Nevada was the blue exception to a red wave last year. Democrats won back the State Senate. Senator Aaron Ford (D-Las Vegas) became majority leader. Ford's biggest accomplishment to date has been providing the votes to pass a massive tax cut that benefitted Sheldon Adelson.
Nevada is a state of immigrants. Immigrants toil in the onion fields of Yerington, at the dairy in Amargosa Valley, and on cattle ranches throughout the state. Some have green cards, some don't. But all are now living in fear of a knock on the door that will take them away from their homes and families. In Donald Trump's America, ICE Agents have arrested parents taking their kids to school, initiating deportation proceedings while relatives stand by and sob.
Trump has been busy threatening local officials with the loss of federal funding if they don't agree to turn local police forces into subsidiaries of his deportation force.
A Freshman State Senator Yvanna Cancela (D-Las Vegas) decided to do something about this. She introduced a bill which would prohibit police officers from asking about immigration status at the point of contact. This would ensure that families wouldn't be split up and hearts wouldn't be broken over minor things like speeding tickets. Majority Leader Ford even signed on as a cosponsor of the bill..
Then Majority Leader Ford decided to run for Attorney General and changed his mind in a desperate effort to curry favor with the Fraternal Order of Police, a union which endorsed a President currently under FBI investigation. From the Nevada Independent
A hearing on a controversial immigration bill scheduled for Monday in the Senate Judiciary Committee was quietly taken off the agenda Friday afternoon at the direction of Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford, who said he felt the bill wasn’t ready for a hearing.
“After continuing discussions on this issue over the last few days, Senator Ford felt that there needed to be more conversations with the interested parties before the bill was ready for a hearing,” caucus spokesman Peter Koltak said late Friday via email. Those sentiments stand in contrast to those offered by the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Yvanna Cancela, and the committee chair, Sen. Tick Segerblom, who both indicated they are comfortable with the legislation as it stands today.
At the end of the story, the Independent tells us the real story.
“There are groups that we have to deal with, police, and we just want to make sure that we get their support if we can,” Segerblom said.
The state’s major law enforcement agencies have made it clear that there’s is essentially no version of Cancela’s bill that they can agree to, worrying that putting anything in statute will be seen as limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities could jeopardize the federal funding they receive…
“I think we’ve come to the point where we agree to disagree,” said Chuck Callaway, lobbyist for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said earlier this week. “She’s come as far as she can go and we appreciate that, but still we’re just at that point where we can’t support.”
Aaron Ford, the Democratic Leader of the Nevada State Senate has put his own political ambition above doing what is best for Nevada. He has decided he needs the support of the police union to be elected Attorney General of Nevada. And so he is OK with turning local Nevada police departments into subsidiaries of Donald Trump's deportation force. Aaron Ford's raw and cynical ambition means that immigrants will have to live in the shadows for at least the next two years and that their families will be forced to live in fear of being ripped apart.
All of this for a measly check from the Trump-supporting Fraternal Order of Police. All this in spite of the fact that 90% of Americans oppose Donald Trump's radical deportation policies. Aaron Ford's political cowardice, unbridled ambition, and pure cynicism causes our neighbors to be nothing more than pawns in a game. Majority Leader Ford is what is wrong with the Democratic Party. It is my hope that another Democrat will run against him for Attorney General, defeat him in the primary and be what Majority Leader Ford has proved he is not: a leader who takes on the special interests and fights the good fight for our immigrant brothers and sisters.