So I've marked up my sample ballot and here's how I'm voting on those races for which I'm willing to publicly share my opinion and would rather not take any more phone calls. I'm a conservative republican so most of these choices won't surprise anyone. These are my own individual opinions and are not representative of any other group or entity with which I am affiliated:
Question 1: YES. We need an intermediate appellate court in Nevada.
Question 2: YES. I'm not generally pro-tax. But Nevadans can only get the benefit of our State's indigenous mineral resources once, when they are pulled from the ground, often by foreign firms who ship them elsewhere to be sold. It would be nice if it rained here and we had agricultural crops that could be harvested year after year, but there you go. Mines shouldn't have any special protection against taxation. Once those resources, the natural inheritance of all Nevadans, are harvested, Nevada's public can't ever benefit from them again.
Question 3: NO. NO NO NO NO NO. They want to tax a business's revenues? Regardless of whether it made any profits? Who are these people? Apparently they don't include any one who owns a business, is employed by a business, or buys any products or services from a business. Give me a break.
Congressional Representative District 4. Really not thrilled with my choices here. How did I get gerrymandered into this district? I guess I'm just indirectly voting for which party's member I want to hold the gavel as speaker of the house.
Governor: Sandoval We are extremely lucky in our Governor at the moment. An extremely intelligent and competent person who is also very good at winning elections. Not a combination you see every day.
Lieutenant Governor: Hutchison I did some volunteer citizen lobbying on an educational issue in the last legislative session (which I'm still not quite sure how I ended up getting involved with) and I was extremely impressed at the Senate Republican Caucus Hutchison hosted for our group and the questions he asked and his grasp of the issues. Should he end up becoming Governor because Sandoval leaves office to run against Harry Reid (which presumably won't happen if Flores defeats Hutchison) the State would be in excellent and competent hands.
Attorney General: Adam Paul Laxalt. I liked Governor Miller. But his son seems to have fallen pretty far from the tree. All those perqs of office he's enjoying aren't going to mean people looking for payback? Criticizing his opponent's military service? Really? Laxalt spoke at a CLE I attended and wasn't shy about standing up for his values, which I share. I like him. One of the good guys.
State Assemby District 37: Wesley Duncan. Our State's legislature did some crazy things two years ago, and came very close to doing some other crazy things. It's important to put the senate and the assembly and all their committee chairs in the right hands this year or all of our wallets and all of our childrens' minds are at risk.
DA: Wolfson. I doubt I would vote for Wolfson for any legislative office, given his liberal politics. But, having once argued a case before an administrative law board he was chairing, I found him to be a very fair and intelligent person, and the people I know who work for the DA's office and whose judgment I trust all seem to support him.
Sheriff: Burns. We have a good police force in Las Vegas, and we don't seem to have ever been troubled by some of the pervasive corruption which has cropped up in other cities' police departments from time to time. So I trust and respect the judgment of our local officers and police department employees, and every single one of them who I talk to supports Burns. He was also their overwhelming choice (not even by a close margin) when they voted on who they would endorse. That speaks volumes, since they presumably know the two candidates better than any one. I also went to an open house for Burns which I was invited to by a police officer friend of mine, and I was favorably impressed with Burns' experience, especially in his successful efforts in reaching out to improve police relationships with locals in minority neighborhoods.
Judicial Races
Department 2: Scotti (on the advice of others I trust)
Department 3: Herndon
Department 20: Tao
Department 22: Johnson (really one of our better Judges, who runs her courtroom the way it should be run and who rules based on facts and law not emotion or bias).
Department 24: Hardy
Department 30: Wiese
Department 32: Bare
There are a lot of judges who I've never appeared in front of because they have criminal or family law dockets or because I've just never happened to draw them. If I don't have an opinion I'll typically look for some reputable source of endorsements. The RJ's endorsements can sometimes be just completely wrong, but they get it right more often than not. The newspaper does a good job in conducting the attorney survey on which judges should be retained, and they tend to put a lot of stock in that survey in their endorsements, so it's as good a place to start as any:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/2014-review-journal-endorsements
No comments:
Post a Comment