Reid’s anti-brothel comments could reverberate

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s call for outlawing the state’s brothel racket Tuesday in an address to the Nevada Legislature was briefly the buzz of the press. Few state politicians lined up to support the idea, which was offered up at a time Nevada suffers from a world of hurt and faces a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall.

But those who expect the remarks to fade are kidding themselves. There may not be an appetite to outlaw legal whorehouses, but there’s a lot of politics attached to the subject.

Forget for a moment that the subject of human trafficking and pimps exploiting prostitutes, living high, and neglecting to pay their taxes are topics on the minds of local and federal law enforcement these days.

As I reported in Wednesday’s Review-Journal column, Reid took time to laud the development efforts at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center in Storey County, but then took aim at the state’s brothel racket. He didn’t acknowledge that the sprawling industrial park is being developed by Lance Gilman, the active Republican campaign contributor who owns two Storey County whorehouses.

Gilman has been an active contributor to the campaigns of Dean Heller, Dawn Gibbons, and I imagine any other Republicans willing to cash his checks.

There’s no reasonable way Reid wouldn’t know that Gilman the industrial park developer and Gilman the whorehouse man weren’t the same guy. It’s no secret.

Were his anti-brothel comments simply his thoughtful opinion based on a lifetime in the Silver State, or something more political?

You don’t suppose Gilman and his friends got together and, say, bundled a bunch of checks on behalf of favored Republican candidates and attempted to end Reid’s career, do you?

While we’re speculating: If brothel baron Gilman has been underwriting the campaigns of favored candidates for many years, and his efforts gain notoriety in the national media that’s always titillated by whore-and-politician stories, I imagine such a thing could be used in a heated upcoming political campaign. Anything is possible. Voters blush even in Nevada.

I suppose those prostitute-friendly politicians should hope that what happened in Storey County stays in Storey County.