Pat Hickey, in your comments appearing earlier this month, you show your lack of knowledge of the history of our country. Political division existed from the founding of the first colony in 1620 when those people found that they were more able to survive by individual work rather than being communal. During the meetings in 1787 that yielded our Constitution, the delegates were loosely divided into two camps: federalist and anti-federalist. So saying that, collectively, the founders didn’t want political parties is a conclusion you reached that only serves your basis for this opinion.
You have been part and parcel of the Caucus process for all the years you have been in the Assembly. It was quite all right for you to have the power of the purse strings as the minority leader during the last primary season and deny monetary support to those who oppose your liberal, anti-Republican philosophy. You were the root of that dissention when you departed the first RAC after the first day of the caucus meeting to, in your words, “re-evaluate your options” after you did not get elected Speaker-designate. Certainly not an action that shows an attitude of unity.
Given your record in the Assembly proceedings in the last session (51.26 percent conservative rating by the NPRI) you are not the one who should be held up as the standard of leadership for Assembly Republicans and the tenets of the Republican Party. The very fact that you characterize fellow Republicans as “badly behaving elephants” attests to your disdain for those tenets.
It is especially interesting that in an opinion that you allude to “a host of pro-taxpayer measures” without explaining what that means. Just more typical nonsubstantive political babble. You say that education needs to be reformed and funded. Well, Mr. Hickey, the government of the State of Nevada’s solution to reformation is to throw more money at the education problem and expecting that “solution” to solve the problem. We are still at the bottom of the heap that rates the success of educational systems in the U.S.
During the last session, you personally held our party up as a bargaining chip in dealing with the opposition across the aisle in order to present the appearance of cooperation. In doing so, you used your leadership (I use that word advisedly) position to advance you own personal views rather than those of our party. By your actions, you are identified as the organizer of an “Abbot and Costello lounge act.”
In that special session, all members of the Legislature acted in the best interests of the people of Nevada. Bringing a big business entity into Nevada was a no-brainer, but at the same time, do you think that Tesla would have turned Nevada down if we didn’t give them what we did? In evaluating what the other four locales had to offer, it was obvious that Nevada was the only choice for Tesla. Yet, we gave them a financial package that ended up being just more icing on the cake that was already well iced.
Our constituents are more sophisticated than you give them credit for. Of course they don’t want inter-party contention. But if you really believe that, then I suggest to get to the root of that contention. It started with your transparent behavior in the first RAC meeting in Las Vegas. You fully expected to be elected as the speaker-designate. When that failed you picked up your ball and went home. Good example for a “leader?” I think not. If you are really interested in eliminating the division of the caucus, then exercise what would be considered a gold-plated leadership trait and publically advise Mr. Hambrick to step down in the interest of cohesiveness of the caucus. But I suspect that you, Mr. Hickey, are more interested in self-aggrandizement than the good of the state and the party.
Now you are really being self-serving in light of your recent actions. Yes, negotiations with those of the opposition party is the right thing to do, but only if neither side has to negotiate away the basic tenets of their party. You have successfully accomplished giving away big chips for very little in return. That, sir, is not negotiating; that is surrender.
Why is it that you consistently vote for more taxes, more regulation, and less individualism, all basic tenets of the Democrat Party? It’s time for you to do what you said you were going to do, “re-evaluate your options,” and perhaps change your party affiliation from Republican to Democrat.
Walt Nowosad is a Minden resident.