Today is my father's birthday. He is enjoying it immensly, I'm sure, having been a resident of Heaven for the past...nearly 20 years. But this entry is not about that. It deals with yet another abuse by the media. Boy do they love to hide behind their favorite amendment. I doubt they are even aware of all the others.
Being an honest representative is not an easy job. There is so much pressure from both the entrenched politicos and the afore-mentioned media, to become just another one of the good-ol-boys club that it can be extremely frustrating sometimes. They actually wait, eagerly to see a mistake made or an error committed so it can be blown out of proportion and reported as a high crime and a glaring example of corruption. Just such an occurrence happened to me during this special session.
There is an obscure portion of campaign finance law that dictates solicitation of donations before, during and after a special session. Nevada is one of a few states unique in this.
George Harris of Liberty Watch and Ed Vogel, a Las Vegas Review Journal reporter watched to see if I would forget to disable the campaign contribution page on my site. I forgot, of course, since I have received no contributions through it since it's launch, and with the special session coming up, my mind was elsewhere. It is a stupid mistake, true, but it certainly doesn't rise to the level of duplicity Harris and Vogel are claiming.
Mr. Vogel accosted me in the Assembly chamber yesterday evening after he sent me a $5 contribution asking why I was purposely deceiving the voters by keeping that page active. I am not a webmaster, but I did manage to get the page removed and called my campaign manager to delete his corresponding site. According to a young man in the elections division, 294A.300 and 160 deal with this issue pretty clearly and I have returned Mr. Vogel's $5 and Mr. Harris' $10 to them certified mail, along with a formal letter detailing the law and why contributions such as theirs cannot be retained.
This is where the attacks come in. Mr. Vogel wrote in his article that he is going to demand that the Secretary of State go after me to the full extent of the law. These men want to not merely see me out of office but to see my career ruined. Do you remember Jimmy Stewart's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington? Of course, it is just another form of dirty politics and things haven't changed since then.
Assemblyman Bob Beers (considering adopting the nickname "Honest Bob" merely to enrage certain people.
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