Ineptitude and Crisis: A 6 month report card on Governor Sisolak and Nevada’s Democrat Leadership

This Sunday, September 13^th, marks the six month Anniversary of Nevada’s unprecedented economic shutdown.  Since then, Nevada has been witness to what is perhaps the most impressive display of bumbling ineptitude and rank political divisiveness in the history of our state from Governor Sisolak, the Nevada Assembly Democrats, the Nevada Senate Democrats, and even the national DNC.

First, the Governors lack of leadership.  From this column, and previously from my Facebook and Twitter feeds, I have been highly critical of the Governor’s lack of clear, consistent, and concise messaging.  Why?  Because that is his job.  No, I am not asking he meet an impossible bar of omniscience regarding a novel, viral pandemic.  Nor am I asking for a daily accounting for and retribution on misstatements along the way.  To be clear, the very nature of science calls for assumptions to be made, tested, measured, and adjusted as necessary.  What leadership and science both have in common, and should be held accountable to, is transparency.  Governor Sisolak has consistently been MIA in communication.  At the end of July, Governor Sisolak said he would be attending the weekly briefing from his own COVID committee… we are still waiting.  While Governors and Mayors throughout the country were having regularly scheduled briefings, Governor Sisolak had a haphazard patchwork of off-again/on-again pronouncements.  While Governors were giving facts, Governor Sisolak was making chest thumping statements attacking the very Nevadans he put out of work… first through his action, then his inaction.

Governor Sisolak has further compounded his ineptitude by hiding behind an ever expanding web of committees, staff members, and commissions each designed to take more and more responsibility off his plate.  Remember the COVID czar… the former MGM exec that was to coordinate government and private response?  How about LEAP… a commission comprised of county commissioners, state legislators, and other elected and appointed officials who were to determine the readiness of a county to reopen?  These are just two examples of the layers Governor Sisolak has placed between himself and decision making, responsibility, authority… ya know, his job.

In the few instances where Sisolak has made step toward decisiveness, he has wrapped himself within the warm blanket of consensus.  Consensus not with Nevadans or Nevada’s business community, but with other Democrat Governors on the west coast.  It was both an astute observation and a running meme that if you wanted to know what the next rule would be from Sisolak on Thursday, watch Governor Newsom on Tuesday.

In sharp contrast to the bumbling and fumbling on the governing side of the ball, the Democrats wasted no time in pursuing the political side of this equation.  With a clear eye always fixed on the November election, local, state, and national Democrat organizations whirred into action, seemingly overnight, to “reimagine” the electoral process.  In the middle of the single most confusing and economically devasting unknown-unknown in Nevada’s history, the Democrats found the time to create the foundation for the state’s most far-reaching set of voter intimidation laws. (see: Assembly Bill 4: The End of the World As We Know It).  Make no doubt about it, the push for an all mil-in election is not for some altruistic voter safety issue, if it were there would be no provision for increased in-person voter locations in Clark and Washoe Counties.  Voter safety also doesn’t call for the relaxation of signature verification rules. Voter safety also doesn’t require ballots to be accepted days after election day.  Most egregiously, voter safety doesn’t call for unregulated, unlicensed strangers coming to your house or grandma’s bed at the retirement home “helping” to collect ballots and help you fill them out.  You think voter intimidation now? Wait until we hear the stories of union halls calling for everyone to bring their mail in ballots to the next meeting where they can be filled out en masse.  Or when grandma lets it slip during one of your visits that to get her dessert one night before the election, she had to promise to vote for a certain person on her ballot and then hand it over for mailing. (See the recent article on voter fraud confessions).

What Governor Sisolak and the Nevada Democrat Party have failed to grasp is that Nevadans neither expected nor demanded perfection, only transparency.  Nevadan’s were hoping that during a moment of crisis Democrats would put down their partisan billy-clubs and work to strengthen the state.  Instead, we received the gift of confusion, partisanship, and the roadmap for legal election tampering.  For the sake of our state, let’s hope that it is not too late to take corrective action at the ballot box.