In Las Vegas, O’Malley blasts GOP: ‘You’d think they want to replace the Statue of Liberty with a big fence’

By Kyle Roerink

Monday, Oct. 5, 2015 | 5:25 p.m.

With his poll numbers in the single digits and the first Democratic debate next week, presidential candidate Martin O’Malley visited Las Vegas today, wooing organized labor.

The CNN debate in Las Vegas could be the make-or-break event that sinks or bolsters the White House dreams of the former Maryland governor, who doesn’t have the campaign infrastructure like Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton or a groundswell of support like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. If O’Malley has a shot in the first three primary season contests in New Hampshire, Iowa and Nevada, he will need to lasso unions and Latino voters, two voting blocs essential in Nevada.

To that end, O’Malley visited offices of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 to drum up support, touting laws he signed that granted undocumented immigrants driver's licenses and their children legal residency status. He blasted the Trans Pacific Partnership, the nation’s finance industry and the GOP’s stance on immigration. “I listen to some of the Republican debates and listen to them talk about big walls and a big fence,” O’Malley said. “You'd think they want to replace the Statue of Liberty with a big fence.”

O’Malley, whose ancestors immigrated to the U.S. from Ireland, said he kept a 1890s-era sign on his desk when he was governor. “It said: ‘No Irish need apply.’ I always kept that as a reminder that we were all once strangers in this strange land.”

While O’Malley made his pitch to the Culinary workers, they also made one to him.

Ednzo Lozano, surrounded by her fellow culinary Union members, had a simple question for O’Malley: Do you support us?

Lozano, an employee at the Flamingo Las Vegas, was not asking if O’Malley was an advocate for organized labor. She was asking how far he would go to protect the union’s health care package.

Culinary, which has an expansive health care policy that includes free prescription drugs, is currently working alongside other labor groups to stop the implementation of the so-called Cadillac tax, a piece of the Affordable Care Act, on expensive health care plans. Many of the dozen Culinary employees who sat in on the meeting said it would be devastating for unions if it takes effect in 2018. Employees vowed to go on strike if it’s not removed from the law.

“I am with you,” O'Malley said. He will appear at a town hall with members of the SEIU this evening before appearing at the Hispanics in Politics breakfast on Wednesday morning.