CAMPAIGN LOG
|
New signage at the “Donald J Trump Justice Complex”
In August, 2021, the Lyon County Commissioners approved a proclamation renaming the Lyon County Justice Complex the “Donald J. Trump Justice Complex.” The new name was memorialized with a small plaque placed on the wall of the building lobby. A much larger sign to that effect has now been added to the building exterior as part of a recently completed remodel. This new signage is the culmination of an effort led by my opponent in the Nevada Assembly District 39 race during his time as a Lyon County commissioner. The sign was paid for by another prominent Lyon County Republican, which certainly saved the County money. But it begs the question of why the County would attach such a brazenly partisan political symbol to a public building which exists to serve residents of all political persuasions. More important, it’s a prime example of political theater, fully endorsed by my opponent, which does nothing to address the issues facing voters in District 39. It doesn’t make housing more affordable, it doesn’t defend against Nevada Energy’s rate increase or do anything else to lower the cost of living, and it doesn’t ensure that our seniors have access to good health care and our children get a proper education. It does insult the very idea of justice and the rule of law. Donald Trump is a criminal. He has been convicted of felony falsification of business records to hide an extra-marital affair prior to the 2016 election. Another jury found him liable for sexual abuse and the subsequent defaming of his victim. His businesses have been convicted of criminal tax evasion, and he has paid millions of dollars in fines and settlements for misusing funds and other frauds. He is also facing numerous additional, unresolved criminal indictments. Naming the courthouse after a convicted felon is a stunning lesson in irony. More to the point, imagine you were a woman bringing a case to court of sexual harassment or discrimination, or worse yet as the victim of a sex crime. The sign is more than a foot high. You can see it from everywhere in the parking lot. It honors a man who bragged about sexually assaulting women and was in fact found liable in a court of law by a jury of his peers for doing just that. How much respect could you expect as a woman in that court? Would you be treated fairly, let alone see justice done? For more details about my thoughts on this issue, check out these columns I wrote for the Sierra Nevada Ally: Annihilating Truth – Sierra Nevada Ally Trump Justice Complex – Sierra Nevada Ally |
More important, it’s a prime example of political theater, fully endorsed by my opponent, which does nothing to address the issues facing voters in District 39. |
|
Statement on the attempted assassination of President Trump
Committee to Elect Erich Obermayr, July 14, 2024 Saturday was a dark day for our country. One man, Corey Comperatore, was killed and three others, including former President Trump, were wounded at a political rally. First and foremost, I want to express on behalf of my District 39 campaign my sincerest condolences to Mr. Comperatore’s family, and my wishes for a speedy recovery for President Trump and the other two people who were hurt. These victims were shot while exercising their most fundamental rights as citizens—making a public show of support for a candidate and, in the case of President Trump, running for office. This cannot be tolerated in a democratic republic. I absolutely condemn political violence in all its forms, as should all Americans. There is no place in the way we govern ourselves for anyone who would cross the line from arguing politics—even passionately—to committing acts of violence, or even threatening to do so. We do not know, and perhaps we will never know, whether the extreme rhetoric of today’s political climate motivated the assassin. We do know that reckless language and implied threats can be interpreted by mentally ill individuals as permission to take things into their own hands. Our words and actions, whether we’re running for office or not, have meaning and effect. Simply put, when we make a political point, we must also make it clear that nothing we say or do in any way condones violence or even the threat of violence. And someday we won’t have days like Saturday. |
These victims were shot while exercising their most fundamental rights as citizens—making a public show of support for a candidate and, in the case of President Trump, running for office. This cannot be tolerated in a democratic republic. |
|
With the conclusion of the June primaries, our campaign issued the following press release:
