Saturday, Sept. 30, 2000 | 3:03 a.m.
In 1976, registered Democrat John Ensign cast his first vote in a presidential election for Jimmy Carter. Ed Bernstein, briefly a registered Republican, was trying to elect GOP candidate Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania to the Senate.
But Ensign and Bernstein got fed up with their parties and became independents. By the early 1980s both men had switched parties. Ensign became a Reagan Republican, and Bernstein a progressive Democrat.
The two Las Vegans are now combatants for that rarest of Nevada political jewels, an open U.S. Senate seat. With two-term Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., retiring from politics at the end of this year, Nevada has been left with its first open Senate seat since 1986.
Given their age and fitness, former Rep. Ensign, 42, and attorney Bernstein, 51, potentially could represent the state for at least the next 18 to 24 years. But neither candidate wants to look beyond the first six-year term, which will be awarded in the Nov. 7 general election.
"I can't see myself serving years and years and years, but I'm not going to make a definitive pledge like that because you just don't know what the future holds," Ensign said.
That sentiment is shared by Bernstein, who said, "I don't have any designs of dying in the Senate or finishing a career in the Senate. I haven't even thought about where I'm going to live in Washington next year."
The Nevada race has national implications as Republicans, who outnumber Democrats 54-46 in the Senate, attempt to retain their majority this fall. An Ensign victory would make it that much harder for Democrats to regain majority control because they would have to steal a GOP seat elsewhere just to stay even.
A Roseville, Calif., native reared in Northern Nevada, Ensign moved to Las Vegas in 1974. As a veterinarian, he opened Southern Nevada's first 24-hour animal hospital in 1987. He also was a former gaming executive whose father, Mandalay Resort Group Chairman Mike Ensign, is one of the Strip's most powerful figures.
As a member of Prison Fellowship, Ensign has worked with inmates and their families. He also has belonged to Promise Keepers, an all-male religious movement that has been criticized for excluding women. But he has said that the organization encourages men to be "servant" family leaders.
'Far right winger'
Democrats have tried to paint Ensign as a "far right winger" ever since he joined the Newt Gingrich-led Republican revolution by ousting then-Democratic Rep. James Bilbray of Las Vegas in November 1994. But Ensign sometimes bucked GOP leadership, such as by helping to pass 1996 welfare reform legislation that was separated from a Medicaid reform bill over the objections of then-House Speaker Gingrich.
"After the (1996) election (Ohio Rep.) John Kasich, the budget committee chairman, came up to me and he said, 'John, what you did saved the Republican majority,' " Ensign said. "We've had in Nevada a reduction in welfare recipients of 62 percent."
Having served in the House from 1995 to 1998, Ensign tried to unseat Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., in November 1998 and lost by a mere 428 votes out of 435,790 cast. But Ensign remained energized by the fact that he carried 15 of the state's 17 counties, losing only in Clark and Mineral counties.
Fresh off that statewide effort, Ensign has been tabbed by polls and pundits as the favorite in this race, a quasi-incumbent who is a masterful campaign fund-raiser. An example of that fund-raising clout came in 1995, when he ranked second among House freshmen and 11th overall in the House in campaign contributions.
Through mid-summer he had $500,000 more cash on hand than Bernstein, even though Bernstein has lent his own campaign nearly $900,000. The flip side is that Bernstein has accused Ensign of being in the pocket of special interests because of his political action committee largess.
"We want to try to make Nevada schools the best in America," Ensign said. "We want to make health care affordable and accessible for all Nevadans. We want to fight to keep deadly nuclear waste out of our state. When you want those issues to be fought for, you have a better chance of doing it in the U.S. Senate."
Bernstein, who attended the same Philadelphia high school as Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, worked in his father's deli and worked two jobs to put himself through law school. After moving to Las Vegas in 1976, he opened Edward M. Bernstein & Associates, which has become a statewide personal injury law firm in which he oversees eight attorneys and 50 total employees.
He was one of the first attorneys in town to mass advertise a law practice through billboards and other media. His weekly televised talk show, "The Ed Bernstein Show," has aired since 1989 on KVBC Channel 3. Bernstein also has served as a spokesperson for Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and has been an advocate of downtown redevelopment.
A political novice, Bernstein said he was inspired to run for Senate after enduring red tape and uncooperative health maintenance organizations while attempting to obtain health care for one of his three daughters.
"On too many occasions I've been blockaded by HMOs," Bernstein said. "A physician will send us to a hospital for treatment, and the HMO says 'no.' My wife Nancy last year said to me, 'Stop complaining about it and go do something about it.' "
Race heats up
The Senate race did not heat up until early August, when Ensign's double-digit lead in the polls began shrinking following two television advertisements.
One commissioned by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee accused Ensign of voting to slash Medicare and Social Security benefits and of turning his back on HMO reform. The other, paid for by Bernstein's campaign, attacked the Republican's pro-life stand on abortion.
The attacks forced Ensign to run counter ads, urging his opponent to stop "lying" about his record. Ensign said he did not vote to "cut" Medicare and Social Security. Republicans have said they merely voted to slow the growth rate of those benefits. Ensign also said he supported a GOP health care alternative.
