Republican talking points dominate answers in survey of Nevada gubernatorial hopefuls

Sun, Jan 16, 2022 (2 a.m.)

Editor’s note: Of the eight Republican candidates expressing interest in running for governor, two of them, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo and North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, declined to participate in this article. We asked their campaigns multiple times for answers. Two other candidates, Fred Simon and Barak Zilberberg, aren’t included in this story. Simon didn’t confirm receiving our request. Zilberberg had not responded as of press time.

Republican governor candidates

Las Vegas City Councilwoman Michele Fiore speaks during a news conference at the Innevation Center Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020. Launch slideshow »

A survey conducted by the Sun of some Republican hopefuls looking to unseat Democrat Gov. Steve Sisolak mostly provided answers that toe the party line. A sampling: Promising to ban mask mandates, to strike harder on illegal immigration and to audit the 2020 presidential election.

Despite many lawsuits from Republicans, no irregularities were found in President Joe Biden’s win over Donald Trump. Still, it’s became a rallying cry for Republican Party members, including those vying for Nevada governor.

“The 2020 election was perhaps the most poorly administered election in American history. We must have secure elections to ensure our democracy works,” said candidate Michele Fiore, a Las Vegas city councilwoman. “The mass distribution of absentee ballots in the 2020 election opened up an unprecedented opportunity for election and voter fraud. If I am elected, mail-in voting and voting without an ID will be gone.”

Other candidates, such as former U.S. Sen. Dean Heller and businessman Guy Nohra, wouldn’t directly say they thought the presidential election was stolen. But they still are calling for changes.

“When I served as Nevada’s secretary of state, we had solid election laws and policies that upheld the integrity of the voting process,” Heller said. “I was not afraid to replace election officials who did not uphold the highest standards of election integrity. As governor, I will oppose ballot harvesting and the overuse of mail-in ballots, among other steps to return our state to the highest level of election integrity.”

The field of eight possible candidates lining up for the right to challenge Sisolak in November’s midterm elections first have to go through each other in the June primary. (And first they have to officially file in March.)

We asked, among many questions, how they would solve the water crisis in Southern Nevada, remedy Nevada’s low-ranking education system, and navigate the health crisis brought on by the pandemic.

Here’s a sampling of the answers:

Solving the water crisis

The Colorado River is providing less and less water as a drought continues into its 20th year and leaders are figuring out how to balance less water with increasing development. Lake Mead is at its lowest level in history, at 35% full.

“We need to approach the water crisis in a way that focuses on economic expansion rather than contraction,” Fiore said. “By implementing existing technological solutions such as desalination and water pipelines we can create good-paying construction jobs and provide the people of Nevada with more than enough clean water.”

She suggests working with neighboring states to create a stable water supply for Nevada and the Southwest region (this is something that has been done for years through organizations like the Colorado River Water Users Association, which recently met to discuss how states will continue to work together and allocate water).

Heller said Nevada’s small allocation of the Colorado River water (about 4% of the total) would not sustain Nevada in the long run, so Nevada will require enhanced agreements with other Colorado River basin states.

“I realize some of those efforts are ongoing,” he said, “but addressing the crisis will require hands-on leadership by the governor and the ability to effectively interact with the Department of the Interior and other relevant federal agencies.”

Joey Gilbert, a political newcomer who is a lawyer and real estate agent by trade, said Nevada could save 30% of its annual water use if more efficient irrigation methods were used to grow alfalfa, Nevada’s largest crop. He intends to work with farmers to on water-saving techniques, but he did not describe what those techniques were.

Nohra suggested that Nevada implement similar technology that Israel is using to address water shortages. That technology includes drip irrigation, advanced filtration and advanced water leakage detection, according to the state of Israel.

“I am confident that we can take this crisis head on by bringing together a coalition of leaders and stakeholders with the goal of regional cooperation and innovative solutions to solve this challenge,” Nohra said.

Bolstering education

We asked candidates to refrain from including vague solutions like banning critical race theory, a major Trumpian talking point that many conservatives have been using without providing evidence of it being taught in K-12 schools.

We wanted the candidates to go beyond that, and while many still mentioned wanting to ban curriculum that “teaches our kids to hate America or each other based on race,” as Heller described, they also went into more detail about how they would like to change the education system, which ranks last out of all 50 states plus the District of Columbia, according to Education Week.

Heller said Nevada was at the bottom of the rankings because Sisolak shut down schools to in-person learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, “creating a compounded problem of learning loss for all our children in Nevada.” (Nevada’s education system has ranked poorly for years, long before Sisolak took office).

He also accused Sisolak of being beholden to teachers unions at the detriment of children.

“While we need to support all our teachers, we can’t sacrifice Nevada’s future by divesting in our children because union bosses want more money for their leaders,” Heller said.

Besides banning critical race theory, Fiore said she would institute an open-enrollment program in public education to allow parents to decide which school their child attends. She’s also favors a state-funded voucher program to pay for private schools.

“The current policy of open enrollment is a good start,” she said, “but (it) doesn’t go far enough as school districts aren’t incentivized to improve the quality of education to students.”

Gilbert doubled down on a voucher program that parents of school-age children could use to educate their children in whatever manner they choose. If he becomes governor, he would stop teachers from “indoctrinating students with their personal philosophies,” would abolish restorative discipline policies and credit recovery programs that allow students who do not attend classes to complete “irrelevant busy-work” to receive full credit.

