaman in the Senate 6 race, Damore said.

“That race has the potential to impact the structure of the Legislature more than the Assembly races, assuming Democrats turn out in November,” he said.

Former Reno GOP Assemblyman Pat Hickey, who voted for the tax package, said he expects most of the incumbents to make out OK.

“If the primary vote is in any way a referendum on Gov. Sandoval and the 2015 Legislature’s support of greater school reforms and funding, then I think those incumbents [and candidates] who support Sandoval will mostly be winners,” he said.

“With Nevada’s economy showing small business jobs at an all-time high … voters should be happy with what the governor and a bipartisan majority of Nevada lawmakers did,” Hickey said.

SANDOVAL: GOP SUCCESSFUL IN 2015

To critics who argue a more comprehensive GOP agenda could have been enacted, Sandoval pointed to reforms to the state’s construction defect law, the adoption of the most comprehensive school choice program in the country and reforms to the public pension plan as examples of success in the 2015 session.

“There are a lot of things that don’t really get a lot of attention that in and of themselves, in any other session, would have been viewed as monumental,” he said. “There was more done than I can recall, ever.”

Lawmakers in 2015 also voted for major infrastructure needs, from a new medical school at UNLV to a home for veterans in Northern Nevada, Sandoval said.

The anti-tax contingent of the GOP party has always existed and always will, he said. But the state is spending less per capita now than it was a decade ago, Sandoval said.

“Elections are hard to predict, especially when you have a small turnout,” he said. “I’m very proud of those incumbents who made tough decisions and are now working hard to get back. These are exactly the kind of people we want working in Carson City.”

Review-Journal writer Ben Botkin contributed to this report. Contact him at bbotkin@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2904. Find him on Twitter: @BenBotkin1 Contact Sean Whaley at swhaley@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-3820. Find him on Twitter: @seanw801