STATEMENT ON THE 2024 PRIMARY ELECTIONS Committee to Elect Erich Obermayr, June 25, 2024. The June primary elections are over. Nominees have been picked, and a few non-partisan races decided. Turnout was relatively low, though not at all outside the norm. In Lyon County, 18.7% of registered voters participated; 32.5 % in Douglas County. Unfortunately, 27% of the voters in Assembly District 39, which includes all of Douglas County and a good portion of Lyon County, could not have participated even if they wanted to. These are non-partisan voters, who cannot vote in our closed primaries because they are not registered members of a political party. Low primary turnout is a complicated issue, but our closed system adds an arbitrary barrier which helps produce results like what we saw in Lyon County Commission District 3. The winner of the Republican primary received 4,226 votes, her opponent 1,915. No Democrats ran, so the Republican primary winner will be the only name on the November ballot and will, of course, be elected. The system worked just as it is supposed to and the candidates played by the rules, but just the same our commissioner will take office by virtue of winning 8.8% of the 47,791 registered voters in the county. No matter what the explanation, it is hard to square this with the concept of representative government. I believe the right to vote should include more than choosing from a list of candidates. It should include deciding who gets on the list in the first place. My proposal would open the primaries to non-partisan voters by giving them the choice of Democratic, Republican, or third-party ballots, which they would then submit as usual. Changing a system which shuts out more than a quarter of the voters is a no-brainer. It would also challenge candidates to broaden their appeal to a wider, more diverse group of voters—which is a good thing. |
Unfortunately, 27% of the voters in Assembly District 39, which includes all of Douglas County and a good portion of Lyon County, could not have participated even if they wanted to. These are non-partisan voters, who cannot vote in our closed primaries because they are not registered members of a political party. |
|
June 3, 2024
Nevada Energy has applied to the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada for a rate adjustment which would, among other things, raise the basic monthly service charge from $16.50 to $45.30. This would severely impact low-income and low-usage households, whose minimal consumption results in bills only marginally higher than the basic charge. It especially targets customers with rooftop solar systems, whose contributions to the power grid often cancel out all but the service charge. Meanwhile, the proposal would reduce costs for high volume consumers. I am against this rate adjustment and contributed the following statement in person at the June 3, 2024, PUCN Consumer Session: I am Erich Obermayr and I live in Silver City, in Lyon County. In 2019 we installed solar panels at our home. We did that because it was one way we, as an individual household, could do something about climate change. This was especially important because so much of the electricity supplied to us by Nevada Energy was generated by burning natural gas—one of the main causes of global warming. We also assumed that our electric bill would go down. And that was the case. Our normal $60 per month charge was reduced to a $16.50 service charge. This saved us about $500 a year. Of course, we made a considerable investment in our system which cost, after a tax credit, $6,700. This obviously offset our monthly savings, but cumulatively the system would pay for itself in thirteen and a half years. You can see how raising the service charge to $45.30 per month would almost completely eliminate any savings we gained by going solar in the first place. Or, if you want to do the math, our $500 per year savings would go down to $180. It would be 37 years before we recouped our initial costs. The proposed rate structure would take away any financial benefit households like ours might gain from switching to solar power. Removing this incentive is wrong-headed enough, but what I find most upsetting is that at a time when Nevada families are struggling every single day with inflation, Nevada Energy wants to increase the cost of this particular service by 170%. Their target is the tens of thousands of Nevadans who made an investment—at great sacrifice in some cases—to make the world a better place. And all this so that Nevada Energy’s investors can see their return grow from 9.5% to 10.4%. It just leaves you speechless. I respectfully ask the Public Utilities Commission to reject this tone-deaf, self-serving proposal. Thank you. |
Nevada Energy has applied to the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada for a rate adjustment which would, among other things, raise the basic monthly service charge from $16.50 to $45.30. |
|
STATEMENT ON THE FELONY CONVICTIONS OF DONALD TRUMP
