Laxalt consistently ignoring ‘Cortez’ in Nevada senator’s last name

By Jessica Hill

Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022 | 2 a.m.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Adam Laxalt repeatedly refers to his midterm election opponent, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, incorrectly by chopping off the first part of her last name and calling her “Masto.”

In a statement last week about Vice President Kamala Harris visiting Las Vegas, Laxalt said, “Kamala Harris hopes her glamorous visit with Masto will distract Nevadan voters from the real issues.” In that statement he continuously referred to her as “Masto.”(Cortez Masto did not appear with the vice president during her visit.)

And two weeks ago, when boosting at a news conference about an endorsement from the National Association of Police Organizations, Laxalt said: “When you have Senator Masto that is running these commercials claiming that she spent her career fighting against human trafficking. What’s the real record?”

The Sun reached out to his campaign to ask if it was just a constant slip of the tongue, albeit those were written statements, but did not get a response.

Cortez Masto’s campaign spokesperson Sigalle Reshef said the campaign had noticed Laxalt’s shorthand but did not have anything else to say about it.

Misidentifying female politicians of color is nothing new and can sometimes be a tactic to show they’re somehow not worth remembering how to say their name correctly.

Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., who served three years in the Senate with now Harris as well as working with her on the Senate Budget Committee, pronounced her given name three different ways at a rally a couple of years ago. A 2020 Washington Post article noted that Perdue was “signaling that he didn’t know how to pronounce her name and it didn’t matter anyway.”

The Post listed others who have messed up the pronunciation of Harris’ name. Among them are former President Donald Trump as well as Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who after a few attempts just said, “whatever.”(For the record, in her 2019 memoir, “The Truths We Hold,” Harris wrote, “First, my name is pronounced ‘comma-la,’ like the punctuation mark.”)

The newspaper also noted that Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., in 2020 was running for reelection against Republican Craig Keller, who mispronounced her name multiple times during a candidate forum.

We don’t know why Laxalt keeps only using half of his opponent’s last name; he might not mean it disrespectfully, and he might not realize that “Cortez Masto” is her full last name.

Although his campaign did not respond to a request for comment, at least it has been made aware of the faux pas and can correct themselves. Because even though Cortez Masto and Laxalt are going toe-to-toe, criticizing each other this way and that ahead of November, the least both of them can do is call them by their proper names.

Another election lawsuit, another loss

Reno Attorney Joey Gilbert, who lost to Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo in the Republican gubernatorial primary on June 14, also lost his lawsuit challenging the election results and claiming it was stolen.

Judge James Wilson dismissed the lawsuit Wednesday in Carson City’s 1st Judicial Court, saying Gilbert could not demonstrate sufficient evidence to “raise reasonable doubt as to the outcome of the election,” according to a copy of the ruling.

Campaign spokesperson Paul White said Gilbert was disappointed with the judge “disregarding” the evidence that was presented and would continue to pursue other legal options.

Gilbert has long carried the common Republican torch that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump — even though no claims have been substantiated — so it didn’t come as a surprise that he cried foul when he lost the primary by 26,000 votes..

Gilbert claimed he won by more than 50,000 votes, and the election results were just “mathematically and geometrically impossible,” according to his lawsuit.

To win his case, Gilbert had to demonstrate that the election board made errors in conducting the election that would be sufficient enough to change the result of the election, or he had to prove that there was a malfunction in a voting device or electronic tabulator. He also had to prove that either legal votes were not counted or that illegal votes were cast and counted.

“Mr. Gilbert has not presented any competent evidence that the allegedly flawed math means he received more votes than Mr. Lombardo as none of his proposed testifying expert witnesses have offered any opinions on the concept of ‘restoration’ or the results it would purportedly yield in the 2022 Republican Gubernatorial Primary Election,” Wilson wrote.

There was no “competent evidence” that the election board was guilty of malfeasance, Wilson wrote, and there was a “clear absence of admissible evidence.”

Just as Gilbert’s fighting the election results doesn’t come as a surprise, neither does the judge’s ruling. Republicans in Nevada haven’t yet to prove there was widespread election fraud that would have altered the results of the 2020 election. Likewise, some Republicans who both won their primary last month while also being an “election denier” have gone quiet about the issue.

Gilbert will keep fighting, but with less than three months until the midterms in which Lombardo could defeat Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, those efforts seem to be more symbolic. Some Republicans have called for Gilbert to throw in the towel, fearing that he is dividing the Republican Party ahead of an important election.

Former Sen. Dean Heller, who also ran in the primary and lost to Lombardo, issued a statement saying lawsuits such as Gilbert’s are counterproductive and can do serious damage to the Republican Party’s reputation.

“Now is the time to put an end to inter-party squabbling and unite in support of Joe Lombardo and fire Steve Sisolak in November for the good of the people of Nevada,” Heller said in the statement.

Nevadans in D.C.

Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., last week introduced the Guaranteeing Unemployment Assistance and Reducing Deception (GUARD) Act, which aims to help law enforcement recover pandemic unemployment benefits that were paid to criminal organizations. It will also help workers who were victims of identity theft and take steps to address vulnerabilities in unemployment systems that could lead to fraud.

Horsford said in a statement that scam artists sought out ways to acquire money during the pandemic that was allocated to help vulnerable workers and families.

“I am introducing this bill to help our state and local unemployment systems be fortified from future fraud, and to give law enforcement authorities the tools they need to go after these fraudsters and recover illegally obtained funds,” Horsford said.

Countdown

Days to Midterms: 86