Nevada political roundup: Mortgage mess, more Sarah Palin (UPDATED)

By Lisa Mascaro

Monday, Sept. 15, 2008 | 12:45 p.m.

Updated at 4:39 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- Here’s an interesting nuclear note. At the annual Conservative Leadership Conference being held later this week in Las Vegas, the Friday night cocktail reception is being sponsored by the Nuclear Energy Institute -- the leading national lobby for the nuclear industry and Yucca Mountain.

NEI is often unpopular in Nevada civic circles, as the state has been fighting for decades to stop the federal government's proposed nuclear waste dump 90 miles north of Las Vegas.

But at the conservative confab, an annual meeting of local and national conservative pols organized chiefly by Nevada activist Chuck Muth, NEI’s sponsorship comes as the state is drawing renewed battle lines over the future of Yucca Mountain.

The November election gives voters a distinct choice between presidential candidates on the nuclear waste issue: Republican John McCain supports developing Yucca Mountain; Democrat Barack Obama has vowed to stop the waste dump.

Muth, you’ll recall, is among those who have joined Gov. Jim Gibbons’ call for the resignation of Bob Loux, the state’s longtime anti-Yucca Mountain point-man. You can read a past story here but essentially Loux got himself in trouble last week after acknowledging he had given unauthorized pay raises to himself and his staff in the state Agency for Nuclear Projects.

Muth and others see a potential opening to shift the state’s longtime anti-Yucca stance if Loux is forced out of the state office.

In fact, a panel discussion at the conference Thursday morning offers: “The Politics, Economics and Science of New Nuclear Energy.”

The panelists? An NEI rep and pro-nuclear Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley.

Eastley, you may remember, was the governor’s unsuccessful nominee for the commission that oversees Loux’s office – the commission that will meet next week to decide whether Loux keeps his job.

Originally posted at 12:45 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- Greetings, Early Liners. Reporting from the home of the federal government, perhaps no longer known -- as the Wall Street Journal reports this morning after Washington’s refusal to bailout Lehman Brothers -- as the “backstop-in-chief.”

But before we go to the mortgage mess, let’s get right to the continued fallout over the pay-raise scandal that has rocked the state’s Yucca Mountain office and now leaves Nevada’s longtime anti-dump executive, Bob Loux, fighting for his professional life.

Conservative activist Chuck Muth this morning made good on his suggestion in our Sunday story for a Justice Department inquiry of Loux’s handling of federal contracts at the Nuclear Waste Project Office. Muth sent a letter to Washington requesting an investigation:

“It is clear to me that only through a thorough investigation can answers be found as to how the NWPO has used its federal monies and assure citizens that those funds are being used only as intended and authorized,” Muth wrote.

Also, today my colleague Cy Ryan reports from Carson City that Loux has been ordered by a district court judge to appear Wednesday on a civil suit Muth filed to remove him from office. The law requires a hearing within 10 days of last week’s filing.

Loux has refused calls to resign by Gov. Jim Gibbons and others after he acknowledged last week giving himself and his small staff unapproved pay raises. Loux can only be fired by the commission that oversees his office.

The commission chairman, Richard Bryan, the former governor and U.S. Senator, stands by Loux. The commission meets next week.

As I reported in the Sunday story with Ryan and my colleague David McGrath-Schwartz, the pay raise scandal has morphed into a broader debate on Yucca Mountain fueled by those who would like to see the state take a more favorable -- or at least neutral -- stance on the nation’s proposed nuclear waste 90 miles north of Las Vegas.

The chance to get rid of Loux, who has successfully fought the project for nearly 30 years, offers them an ideal opening.

Bryan and those who oppose the dump -- who have long been the great majority in the state -- want to slam that window of opportunity shut.

“The greater danger is to use this as an ability to eliminate the state’s opposition,” Bryan said in our story. “Clearly, the pro-nuke crowd has been out to get Bob for years, now they’ve been handed an issue.”

Up north, the Reno Gazette-Journal’s Anjeannette Damon had a similar take in her Sunday piece. She leads the story with this:

“The fight over a longtime state bureaucrat's under-the-radar decision to give himself and his staff unauthorized pay raises has opened up a new front in the political struggle over the federal government's efforts to build a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.”

Check the full piece out here.

In other news, our weekend round-up can be summed up today in two words: Sarah Palin.

Or maybe even just one: Sarah.

As the Republican VP contender made her solo post-convention political debut in Carson City, my colleague David McGrath-Scwhartz reports on the phenomenon of a first-name-basis candidacy:

“At the Pony Express Pavilion in Carson City Saturday, voters said they connected with Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin in a way that was hard to explain, but that left them comfortable enough to refer to her simply as Sarah.”

Schwartz also reports that Republican Sen. John Ensign and Republican Rep. Dean Heller worked the crowd as openers for the Alaska governor.

Damon in Reno blogs that Heller wasn’t channeling anything about his own political aspirations when he praised Palin for taking on an incumbent governor of her own party and winning office.

Other good reads this weekend:

- The Sun’s Jon Ralston muses on a draft-Mitt-Romney-for-U.S.-Senate rumor.

- RGJ’s Damon on Nevada’s small-town mayorsconsidering if they (and Palin) have what it takes to be one heartbeat away from the presidency.

- The Sun’s Brian Eckhouse in the sleeper Assembly District 21 race that is shaping up to be one to watch.

And finally, back to the mortgage mess.

Today’s Early Line opened that we have many Mondays recently with news of the mortgage mess and continued fallout from the subprime lending crisis.

This morning came the stunning announcement that the feds will not be rescuing investment giant Lehman Brothers. Just last week, we started the day with the stunning announcement that the feds would rescue mortgage-lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Washington is reeling from the housing hangover that will surely last into the next White House administration and Congress.

We know all about that in Las Vegas. In case you’ve lost track, Nevada continued in August to have the nation’s highest foreclosure rate for the 20th consecutive month, the Sun reported Friday.

Las Vegas has the nation’s seventh highest rate among metro areas -- and is only one of two not in California. The other is in Florida. One in 91 households in the state received foreclosure filings.

That’s all the blogging for now. Check back today for the latest from the Sun’s political team.