Committee to Elect Erich Obermayr: June 2, 2024 On Friday a jury in Manhattan District Court found Donald Trump guilty of 34 felonies. He was charged with illegally falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments he made to Stormy Daniels, a woman with whom he had had a brief sexual encounter. The purpose was to hide the encounter from the American voters in the days before the 2016 election. This violated New York election law, which makes it a felony to commit illegal acts to promote the election of a candidate for public office. Trump and his followers have relentlessly and publicly attacked the Manhattan District Attorney, the judge, the judge’s daughter, witnesses, and the jury itself. Many are now promising violence on social media. They assume their lies and threats—not the facts of the case—will delegitimize the proceedings in the eyes of the public. Donald Trump was given a fair trial. He engaged the best defense attorneys who fought for him every step of the way. He, like all defendants, could have testified in his own defense and refuted the charges against him. He chose not to. A jury of his peers considered the facts and the law and found him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Aside from the fact that Trump’s encounter with Ms. Daniels happened in Nevada Assembly District 39—at Harrah’s in Stateline—any direct connection to the District seems unlikely. This is not correct. In 2022 the incumbent District 39 Assemblyman, in his previous role as a Lyon County Commissioner, spearheaded the renaming of the county courthouse after Donald Trump. It is now the “Donald J. Trump Justice Complex.” In doing so, he forever linked our county to a philandering and now convicted felon currently awaiting sentencing. The irony is rich, but it stops being funny when you think about Lyon County judges, lawyers, defendants, plaintiffs, and witnesses seeking justice under the law beneath the watchful eye of a convict. This is the price we pay for political extremism. The District 39 incumbent, Ken Gray, is a devoted follower of Donald Trump. Renaming the courthouse was only one example of his fealty, which is extreme by any definition of the word. Mr. Gray is being opposed in the upcoming election by myself, Erich Obermayr. As a legislator, my first job will be to pass legislation that advances economic opportunity, health, education, safety, and quality of life for everyone in our state. You won’t see these needs and tasks if your view of the world is through an extremist peephole, or if you’re distracted trying to defend the indefensible. That won’t be a problem for me. |
Aside from the fact that Trump’s encounter with Ms. Daniels happened in Nevada Assembly District 39—at Harrah’s in Stateline—any direct connection to the District seems unlikely. This is not correct. |
|
April 1, 2024
The current incumbent Nevada District 39 Assemblyman, Ken Gray—also my opponent in the November election—made the news the other day. In an article in the Nevada Independent headlined “Nevada lawmakers named in election denial report walk back past comments” Mr. Gray is described as going from believing President Biden stole the 2020 election from President Trump to now just having “a lot of darned questions in my mind.” “Walk back” is politician/media speak for “I’m changing my story.” As you’ll see below, my opponent is a committed, dyed-in-the-wool election denier. In contrast, I totally support our election system and the dedicated public servants who make it work. I especially want to recognize Nikki Bryan, retired Lyon County Clerk Treasurer, Amy Burgens, Douglas County Clerk Treasurer, and Staci Lindberg, current Lyon County Clerk Treasurer. Nevada’s elections are secure and fair, and the results have been beyond reproach for decades, because of women like these and their commitment to democracy. Our District 39 clerks have also risen to the bureaucratic challenges caused by same-day and DMV registration, as well as simultaneous vote-by-mail and in-person balloting. These recent measures made a good system better by removing needless obstacles to registration and voting, but they also made elections more complicated. Nevertheless, our clerks seamlessly incorporated them into the process, where they’re now utilized by thousands of voters. If I am fortunate enough to win the privilege of representing District 39 in the Nevada Assembly, I will make sure our county clerks have the resources and support, moral and material, they need to continue with what I would argue is the most important work in the state. But back to my opponent. As a Lyon County Commissioner—the office he held in 2020—he led the attack on vote-by-mail balloting even before the election. He joined a social media campaign denigrating Ms. Bryan, our County Clerk, because she stood by her constitutional duty to conduct the election according to state law. After the election, he refused to accept the results in Lyon County. He voted against approving and submitting the Clerk’s final tally to the Secretary of State, despite Ms. Bryan’s assurances that there were, in fact, no irregularities. (In a classic “walk back,” Mr. Gray claimed, just before the meeting adjourned, that he only voted “no” because he did not have time to fully review the results.) Next, Mr. Gray allied himself with extremist election denier Jim Marchant in his push to convince rural counties to throw away their voting machines and replace them with paper ballots. As