Ex-GOP aide behind website critical of Republican lawmakers

By Riley Snyder, Associated Press

Published Wednesday, April 29, 2015 | 11:04 a.m.

Updated Wednesday, April 29, 2015 | 12:18 p.m.

CARSON CITY — A recently created website sharply critical of elected Nevada Republicans is coming from an unlikely source — a former Assembly Republican staff member.

Conservative Las Vegas activist Laurel Fee heads "The Voice of Nevada" political action committee and created a website, www.thevoiceofnevada.com, last week criticizing other Nevada Republicans over votes on issues including taxes and the Common Core education standards.

The website accuses Republican Assembly leaders, including Speaker John Hambrick and assemblymen Paul Anderson and Derek Armstrong, of flipping their positions on taxes. It also includes contact information for the five Republican Assembly members who voted against a measure requiring students to use biologically correct bathrooms in schools.

Fee previously worked for Republican Assemblyman Brent Jones on his 2014 campaign and served as his chief of staff before leaving around a month ago, according to Jones's current chief of staff Jeramy Edgel.

Fee and Jones created the PAC in 2014, which took little action until the website was created last week, but Fee said that Jones hasn't had any connection with the group since February.

"The Voice of Nevada is operated by Laurel Fee and has zero affiliation with Brent Jones," she said in an email.

Secretary of state spokeswoman Catherine Lu said her office received paperwork removing Jones from the PAC on Tuesday. Jones was previously listed as the president of the group until Wednesday.

Edgel said that attacking individual lawmakers wasn't Jones's style, and that he wanted to stick to policies.

"With the exception of direct issues, we're not going to publicly call out other elected officials," he said. "He'd rather go with the issues."

Armstrong, who proposed a plan raising taxes to help fund Gov. Brian Sandoval's budget, said Tuesday that "there's going to be a lot of people that dislike me so I don't take that personally."