Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, an unabashed defender of white nationalists, wasn’t the first to be politically dumped by a significant number of family members. In 2018, 12 members of Republican Adam Laxalt’s family opposed his run for Nevada governor, a race he subsequently lost to Democrat Steve Sisolak.
Laxalt’s relatives are once again speaking out, this week enthusiastically endorsing his Democratic opponent, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. The Nevada Independent reports that the group of 14 don’t mention their relative by name, “focusing instead on praising Cortez Masto,” who is seeking her second term to the seat vacated by the late Harry Reid in 2016. Upon her election, she also became the first Latina U.S. senator in our nation’s history.
“We believe that Catherine possesses a set of qualities that clearly speak of what we like to call ‘Nevada grit,’” they write in their letter. “We staunchly believe that Catherine is well equipped with her own ‘Nevada grit’—a quality that she will take forward in representation of our home state for six more years across the halls of Congress.”
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Laxalt’s relatives in particular note Cortez Masto’s fight for women’s issues, including during her time as Nevada’s attorney general. “Catherine’s unwavering support of the rights of Nevada women is historic,” they write. “Her efforts in combatting human trafficking by cracking down on perpetrators who victimize vulnerable women are well-respected across the entire country. Catherine intends to continue her tireless advocacy for the rights of Nevada women—especially today when these rights are horrifically in peril.”
Cortez Masto is a cosponsor of vital legislation preserving abortion rights nationwide, and has vocally opposed the GOP abortion ban led by South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham. “They want to force the state of Nevada—and other states like Nevada—to limit women’s freedoms, even though voters in my state voted to legally protect the right to choose that Nevada women have had for fifty years,” she said last month.
Following the right-wing Supreme Court’s ruling overturning the national right to an abortion, Laxalt claimed in a statement “that abortion rights are ‘settled law’ in Nevada,” The Nevada Independent reported this past summer. But he as state attorney general fought abortion access, and in June remarks reported by The Nevada Independent, called Roe v. Wade “a joke,” “a total, complete invention,” and said that it was “sad” that Nevada wasn’t a “pro-life” state.
“Catherine is a model of the ‘Nevada grit’ that we so often use to describe our Nevada forefathers,” Laxalt’s family members continue. “Her entire career is not a simple ‘sound-bite’ that merely speaks of supporting Nevada. Rather, her entire career demonstrates years of bold actions that she has taken as an authentic advocate of Nevada.”
Laxalt, meanwhile, has sought to deport Nevada’s families, joining corrupt Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to oppose 2014 Obama administration executive action that would have expanded the popular and successful Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, as well as created a separate program to protect the undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
Millions, including many in Nevada, would have been protected under the DACA+ and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) programs had it not been for the Laxalt-endorsed lawsuit. The DACA+ and DAPA programs were blocked by Texas Judge Andrew Hanen, the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana, and then died in the Supreme Court, when the justices deadlocked at 4-4. Then-Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had been refusing to even hold a hearing for President Barack Obama’s then-nominee to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland. Hanen and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals are also the same anti-immigrant judicial pipeline we’re seeing continuing to attack pro-immigrant policy today.
But Laxalt is very proud of his despicable efforts attempting to deport Nevadans, this current election season spending thousands in radio ads “touting his opposition to protections for immigrants who were brought to the country as children, commonly known as ‘Dreamers,’” Russell Contreras reported in April. In those ads, Laxalt boasted of "stopping unconstitutional attempts to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants,” Contreras reported.
“Dreamers grew up here, they work here, and they’ve built their lives here,” Cortez Masto said in remarks reported by the Las Vegas Sun. “They are a vital part of our community and their voices belong at the table in Washington and at home in Nevada. There are a lot of people who are playing politics with their lives and now is the time for us to call them out.”
Laxalt’s family members are certainly doing their part. “In so many ways, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto exemplifies what it simply means to be a Nevadan,” they concluded in their letter. “She has learned from her home state. She has fought for it. She is proud of it. As a proud Nevada family, we are honored to endorse Catherine Cortez Masto for the prestigious national role of U.S. Senator for Nevada.”
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