Nevada RINO Hunt: It’s Time to get ‘Stoned’

By Chuck Muth

Nevada State Sen. Joe Hardy enjoys the distinction of being the only GOP member of the Nevada Legislature who voted for both the then-largest tax hike in Nevada history as an assemblyman in 2003, as well as the current record-holding largest tax hike in Nevada history in 2015 as a state senator.
 
Nice guy personally. But he is, and always has been, a RINO’s RINO (Republican in Name Only). Fortunately, the man who’s never met a tax he wouldn’t hike is now termed out of the Legislature, leaving his GOP-majority Senate seat open.
 
Unfortunately, Hardy has already endorsed a fellow tax-hiking RINO, Assemblyman Glen Leavitt, to replace himself. 
 
Fortunately, though, there’s an experienced, rock-solid conservative alternative who will also be on the ballot for Republican voters to vote for. His name is Jeff Stone… and conservatives are gonna LOVE this guy.
 


Let’s start with the fact that he’s a California refugee, not a missionary. 
 
He’s a successful real estate investor who owned and operated six independent pharmacies (still owns one compounding-only pharmacy) and ”decided almost 4 years ago that California was on a collision course to financial failure.” So he and his wife “sold most of their real estate holdings in California and moved them to business-friendly Nevada.” 
 
Jeff’s now a licensed real estate agent living in Henderson who also set up a website — HelpMeFleeCA.com — “to help frustrated Californians quickly sell their homes and relocate and buy a home in Nevada.”
 
 “I see Nevada at its infancy,” Stone said in a recent interview with the Palm Spring Desert Sun. “It’s a no-state-income-tax state. They have major road improvements going on. Their freeways are clean. …You’ve got the world capital of entertainment, a world capital of sports.”
 
But Jeff’s not just any ol’ Californian who escaped from Gov. Gavin Newsome’s hell-hole. Get this…
 


In addition to being a successful businessman and entrepreneur, Jeff has almost three decades’ worth of experience as a conservative elected official. He’s a former Temecula city councilman, a former member of the Riverside Board of Supervisors and a former California state senator.
 
So no OJT (on the job training) needed.
 
After five years in the Senate, Jeff saw the writing on the wall. He points to a 2017 gas tax hike as “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” 
 “It was one too many taxes,” he said. “I told my wife, ‘This is not good. We need to start thinking about a different future for us.’”
 
So shortly after attending President Donald Trump’s inauguration, he applied for an appointment to a position at the Department of Labor. He was accepted, resigned his senate seat and served as the DOL’s Western Regional Director until Trump left office last year.
 
Now he’s set his sights on Carson City, hoping to stop Nevada from making the same huge mistakes that have ruined the land of fruits and nuts.
 
 “If we do not get true conservatives up to Carson City,” Stone warns, “Nevada will turn into California in the blink of an eye. Higher taxes. Business-killing regulations. A skyrocketing crime rate. A crumbling economy. Those are just a few things that the liberals in Carson City want to emulate and bring to Nevada.”
 


As a California state senator, Jeff signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge promising to “oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes” and has already signed it again for his Nevada senate race. 
 
“In my 27 years in elected office, I never voted for a tax hike,” Jeff proudly declares. “And that’s because I think government should try to live within its means. You’ve got to run government like a business.”
 
His opponent, Ass. Leavitt, has refused to sign the Pledge.
 
Aside from “ensuring Nevada doesn’t become another California,” Jeff intends to introduce legislation “creating enhanced penalties for fentanyl dealers” and protecting “voting integrity.”
 
 “It’s very simple,” he told the Desert Sun. ”I think people should have to show an ID to vote, and I think people should be citizens of the United States in order to vote.”
 
As to the criticism sure to come from Leavitt that he’s a “carpet-bagger,” Jeff notes that Nevada has one of the highest non-native populations in the country, “where everybody is new and the old names have kind of just withered off.”
 


Fact Check: TRUE.
 


Senate District 20 is a solid “red” district. Whoever wins the GOP primary is gonna win the seat. And Jeff’s already put his money where his mouth is; seeding his campaign with $100,000 out of his own pocket.
 
If RINO Leavitt was smart — which he’s not — he’d stick to trying to defend his assembly seat rather than trying to climb the ladder into the Senate. 
 
If not, we’re goin’ RINO huntin’! And I can’t wait for all of us to get “Stoned.”
 


* * * * *

Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, publisher of Nevada News & Views and blogs at MuthsTruths.com

Follow