News

Non-toxic tourney

A major Clark County sports book put a smoking ban in place just before the men’s NCAA basketball tournament last month. The action by Westgate SuperBook was a rare concession in the industry to health—though the rest of the facility remained open to smoking, so customers could just step into the casino or bar to light up, so employees were still at risk.

Cliff Young 1922-2016

Born in Lovelock and graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno, Clarence Clifton Young served as both a state and federal legislator during pivotal years in Nevada history. His career was often a paradox.

Following World War II service in the Army in Europe and Harvard Law, Young became public administrator of Washoe County, then was elected to the U.S. House in 1952 over Democratic incumbent Walter Baring. He was reelected in 1954.

One of his supporters, Les Gray, compared Baring’s voting record to that of U.S. Rep. Vito Marcantonio of New York, a democratic socialist. It NIXON and YOUNG was a common red-baiting technique used on Democrats in those days.

In the late 1950s and early ’60s, Young was a member of the All American Society, a Nevada group founded by Harolds Club general manager Raymond I. Smith to combat “creeping communism.”

On the other hand, Young was a critic of Nevada’s McCarthyite U.S. Sen. George Malone, also a Republican.

When Young and his wife Jane arrived in D.C. in Jan. 1953, they were looking for a place to live when their car containing all their belongings was stolen, a fix that landed them on the CBS evening news.

In 1954, Young of Nevada called for tougher regulation of the state’s mob-ridden casinos because the gambling industry “contains the seeds for its own destruction.”

The Nevadan became acquainted with Vice President Richard Nixon in D.C. and later served as Nevada chair of his presidential campaigns.

Young announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in 1956 when Democratic incumbent Alan Bible announced his retirement. Then Senate Democratic leader Lyndon Johnson intervened, prevailing on Bible to re-enter the race. In a state that valued seniority, Bible was reelected. Johnson came to the state to campaign for Bible, belittling Young in the Democratic stronghold of Ely as “Little Boy Blue” and “this little phony named Young.”

Following his defeat, there were rumors Young was in line for a federal appointment, but he had not enjoyed D.C. and returned to Nevada. Ten years later, he reentered politics, winning a Nevada Senate seat representing Washoe County from 1966 to 1980. He became known as one of the most eloquent speakers in the legislature and as a supporter of the environment. In 1970, after an Oklahoma firm laid claim to 400,000 acres of Nevada land for a token filing fee, Young called it the latest evidence of the need for reform of the U.S. Mining Law of 1872.

Young voted for the Equal Rights Amendment, and joined with several other Republicans—Coe Swobe, Archie Pozzi and James Slattery—to support more liberal marijuana laws.

In 1981-83, he served as national president of a leading environmental group, the National Wildlife Federation, battling the Reagan administration’s interior secretary, James Watt.

In 1984, during a period of turbulence on the Nevada Supreme Court, Young was elected to the court and served for 18 years. He was particularly noted for trying to speed up death sentence appeals.

Young was the founder, in 1988, of the Nevada Judicial Historical Society. He attended Burning Man in 2004 at age 81. —Dennis Myers

Party on

County gatherings test organizations

There are three stages to the selection of Nevada’s delegates to national presby idential nominating conventions. Dennis Myers It starts with precinct meetings, known generically as caucuses. That is the stage at which the first tally is taken of presidential candidate preferences. It ends at the party state conventions, where the national delegates are actually selected.

The Sanders campaign did its job of getting its people out.

In between are the county conventions. They’re the dreariest of the three, and the easiest to overlook—and they can affect presidential candidate fortunes. Whoever won the precinct meetings must get his or her people out again to the county conventions to hang onto that victory. And second or third place finishers in the precinct meetings get another chance. Plus, the candidates fortunes outside of Nevada can affect what happens inside.

Eight years ago, Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama in the Nevada precinct meetings. But by the time of the state convention, Obama had scored so many victories he was starting to look inevitable, and he picked up more delegates than he had earned in the Nevada precinct meetings.

In 2012, Republican Newt Gingrich—propped up by Nevada billionaire Sheldon Adelson— managed a second place finish in the Nevada precinct meetings. By the time of the state convention, he was out of the race.

This year in the precinct meetings, Democrat Hillary Clinton repeated her Nevada win and Donald Trump triumphed in the GOP.

At the Washoe Democratic Convention at Lawlor Events Center, it was clear from the beginning that Bernie Sanders had gotten his people out. He won Washoe and the small counties in the precinct meetings while Clinton won Clark County. He held onto Washoe at the county convention. And as the day wore on, word arrived from Las Vegas that he had done a better job of getting his people out in Clark County, too. It appears that Sanders took Nevada away from Clinton, at least in this round.

Candidate supporters were firm in their advocacy.

Business owner Scott Lambert: “I feel like Bernie represents the return of the elder to our circle of leaders. He’s a man who has true depth to his character and true integrity. And we need our elders to be our mentors, and we’ve kind of lost that in our culture.”

Teacher and Clinton supporter Patrick Rossi: “I think it’s time that he have some progressive leadership that has talent and dedication toward helping the American people to get us onto the right track.”

There was tension between the Clinton and Sanders forces. But it was not the kind of thing that threatened to rupture the party.

Across town at Grand Sierra Resort, it was another matter. The Washoe Republican Convention often seemed on a knife edge.

From a gallery overlooking the convention hall, Washoe Democrats listen to Washoe County School Board member Angela Taylor speak to the delegates.

Faith and pragmatism

Republican conventions are always more sedate than Democratic conventions. Here, the delegates were less demonstrative for their candidates. Where the Democrats wore candidate T-shirts and buttons, very few Republicans wore evidence of their candidates. The most common were stickers for U.S. Senate candidate Joe Heck. There were few presidential buttons or shirts.

There was simmering below the surface. The first time a speaker mentioned Trump, his faction broke out chanting his name. It was so unusual for a Republican convention that people in the outer hall rushed into the convention hall to see what the fuss was.

Former Nevada Assembly speaker Bill Bilyeu grimaced.

“They’re like the Pat Robertson people were,” he said. “And the Ron Paul people.”

Both Robertson and Paul had scored well in Nevada in earlier years, but it’s difficult to make a case that the state GOP benefited from it. The Paulists succeeded in taking over the party organization and then sat out the general election campaign so that party traditionalists had to set up a separate campaign to aid presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

At last weekend’s convention, the platform—a statement of party positions—was at issue. The libertarian Paulists had managed to get anti-abortion language out of the state platform in 2012. Now, at the Washoe County level, delegates battled over a plank calling for mandatory ultrasounds before abortions. Planks also opposed marriage equality and included climate change denial. Young and libertarian delegates considered the platform a way of “fighting the last war.”

Trump and Cruz supporters tended to talk about belief and Kasich backers talked about who