Adam Laxalt is the Attorney General of Nevada. He is currently running for Governor on the Republican side of the ballot. He is also, somewhat oddly considering the state he wishes to lead, against online poker. He is also getting very little support from his family, as is evidenced by a recent op-ed penned by a dozen of his relatives in the Reno Gazette Journal.
Yes, twelve of Laxalt’s relatives support his opponent, Democrat Steve Sisolak.
Laxalt Supports RAWA, Online Poker Ban
As we well know by now, Las Vegas Sands Corp. founder and CEO Sheldon Adelson is trying to wipe online poker from existence in the United States. A few years ago, he had his legal team draw up the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA), a bill which would revert the now correct interpretation of the Wire Act – that it only forbids online sports betting – back to its incorrect one, that it prohibits all online gambling. He has gotten it introduced in both chambers of Congress in the past, but it hasn’t made much progress.
In both 2015 and 2016, Adam Laxalt signed a letter with a few other state Attorneys General in support of RAWA. He has made the typical opposition argument that the Department of Justice “changed the landscape” of gambling without consulting Congress or stakeholders, even though that argument holds no water. Oh, his sister also works for a consulting firm that Adelson has hired for lobbying purposes.
Laxalt’s Relatives Don’t Seem to Like Him
In the op-ed, Laxalt’s relatives essentially say that he is a phony, trying to capitalize on the Republican political capital of his grandfather. For instance, they write:
First, for those of us who were actually raised in Nevada, it’s difficult to hear him continue to falsely claim that he was raised in Nevada or has any true connections to Nevadans. The simple fact is that while he may have been born in Reno, he left as an infant and was raised on the East Coast, 3,000 miles away, in Washington, D.C., and moved here only in 2013, only one year later launching his political career. Aside from the occasional short visit, Adam never knew the state or its people. Perhaps if he had, he would stand for Nevada’s values rather than for those of his out-of-state donors.
They go on to criticize his opposition to immigrants when he himself only just moved to Nevada a few years ago.
They say Laxalt is unqualified.
“His brief experience as a practicing lawyer was described as a ‘train wreck’ by members of his own firm,” Laxalt’s family writes. “His tenure in the attorney general’s office has been little more than a four-year publicity tour for his current campaign for governor — in fact, he outsourced jobs in the AG’s office to out-of-state lawyers who were given special exemptions to practice law in Nevada.”
The Laxalt clan also speaks out against Adam’s threat to Nevada’s public lands, women’s reproductive rights, healthcare, marriage equality, and educational funding.
“It’s worth saying that this column isn’t about politics,” the twelve Laxalt’s conclude. “We would be proud to have a Laxalt running for office on Nov. 6, regardless of whether they were Republican or Democrat or independent, so long as we believed that they would be good for Nevada. We’re writing because we care about Nevada and because we know the truth about this candidate. We think that you should, too.”
