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Is Harry Reid going to back off the tax vote under pressure? Politico explores. Taxes are a sore subject with hurting Nevadans who can barely pay their bills and with businesses and voters who fear possible 2011 tax hikes to balance the state budget. If the Bush tax cuts are not extended in full, Angle campaign ads will be sure to shout it from the mountaintops.
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The Reid campaign yesterday highlighted health care reform provisions that go into effect today. Republican Governor Jim Gibbons has been blasting health care reform bill since it passed, based in part on the mandatory expansion of the state Medicaid program which is estimated to add over 40,000 people to the program’s rolls in 2014. The governor’s analysis is that this measure alone will cost Nevada taxpayers more than $600 million in General Fund dollars between 2014 and 2019. Again, what seems “good” in the eyes of Harry Reid is not necessarily adored by those his policies affect.
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Sharron Angle was yesterday blasted by the Reid campaign for remarks she made about health care mandates and autism at the big Tea Party rally in Searchlight, Nevada. Team Reid put out press releases and went on a Twitter rant on the issue, but many in the media–on both left and right–don’t see it their way. BATTLE ‘10 will have a story on this later.
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Gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid today releases his plan for higher education. This is the fourth formal plan proposed by Reid since the primary. His opponent, Brian Sandoval, has yet to put forth any plans–for education or otherwise.
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A WSJ piece this week supported the DREAM Act in principle but called Harry Reid’s introduction of the measure six weeks before the election a cynical “get-out-the-Nevada-Hispanic-vote” maneuver.
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Senate Joint Resolution 30 was up for a vote today as reported by BATTLE ‘10 here. Seventy years of precedent stood in the balance, to wit: For decades, employees of companies covered by the Railway Labor Act who did not cast a vote in union elections were counted as “no” votes, i.e. votes against forming a union. Under a new rule that went into effect in July, a simple majority of workers who vote in the election is now all that is needed to form a union. The roll call vote is in; the measure failed. All 41 Senate Republicans and three Democrats (Lincoln, Nelson, Pryor) voted for the disapproval resolution, while Harry Reid and the rest of the Democrats voted “nay.” So, for now, the new rule will stay.