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Wayne Burke 1974-2012

Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal chair Wayne Burke died young last week.

“In addition to his accomplishments as a Marine, a family man, and a tribal leader, Wayne was a talented artist,” said Patricia Atkinson of the Nevada Arts Council. “One of his mixed media pieces was featured in the NAC’s traveling exhibition ‘What Continues the Dream: Contemporary Arts and Crafts in the Powwow Tradition.’ This is a great loss to his family, the tribe, the state, and the Nevada artistic community.”

Burke was the first Native American member of the Nevada Tourism Commission. “Tourism is critically important to the economy of Nevada and Pyramid Lake,” he said at the time of his appointment.

The Tribe had recently received an award for economic development planning. Burke said the Tribe’s plan represented “embracing a community vision.”

Governor Brian Sandoval, who appointed him to the commission, issued a statement: “Chairman Burke was a vocal advocate for Pyramid Lake and tribal issues, and I admired his leadership. Wayne Burke valiantly served his country in the Marine Corps and I was proud to call him a friend.”

In testimony in May before a U.S. Senate committee, Burke said in part, “Cultural traditions and beliefs are a significant part in the manner in which tribes and Native people prepare, sustain, heal, and survive war. These cultural beliefs and ways of life need to be recognized and used to offer and provide more services and resources to Native veterans. Per population, more Native veterans serve … than any other ethnic group.”

Late night jolt

Even by the standards of campaign commercials, a political spot that aired late in the campaign was pretty strong stuff. It accused Barack Obama of murder. The topic, not surprisingly, was abortion.

The spot, for U.S. House candidate Russell Best of the Independent American Party, contained footage of fetuses—which appeared to be made of plastic—mixed with religious imagery and medieval art that appears to depict Childermas (the murder of the holy innocents). One section showed a fetus model inside a rosary. The spot does not actually advocate Best’s election. Rather, it is a presidential campaign spot. The Federal Election Commission does not have Best registered as an independent committee in the presidential campaign. According to the Christian Post, Best is one of a number of politicians in seven states who ran presidential campaign spots under the cover of their local campaigns. All but Missouri are considered swing states in the presidential race. Best bought only a token number of spots.

The narrative of Best’s spot: “President Obama has ordered all Christian institutions to pay for drugs that murder the unborn. This is an assault on life and liberty. Will we knuckle under, violate our consciences, and become accomplices to Obama’s immorality? If we vote for Obama, we empower him to attack the church and murder babies. Let’s defend life and religious liberty and vote him out.”

Text over the video quotes Pittsburgh Catholic Bishop David Zubik and New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan.

KTVN posted a view warning in front of the spot letting viewers know the spot might not be fit viewing for children. Under federal law, TV stations cannot refuse to carry particular political spots on the grounds of content. They can refuse to carry any political advertising, but once they accept it, they cannot refuse or change specific spots. In July 1972 television stations in Atlanta were ordered by the Federal Communications Commission to carry a spot for white racist J.B. Stoner that used the term niggerand referenced white women.

KTVN itself previously dealt with a spot similar to Best’s, in the 1990 Republican primary for lieutenant governor, when Pro-Life Andy Anderson (his legal name) used fetus shots in a commercial. The quality of that footage, however, was not as clear as the Best spot.

Incidentally, on election night after the polls closed, KTVN was still running a different spot, one sponsored by a Catholic political group. —Dennis Myers

While waiting for something newsworthy to happen at the Washoe Republican election night party, KOLO News photographer Sholeh Moll checked her phone. She knelt behind a line of props—candidate signs, TV lights, a life-sized cardboard cutout of Mitt Romney, and a big stuffed GOP elephant logo.

A new reality

Nevada’s political life is undergoing a sea change at the GOP’s expense

During the Washoe County Republican Party’s election night party at a Reno by casino, one of the television netDennis Myers works being shown on the big screens in the hall featured a discussion of Republican troubles with the Latino vote. Few of the Reno partiers paid attention. But it’s likely to become an increasingly important topic in local GOPcircles. If Republicans thought Nevada was a hard fight in this year’s election, they may be sobered to learn what is ahead. It’s probably only going to get tougher. Nevada is on the verge of becoming a non-white state.

“You don’t have the job creation we had in the ’90s.”

Jeff Hardcastle State Demographer

In the 2000 census, whites made up 69 percent of the state’s population. By the 2010 census that figure was down to 54 percent. And that happened while the number of whites in the state was increasing.

“We had an increase over the past decades of Hispanics in the state, but it’s not that whites are in decline,” said State Demographer Jeff Hardcastle. “They’re just falling as a percent of the total population.”

In other words, while whites were growing rapidly, other groups were growing even more rapidly, so whites shrank as a component of the whole picture.

“My projection is 2010 was 1,611,540 for white non-Hispanic origin,” Hardcastle said. “In 2012, it was 1,616,388.”

But that growth wasn’t enough for whites to keep pace with other groups. And Latinos are not the only factor.

From the 2000 to the 2010 census African-Americans grew by 58 percent, Latino-Americans by 82 percent, and Asian-Americans by a whopping 116 percent. During that same period non-Latino whites grew by “only” 12 percent—in most contexts, a very respectable growth rate.

As it happens, the fastest growing groups in the state are those that Republicans seem to have gone out of their way to offend. Latinos would have been much more in play if it were not for all the anti-immigrant talk from Republicans.

At the same time, the importance of the small counties—a Republican stronghold—is shrinking. Nevada has been a heavily urban state for decades. It is becoming more so.

Finally, while Republicans have dismayed minority groups, the GOP’s drift to the right has also distressed moderate Republicans—the kind who once made Washoe County a GOPcounty. Republicans who voted for moderate members of their party like David Humke, Bob Cashell and William Raggio have found fewer and fewer such figures to embrace, with the result that they have drifted away to the Democrats.

Asian-American voters, who have come on like gangbusters in Nevada, would seem like a likely lode for Republicans to mine. They tend to be well-educated, upscale and affluent. In 1992, fewer than a third of Asian-Americans voted for Bill Clinton.

But by 2008 that number had doubled for Barack Obama. More than twice as many now are registered Democratic as Republican. But Asian-Americans who register with the two major parties put together don’t constitute even half the AsianAmerican vote. They are not into registering with political parties.

Slowdown

While all these trends are still in place in Nevada, they have also slowed down over the course of the recession that began in 2007.

The collapse of the state’s housing market stalled Nevada’s long status as the nation’s fastest growing state. The only reasons it didn’t lose