Chair of the County Commission, my opponent devoted almost an entire commission meeting to the Marchant / Cyber-Ninja dog and pony show promoting the specious charge that the County’s Dominion voting machines were not secure. Ms. Bryan, again as she had done many times before, patiently explained that this was simply not the case. She might as well have been talking to the wall. Incidentally, the Chair—my opponent—allowed Marchant and his colleagues to go on literally for hours, but he limited the Dominion representative to a three-minute response during public comment. It appears “we wuz robbed!” has reached the end of its shelf life. But of course, my opponent has not taken back his accusation that Biden stole the 2020 election, let alone admitted he was wrong. He’s just moved on to say, gosh, there are too many questions out there, and he can’t get his head around Biden winning more votes than Trump. Never mind that the Trump campaign took those very same questions to court in Carson City, only to have Judge Russel methodically reject, debunk, or laugh out of court each and every one of them. As did the Nevada Supreme Court. The phenomenon of election denial is not a good faith effort to right a wrong. It is an attempt to undermine our democratic republic by delegitimizing its most basic component—the way people choose their leaders. With one side constantly crying foul, it is easy to focus on them and their allegedly stolen votes. But let’s be clear, reversing the results of an election, denying the plain math that produced the winner, in reality targets and disenfranchises the winning side because of how they voted. And don’t doubt for a moment that, no matter what your party or politics, if in the eyes of the election deniers you ever vote the wrong way they won’t hesitate to pull the rug out from under you—just give them the chance. |
If I am fortunate enough to win the privilege of representing District 39 in the Nevada Assembly, I will make sure our county clerks have the resources and support, moral and material, they need to continue with what I would argue is the most important work in the state. |
|
March 23, 2024—Douglas County and Lyon County Democratic Conventions
This weekend marked the wrap-up of the county convention / caucuses. I delivered remarks at the Douglas County convention last week, and at Lyon County on Saturday. Friendly, supportive crowds of course. I continued with the “introducing myself” phase of the campaign, and it was great to see new faces and make new contacts at both events. I also touched on some important points which I’ll be expanding upon as the campaign develops. I feel sure we will win on November 5, from Biden on down to myself in District 39, but just winning is not enough. We need to win by a lot. Even now, the Republicans are filing lawsuits accusing several county clerks, including Lyon and Douglas Counties, of election irregularities. This is the legal groundwork for November 6, when they will begin the fight to nullify their inevitable loss. Rest assured they will use any tactics they can—legal and illegal, peaceful or violent. Either way, they won’t be stopped unless an overwhelming majority of Nevadans—and all Americans—rejects their attempt to replace our democratic republic with a strong-man authoritarian state. It’s up to us to redouble our efforts to achieve this majority. It will take the usual door-knocking, phone banking, campaigning, and marching—this time on steroids. |
Rest assured they will use any tactics they can—legal and illegal, peaceful or violent. Either way, they won’t be stopped unless an overwhelming majority of Nevadans—and all Americans—rejects their attempt to replace our democratic republic with a strong-man authoritarian state. |
|
March 21, 2024—Douglas County Schoolboard
I have been attending Douglas County School Board meetings, lending my support to the “We Deserve a Better Board” movement (We Deserve a Better Board | Douglas County, Nevada). If you’re not aware, right-wing extremists won a majority on the school board in the last election. They proceeded to impose their partisan political agenda on the school district, with disastrous results. The “Better Board” folks have had some success in reining in the excesses, but the future of Douglas County schools will be at stake in November when voters will have the chance to elect a board which values children and education over politics. We are seeing a similar situation in Lyon County. The same brand of extremists hold two seats on the school board. They have put forward a slate of like-minded candidates who, if they win in November, will control Lyon County schools. I know that way-down ballot races sometimes fall under the radar, but this time we can’t afford to give the school board anything less than our full attention. |
If you’re not aware, right-wing extremists won a majority on the [Douglas County] school board in the last election. They proceeded to impose their partisan political agenda on the school district, with disastrous results. |