Nohra wants to ensure that the 2017 Clark County School District Reorganization Law is fully implemented. The law outlined in Assembly Bill 469 is designed to move more decision making to the local school level and requires that at least 80% of unrestricted general funds go directly to schools, according to the Clark County School District, which also said that it had met those requirements.

Working together

If the Nevada Legislature continues to be a Democratic majority, how will the Republican governor institute his or her agenda? Can a Republican govenror cross the aisle to get legislation passed?

Fiore, when she announced her run for governor, said she would not work with Democrats if it meant compromising her positions, Shedid not provide any description for how she would work with Democrats.

“The last few years have shown Nevadans the detrimental effect of a unified Democratic government, and I strongly believe that voters will secure majorities for Republicans in the State Assembly, State Senate and elect me as governor,” she said.

The other candidates all said that they would work with the Democrats to get the state’s work done.

“I have extensive experience working successfully across the political aisle during a toxic political atmosphere and will draw on that experience as governor,” said Heller, who served as in U.S. Senate from 2011 to 2019.

In the event that “rational reasoning” is unsuccessful in getting legislators to work together, Gilbert said, he would use his veto power to whatever extent necessary to bring about bipartisan cooperation.

Nohra said that as a businessman, he had a lot of experience in bringing people together with a common goal.

“As governor, I’ll bring together members from both parties who were elected to better the lives of every Nevadan,” Nohra said. “That should be our shared goal. But let me be clear, I will not be hesitant to use my veto pen when needed.”

Balancing the budget

Heller pointed to his time as a two-tern assemblyman, and said that his first budget as governor would not include the commerce tax, which he considers detrimental to Nevada’s prosperity.

Passed by the 2015 Nevada Legislature, the commerce tax is levied on businesses with gross revenue exceeding $4 million in a taxable year.

Nohra said he has overseen hundreds of budgets ranging from millions to billions of dollars as a businessman who invested in more than 180 companies. He said his first move would be to audit every agency in the state government.

Gilbert, who said he was a chief strategist for America’s Front Line Doctors, has operated two law offices, built a $65 million-dollar start-up company and a sports entertainment business, said he would get experts from the private sector to perform a “top-to-bottom” audit of every state department to “weed out the waste, redundancy and administrative bloat” as the first step in developing a state budget.

His budget priorities would include health care, education, infrastructure and public safety.

Fiore pointed to her two terms in the Assembly where she gained experience with how annual and biennial budgets are produced. She didn’t outline priorities.

COVID-19 and public safety

Heller, who said he was fully vaccinated against COVID-19, believes that vaccines are the most effective way to curb the spread of the virus and encourages everyone to get vaccinated. But he argues that it is a personal choice, and will oppose vaccine and mask mandates.

“We should not resort to paternalistic mandates such as those favored by President Biden, Governor Sisolak, and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department,” he said. (Current Metro employees are not required to have the COVID-19 vaccination, but new employees must be vaccinated as a condition of employment.)

All of the candidates are against vaccine mandates. They offered few details on how they would limit the spread of the virus and keep the public safe.

“Vaccine mandates are un-American, plain and simple,” Fiore said. “My approach to public safety will be one of common sense and science, not authoritarianism and ineffective vaccines. On Day One, I will ban vaccine mandates and repeal the mask mandate that Governor Sisolak has inexplicably left in place.” (Fiore answered before the spread of the omicron variant, which has set records for daily positive cases).

Gilbert and Nohra echoed similar ideas, saying that they will leave the decision up to the person whether to get vaccinated.

“I would respect the right of individuals to choose any type of medical or alternative treatment they desired, or to choose no treatment at all, without any government interference,” Gilbert said. “Public safety decisions regarding sickness and disease would be made by qualified doctors, and not by politicians and bureaucrats.”

Appealing to the voter

We asked each candidate how they differed from the others in the crowded race. Why should voters tab them to take on Sisolak?

“The biggest problem with Republicans today is that they just roll over and don’t put up a fight,” Fiore said. “I am going to change that.”

She pledges to stop the pushes for vaccine mandates, green energy and defunding police. She said she was also the biggest supporter of the Second Amendment and would enact constitutional carry in the state, which basically means that people would not need a permit or a license to carry a firearm.

Heller said he was the only candidate with the necessary experience and dedication to conservative values to defeat Sisolak.

“I have not wavered in my commitment to Second Amendment rights, protection of the unborn, freedom from government overreach, opposition to sanctuary cities and commitment to quality health care and education choice,” he said.

Gilbert said he had the moral courage to confront individuals committing actions that were illegal, immoral and dangerous to others, and that no other candidate could solve the major issues facing Nevada.

“I’m a proven leader and coalition builder who knows how to work successfully with diverse groups, without ANY compromising of my principles,” Gilbert said. “I am not a politician, I am a father first, a lawyer, and a fighter for the people of Nevada and the people who I will serve and be accountable to and not the special interest groups.”

Nohra said his experience as an immigrant from Lebanon and his ability to achieve the “American dream” makes him unique.

“My conservative values and convictions are backed by my life story and my fight for freedom and opportunity with my life on the line,” Nohra said. “For my whole life, ‘conventional wisdom’ said I couldn’t, but I proved I could. When I was (a) kid in war-torn Lebanon, I felt I had to fight for my community and their freedoms. I feel like that again with the challenges Nevada faces. I will turn Nevada around for the sake of our kids, our state, and our future.”

Back to top

SHARE