Maybe it's their little bit of revenge against Harry Reid for making their name a household epithet, but the Koch brothers have decided their next line of attack is on the Democratic candidate trying to replace him, current Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto. And, as they do, they're spending big: more than $1 million.
Freedom Partners Action Fund, based in Arlington, Va., announced the two ads on Tuesday. One says that when Cortez Masto was attorney general, she hired a Washington law firm to help residents deal with the housing crisis, then reaped thousands in campaign donations from the firm’s attorneys.
The second ad criticizes her travel while in office. Both ads label her a “special interest politician.”
Cortez Masto's campaign immediately fired back.
“Washington Republicans are lying about Catherine Cortez Masto’s record because they know as Nevada’s next senator, she will focus on solving problems for Nevada families, not pushing their extreme agenda,” said campaign spokesman Zach Hudson.
As attorney general, Cortez Masto “held Big Banks accountable and helped deliver $1.9 billion in relief to Nevadans,” Hudson said in a statement. Cortez Masto's travel was in the course of participating in groups of attorneys general around the country.
Nevada has been called Ground Zero in the foreclosure fraud and housing crisis, and Masto's office was the first to bring criminal charges in the “nationwide 'robo-signing' scandal, in which mortgage servicing companies and banks were processing foreclosures en masse at lightning speed by signing documents they neglected to review and falsifying information.”
The Republican candidate the Kochs are backing through the Freedom Partners PAC ad buy is Rep. Joe Heck, who called the mortgage crisis a "blip on the radar." So I guess it's not going to be hard for Nevadans to determine who is the better candidate to represent them in the Senate.
Please send $3 to help Catherine Cortez Masto keep Harry Reid's seat blue.