Not going anywhere.
After the previous unpleasantries surrounding their selection of
ex-radio talk show host, Confederate flag lover and "Negro"-explainer Ira Hansen as their new speaker of the Nevada Assembly, a move which quickly led to widespread incredulity and an eventual
bowing out of the role by Hansen, state Republicans have announced their
revised leadership team for the next session. And it turns out Hansen
didn't fall too far after all:
After more than two hours of deliberation, the 25-member Republican Assembly caucus elected Las Vegas Assemblyman John Hambrick as its new speaker. [...]
There was talk on Tuesday that Hansen might take another stab at the speaker job. That didn't happen, but he did land another leadership post as assistant majority leader.
So he'll be assistant majority leader. Hambrick seems a more straitlaced,
no nonsense fellow, but the same cannot be said of the
rest of the new leadership team, which establishes Confederate flag guy firmly among a fury of his peers. (That's what a collection of state Republicans shall henceforth be called—a
fury. A flock of geese, a murder of crows, a fury of Republicans. I have already drafted a letter to Webster's on this, so you needn't bother.)
The new majority leader, the one Ira Hansen will be assisting? That would be Michele Fiore, an "outspoken" far-right conservative who has made a name for herself doing things like defending the Cliven Bundy militias. The new majority whip will be Jim Wheeler, the assemblyman who got national attention for saying that he'd vote to reinstitute American slavery if his constituents wanted him to do so.
So the gears are well-greased for Nevada to slide into, well, whatever it is about to slide into. We've got a guy who has expressed his devotion to his Confederate heritage, a person who thinks armed rebellion against federal agents is a good and reasonable thing, and a guy who says the modern Constitution can go right to hell if the folks at his next picnic lunch express an earnest desire to keep a slave or two in the toolshed; the signs on this one do not look good.