Paging Sen. Rhoads, you have another phone call

Let's hope Sen. Dean Rhoads R-Tuscarora, has a pleasant ring tone because he's going to be hearing it -- a lot.

Conservative commentator and anti-tax organizer Chuck Muth of Citizen Outreach is launching a series of robo-calls and radio ads in Rhoads' rural district urging the senator to back off a statement he made earlier this week to the Las Vegas Sun.

Rhoads told the Sun Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval's plan to balance the budget without raising taxes or fees was unworkable, a statement that fired up the Muth machine.

In an e-mail to followers Muth announced the robo-call launch with a "Brushfire alert" headline. He wrote:

"Sen. Rhoads is clearly listening to government bureaucrats, public employee unions, liberal activists and the mining industry – which desperately wants to tax someone else before they get taxed themselves – rather than his constituents and the people, families and small businesses of Nevada who would have to pay for his tax hike."

The e-mail included the robo-call script and listed Rhoads' phone number four times.

It's reminiscent of a scenario last summer when new Assembly minority leader Pete Goicoechea, R-Eureka, suggested on television that a voter approved broadening of the sales tax to include groceries might be a route out of the state's fiscal crunch.

Muth quickly labeled Goicoechea "tax my meat Pete" and urged a flurry of calls. Goicoechea backed off the notion and now counts himself a loyal member of Team Sandoval when it comes to opposing tax increases.