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Tuesday is primary Election Day—and that will mean the conclusion of one of the ugliest and weirdest intra-party political contests in recent memory.
Of course, intra-party fights are nothing new in Nevada.
Eleven years ago this week, the political landscapes in Nevada and the nation were very different. A Democrat was in the White House—but Trump 1.0 was just around the corner. Here at home, Republicans were reveling in complete control of state government—but not all was happy within the Nevada GOP. This in-fighting and dissention was the topic of the RN&R‘s cover story, told in detail by Dennis Myers.
The first portion of the story:
No one had to wait very late on Election Day 2014 to know which way the wind was blowing in Nevada. It was an historic sweep—both houses of the legislature and every state office elected statewide went Republican. The last time such a thing happened, Nevada was 26, and Benjamin Harrison was in the White House.
It was what Nevada Republicans had wanted for decades, a sweep so conclusive that there would be no obstacle to their governing the way they wanted—no governor’s veto, no divided legislature. The GOP had it all and could push through its long-stymied program.
Or so their hopes ran. It’s unlikely anyone foresaw the stumbling, intramural battles and messes that lay ahead.
On November 7, the new Assembly Republican majority dumped the leader, Pat Hickey, who had led them to victory, and made a surprise choice of fringe figure Ira Hansen to be their February nominee for speaker.
On November 23, three days after the RN&R reported Hansen’s writings attacking women, gays, blacks and Israel, he declined the nomination, setting off weeks of maneuvering within the Republican caucus for various posts. One legislator, Michele Fiore, was elected to and then deposed from two different positions. The caucus was apparently untroubled by Hansen’s views, a majority of its members handing their votes over to him. Armed in caucus with their proxies, Hansen named John Hambrick the new speaker-designate and made Michele Fiore—who had stood quite literally shoulder to shoulder with Cliven Bundy at Bunkerville—the Republican floor leader. In a dubious action, Hambrick promptly removed Fiore as floor leader.
Hansen’s party credentials were in order. Though his family was well known as the backbone of George Wallace’s American Independent Party Nevada arm, this Hansen had always been a Republican, to the extent that it had caused a family breach.
Some of the other caucus members were less reliable Republicans, however, seeing the party merely as a vehicle for dogma. Though they attacked other party members as RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), their own party loyalty was so uncertain that former Republican state chair Bob Cashell had called them RINOs, and they sometimes made his point, as when Fiore attacked her Republican colleagues.
But the problems with Fiore and her fellow RINOs went beyond purity on issues. Unaccustomed to being in charge, they floundered, walked into walls, and acted up all session long.
On March 3, GOP Assemblymembers John Moore and Paul Anderson got into a fist fight in a stairwell.
Assemblymembers Ira Hansen and Victoria Seaman, both Republicans, engaged in a public row in mid-April. The two issued rival statements over Hansen’s refusal to hold a committee vote on one of Seaman’s pet initiatives plus comments made to Seaman after she read a disparaging letter denouncing Hansen during a caucus meeting.
Fiore told colleague Chris Edwards “Sit your ass down and be quiet” during an April 21 Assembly session dealing with Bundy and a Fiore measure.
Republican Party leaders around the state squirmed while reading about incidents like these. Voters see style and substance as synonymous, they felt, and when they see legislators whose “table manners are just as advertised” (as Nevada columnist Steve Sebelius put it), they are likely to question those legislators’ ability to govern.
“I can almost feel the votes shedding away,” fretted a veteran Washoe GOP leader.
It’s hard to make a case that there were any moderate Republicans in the Nevada Legislature this year, or even merely conservative Republicans. All were pretty rabid in their beliefs. But there was one difference among them. Some were pragmatic lawmakers who wanted to get legislation—right wing legislation—enacted. Others were zealots who felt the message was more important than watered-down legislation—and they were suspicious of those who did want to get laws passed because it meant they might be willing to compromise on issues. The pragmatists and the zealots clashed. But even that oversimplifies things. There were far more clashes among the zealots themselves.
Similar pragmatism-vs.-zealotry themes are playing out today in the primary for Congressional District 2.
In case you’ve been off the grid since the start of the year, here’s a very quick recap: Rep. Mark Amodei announced he was retiring; Amodei and Gov. Joe Lombardo endorsed former state Sen. James Settelmeyer, who, as a result, was viewed as the frontrunner for the open seat.
That changed when President Trump endorsed David Flippo in late May. Flippo is an Air Force veteran and small-business owner who narrowly lost the Republican primary for the Las Vegas-area Congressional District 4 seat in 2024. He was running for that seat again until Amodei’s retirement—when, surprise surprise, Flippo decided to move to Reno to run for the newly open CD 2.
The Settelmeyer-Flippo contest has been UGLY. The Turning Point USA crew and MAGA-affiliated individuals have been trying to paint Settelmeyer—a fourth-generation Nevadan and rancher in Douglas County—as a RINO (Republican in Name Only), which is beyond ridiculous. One of their primary pieces of “evidence“: Settelmeyer in 2021 voted in favor of Assembly Bill 224, which mandates that public middle, junior high and high schools offer tampons and maxi pads for free. AB 224 passed the Senate and Assembly unanimously.
Even uglier: The matter of a leaked sealed 2005 court record. The Nevada Independent does a wonderful job of breaking down all the details here, but here’s the gist: Settelmeyer was charged with domestic battery against his then-wife in 2005. However, Settelmeyer was exonerated, and the records were sealed in accordance with Nevada state law … until details on the arrest were revealed earlier this year on a right-wing blog, and then amplified on social media by the likes of Laura Loomer. Settelmeyer’s campaign has accused the Flippo campaign of disseminating these details.
Ugh.
Back to Dennis Myers’ story: Many of the GOP players mentioned are still around. Michele Fiore is running to be retained as a Pahrump justice of the peace, even though she’s been away from the courtroom for two years. Why is she suspended? Well, the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline suspended her after, as The Nevada Independent described it, “her 2024 conviction on federal wire fraud charges for using $70,000 she raised from donors that was to be designated for a fallen Las Vegas police officer’s memorial. The indictment said she used the money for her own personal gain, including her rent, plastic surgery and her daughter’s wedding.” While she remains suspended, her conviction was wiped away by an April 2025 pardon from President Trump.
As for Ira Hansen (who, like me, is a former Sparks Tribune columnist; Dennis mentioned that in passing above, but that’s a bigger discussion for another time): He, as many of you know, is a state senator now—and he’s running unopposed for re-election to his District 14 seat this year. On June 1, the Reno Gazette-Journal published a letter from Hansen and his wife, Assemblywoman Alexis Hansen, expressing their support of James Settelmeyer, saying they “respectfully disagree with President Trump on this race.”
—Jimmy Boegle
Read this column at RenoNR.com!