Ending speculation, Fiore files to run for Congress

By Megan Messerly

Wednesday, March 9, 2016 | 1:34 p.m.

Assemblywoman Michele Fiore filed today to run for Nevada’s open 3rd Congressional District seat, ending speculation that she would instead launch a re-election bid to remain in the state Legislature.

Fiore’s campaign will target the Republican establishment — namely state Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson, who also has announced he will run for the seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Joe Heck, who is running for U.S. Senate.

Roberson has not yet filed.

Jumping on a theme that has emerged in the Republican presidential race, Fiore said the reason Donald Trump and Texas. Sen Ted Cruz are the frontrunners is because “Republicans are tired of the same old establishment.”

In Nevada, she pointed to the state’s largest-ever tax increase passed last session by the Legislature and supported by Roberson to fund education. “I’m a Republican that believes in freedom, true freedom, and that means we, as responsible adults, are free to do as we wish,” Fiore said.

Roberson is expected to have much of the support of the Republican establishment behind him, and Fiore will face a crowded Republican primary.

Air Force veteran Kerry Bowers and Dr. Annette Teijeiro have both filed, and Roberson, Danny Tarkanian and former Nevada Policy Research Institute President Andy Matthews are all expected to file in the coming days. The filing window closes March 18.

“As hard as I fight for the people, we need fighters in D.C. that are not afraid to ruffle their own peers’ feathers,” Fiore said.

Fiore has supported Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was recently arrested on felony charges dating back to his 2014 armed standoff with law enforcement in Bunkerville. And she recently made headlines when she traveled to Oregon to advocate for his son Ammon Bundy and his supporters who staged an armed occupation of a wildlife refuge there.

She called Cliven Bundy and those arrested in Oregon “political prisoners” and called Arizona rancher LaVoy Finicum’s shooting death by police in Oregon an “unjustified homicide.” She added that law enforcement agents present at the time should be “indicted, absolutely without a shadow of a doubt.”

Bundy supporters will hold a rally Thursday outside the federal courthouse in Las Vegas before Cliven Bundy’s arraignment. Fiore said she wasn’t sure if she would attend.

Fiore also today reiterated her support for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in his run for the Republican presidential nomination but said she would be “Trump’s biggest fighter without a doubt” if he wins the nomination.

“At this time, I’m a loyal girl,” Fiore said. “I’m on the Cruz team, and that’s where I’m staying.”

Should she fail to win the Republican congressional primary, it would be too late for her to seek another elected office. In that case, she said, she would continue to remain involved in the community through some kind of public service and spend more time with her family.

Three Democrats also have filed to run for the seat, which covers Henderson and most of unincorporated Clark County south of Las Vegas. They are Congregation Ner Tamid President Jacky Rosen, attorney Jesse Sbaih and businessman Barry Michaels.

Fiore said she is supporting Republican Richard McArthur to replace her in Assembly District 4. McArthur occupied that seat from 2008 to 2012, though he has not yet filed.