The Drop Box State

U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei is a bad Republican, the Washoe County Republican Party has decreed. The retiring congressman’s transgression: refusal to pretend valor-thief, Sharia-law-under-the-bed alarmist, and political office-shopper David Flippo, who is running to fill Amodei’s congressional seat, is a serious person.

From the Reno Gazette Journal:

“If you can't get behind the Republican candidate and you're a Republican, that's fine,” (Washoe County Republican Party Chair Bruce) Parks said. “You get to have your own opinion — this is America.”

But, he said, when you're someone as prominent as Amodei, you don’t say so publicly because it harms the Republican brand and could hurt the party’s candidates in other races.

“He does not have to go out and run his mouth publicly,” Parks said of Amodei. “He can shut up.”

Gosh, however will Amodei cope with this dramatic rejection from his erstwhile allies?

“When told the contents of the resolution denouncing him,” the RGJ story continued, “Amodei thanked the Washoe County Republican Party for its previous support over the years.”

Conventional wisdom says if Flippo wins, he’s a one-termer, because Northern Nevada Republicans will not stand for being represented by the most insignificant and irrelevant person in the United States Congress. Which is what Flippo would be.

But that seems to assume the Republican Party is going to become imbued with a measure of post-Trump realism and rationality. 

Color me believe-it-when-I-see-it.

Meanwhile, Amodei says this year he’s voting for the Independent American Party candidate, charting a path, perhaps, for Republican voters who can’t bring themselves to vote for the Democratic candidate but who also are repulsed by Flippo.

Like Amodei, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo backed Flippo’s opponent in the primary. But Republican voters didn’t care what Lombardo said, Flippo won, and unlike Amodei, Lombardo fell in with the mob and ended up endorsing Flippo. I wonder if that means Lombardo will vote for him, too.

IN NEVADA CURRENT

Ladies and gentlemen, to the drop boxes. For months, Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar and other Democratic officials, pointing at Trump’s infernal efforts to not only discredit but also interfere with free and fair elections, have been telling voters to vote early. Now they’re emphasizing that if you’re using the mail ballot that the state of Nevada so conveniently has mailed to every voter in the state whether Joe Lombardo and Donald Trump like it or not, don’t put your mail ballot in the mail, but put it in a drop box at a voting location. To be on the safe side. Jeniffer Solis reports: Voters urged to use drop boxes as recommended mail-in deadline passes

Toads, fish, and the law. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service a while back said yup, both this little toad and this tiny fish may qualify for protections as endangered or threatened species, as per the Endangered Species Act.  Which means the agency had a window of time, a deadline if you will, to determine whether to extend those protections to one or both of the species. The agency missed the deadline. Industrious Ms. Solis reports: Conservation group sues feds for failing to protect rare Nevada toad and fish

Footdragging Station. I’m assuming this event is a corollary to the union’s oft-touted get-out-the-vote canvassing. Michael Lyle reports: Democrats, Culinary call on Station Casinos to heed Supreme Court ruling, negotiate a contract

Kentucky, Massachusetts and Tennessee had the lowest average title readability grade level, at 10 years of education, while Colorado had the highest at 33 years, followed by Hawaii at 31 years and … Nevada at 26. Via Stateline: 2026 ballot measures are written at a graduate-school reading level, report finds

Good Luck