But the abortion issue may have stung more. Ensign said he misspoke when he told the Associated Press on Aug. 31 that he considered taxpayer-funded abortions worse than rape. But pro-choice Bernstein jumped all over the comment and used it in an ad. The Democrat hoped he would score in a state that voted 2-to-1 in 1990 to support the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion.
"A woman's right to choose is in jeopardy based upon what type of justices do or do not get appointed," Bernstein said of future Supreme Court openings. "The voters of this state have spoken, and I would not like to see the federal government intervene in a decision we have made to try to take it away from us."
The abortion attack prompted Ensign to counter with an ad featuring an endorsement from two pro-choice women, Nevada first lady Dema Guinn and Gail Allen, president of the Nevada Breast Cancer Coalition. The ad did not mention Ensign's pro-life position.
Instead, that ad and a companion spot featuring he and wife Darlene played up Ensign's record on women's health care, including co-sponsorship of a bill expanding Medicare to include annual mammography screenings and his support of breast cancer research.
"She (Guinn) says, 'We're pro-choice, and John Ensign is the right choice,' " Ensign said. "She's saying to pro-choice women, 'Listen, we're pro-choice, but we support John because of all these other issues."
But the most contentious issue in this race, and one that has spilled over into the presidential contest, is the debate over prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients.
Bernstein and Ensign both say they support greater and less expensive access to drugs but disagree sharply on the details. Bernstein said his plan would save 40 percent and that Ensign's proposal would save only 6.4 percent on "the top six drugs" used by seniors. Ensign said his plan would save 25 percent and that Bernstein's proposal would save only 12.5 percent.
Both plans involve a version of bulk purchasing power that they say will enable the discounts to be passed on to consumers. But each candidate has accused the other of having a plan too risky for seniors.
Bernstein took a busload of seniors to Tijuana, Mexico, to highlight the huge drug discounts south of the border. He wants to make it easier for pharmacists to import less expensive drugs from other countries, passing on those savings to consumers.
Prescription drugs
"It would immediately create price competition in the market," Bernstein said. "Congress passed a law at the insistence of the pharmaceutical lobby to stifle competition and create the false price control in the United States where you can't compete."
Ensign wants to reduce the amount of time it takes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve new medicines. He also said his prescription drug proposal would allow seniors to choose their own doctor and pharmacy.
"Our plan is more affordable for seniors, dramatically more affordable as far as the premiums," Ensign said. "Our plan saves seniors twice as much money, and our plan will go into effect as soon as it's signed into law."
There are similarities between the two men. In addition to being successful businessmen and fathers of three young children, they are both fitness buffs and voracious readers.
Ensign lifts weights, plays basketball and occasionally golfs and waterskis. He prefers a mix of historical and contemporary nonfiction, particularly books on world leaders. Bernstein jogs, boxes and practices yoga. His favorite reading includes theology and modern philosophy.
Both men say they would oppose federal efforts to tax or regulate gaming. Both also strongly oppose the shipment of the nation's high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But they disagree on who would be more effective on these issues.
Ensign said that as a member of the Senate's majority party he would have an easier time protecting Nevada's interests. On nuclear waste, for instance, he believes he would have a better chance convincing Republicans to vote for Nevada's position.
But Bernstein said that since most current GOP senators have voted to ship the waste to Nevada, this state will lose its battle if Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., remains Senate majority leader.
As with abortion and prescription drugs, the two candidates clearly show their partisan colors on various other issues.
Ensign wants to revamp the federal income tax code and replace it with a flat tax or national sales tax. In the process, he would eliminate death and marriage penalty taxes, among others. He also wants to extend tax credits for builders of affordable low-income housing.
"I would cut government spending to have tax cuts," Ensign said. "We can eliminate the 1993 tax hike on Social Security benefits. We can look to a dependant care tax credit that says that if you're taking care of mom or dad or grandma or grandpa or a disabled child, instead of institutionalizing that person let's give the family a tax credit to take care of them."
He believes people should be able to invest a portion of their Social Security payments on their own through tightly regulated government securities. And he believes 95 percent of all federal education dollars should be returned to the classroom. Ensign wants the money to be used to raise teachers' salaries, but he also favors competency testing to "weed out the bad ones."
Bernstein supports the Democratic plank of preserving the Social Security trust fund, but he said the GOP plan of allowing individuals to invest some of their own Social Security benefits is too risky. He favors class-size reduction, supports interest-free bonds to repair schools and wants to expand the federal Head Start program.
Included in his platform is a contract with Nevada women that contains support for the Democrats' patients bill of rights, and an increase in widows' Social Security benefits. He also supports equal pay for equal work regardless of gender and elimination of penalties against women who take time off work to care for children or older relatives.
"Women in this country earn 26 percent less than men for doing the same job," Bernstein said. "In the course of a worker's lifetime that's about $549,000 less that a woman earns than a man in their working life. Your Social Security is based on how much you earn, so they get lower Social Security."
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