LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The race for Clark County Commission District F has gotten nasty, with the worst charge that one Republican can levy against another: support for a Democrat.
WATCH | Senior Political Reporter Steve Sebelius breaks down the jabs thrown between candidates:
The campaign of Republican Assemblywoman Heidi Kasama has accused her rival, businessman Albert Mack, of supporting Hillary Clinton when she ran for president in 2016.
They've used technology to create a photo of Mack with his arm around Clinton, wearing a Clinton T-shirt.
Meanwhile, a PAC has accused Kasama of supporting Democrats including Reps. Ilhan Omar and Nancy Pelosi, two of the party's most polarizing figures.
A billboard sign shows the trio laughing amid piles of money.
And it's all designed to convince Republican voters that the other person can't be trusted to be only the second member of the GOP to serve on the commission in nearly 20 years.
So what's the truth?
Mack says he did once refer to Clinton as "the next POTUS" in a post on X at a UNLV Foundation dinner, after the former secretary of state asked attendees to show her some social media love in lieu of her usual speaking fee.
And, Mack says, that's as far as it went.
"Never met her, never hugged her, never shook her hand, never gave her a dollar in a campaign contribution," Mack says. "There's one tweet in 25 years that actually doesn't even say her name, but has Hillary Clinton as a subject in my entire history of online social media."
Plus, Mack says, he voted for Trump in 2016, the culmination of a journey away from his family's Democratic roots toward becoming a Republican.
"Just because you come from a family that has specific ideals, as you grow up yourself, you become your own person," Mack says. "And, for me, what I love about the Republican Party personally is just the ideals of the conservatives, the ideals of family, hard work, fiscal responsibility, taking responsibility for yourself."
Meanwhile, it turns out that Kasama didn't funnel piles of greenbacks to Democrats.
Kasama, a realtor in her private life, has served as the president of the Las Vegas Association of Realtors as well as on the board of the National Association of Realtors.
On the latter body, she has served on the finance and taxation committees, a nod to her undergraduate degree in accounting and her work as an auditor.
But the Realtors' PAC — the group that gives money to political candidates — is something else entirely, she says.
"I was not part of the organization that directed the funds, and so that, frankly, it's just a lie that keeps getting promulgated out there," Kasama said.
"Many industries have separate political action committees, and those run completely separate from the budget committees. And I was never a part of that [PAC]. ... I was never a part of their board, they have a whole separate board, a whole separate set of funds. I had nothing to do with that, and they're the ones that direct where the funds go."
It would not be unusual for a group such as the National Association of Realtors to donate money to both Democrats and Republicans, however, given that Capitol Hill lobbyists need to make their clients' case on both sides of the aisle as legislation moves through the process. For many groups, political giving is less ideological and more strategic.
Raising taxes?
For his part, Mack criticizes Kasama for a pair of votes in Carson City in 2025 that he says broke faith with the GOP voters who sent her to the capital.
First, he says, she was the deciding vote for a package of $1.8 billion in transferable film tax credits that was written to lure a partnership of Sony Pictures, Warner Bros./Discovery, and the Howard Hughes Corp. to build a film studio in Summerlin.
Notably, Mack doesn't disagree with bringing new industries to town, including film studios. He says his problem was with the transferability of the credits, which could have been sold to other companies to offset their tax liabilities.
The film tax barely passed the Assembly 22-20 in a special session with both Republicans and Democrats in support and opposed; it died in the state Senate by a single vote.
"I'm all for incentives to bring business to our valley, as long as those incentives are combined with revenues and generation and jobs and things that matter to the valley," he said.
Proponents said the project would have brought short-term construction jobs — it was heavily supported by construction trades unions for that reason — as well as permanent and high-paying studio jobs.
WATCH | Those prospects were touted in an ad for the project released last year:
Kasama said she voted for the measure because she's seen the downturns during the Great Recession and wanted to expand the economy. But she said her vote was premised on the idea that the bill would be amended in the Senate before passage.
"The intention was to work on amendments to the bill and make it a better bill. It was a large ask of the state. I think that needed to be toned down," she said. "But that was the intent, to have it worked on in the Senate, and it didn't happen. So it failed."
Mack also takes issue with Kasama's vote to continue indexing gas taxes in Clark County to inflation, which allows the Regional Transportation Commission to pay for ongoing roadway projects.
Gov. Joe Lombardo — who has endorsed Kasama for re-election — vetoed a similar bill in 2023, saying Clark County voters should be asked to continue the indexing program, as they were promised when it began. But after vote didn't happen, and Lombardo signed the fuel tax indexing bill in the 2025 regular session, saying he'd been educated about the issue in the interim two years.
Kasama notes her vote didn't actually continue the indexing, and argues it wasn't a tax increase, since the bill merely allowed the Clark County Commission to vote to continue indexing taxes. (Commissioners approved the indexing in November by a 6-1 vote, with the lone Republican, April Becker, voting no.)
"So we, on the state level, did not raise taxes. We didn't do anything," Kasama said. "We actually said we're going to allow municipalities to decide what they want to do. So all we did was pass a bill that allowed Clark County or other areas to decide what they wanted to do."
Neither Mack nor Kasama said how they'd have voted had they been on the commission when the indexing plan was proposed. Since then, a war with Iran and a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz has sent gasoline prices skyrocketing across the country, and left political leaders considering the suspension of gas taxes as a way to bring relief to drivers.
Experience
Kasama touts her three terms in Carson City — all in the minority — as providing her with the background necessary to hit the ground running if she's elected.
"One of the benefits of having served in the state Legislature is I do understand how the process works, and I think a lot of people don't, so I have that experience," she says. "When I was up there, the counties and the cities came and lobbied us to make the changes, so I'll be one of those people looking at what changes need to be made and what I can do to lobby. And I think I'll be in a good position for that with that experience."
Kasama also cites her auditing experience as helpful when it comes to examining the county's budget, as well as her experience as a realtor in striking deals acceptable to sometimes-adversarial parties.
Kasama was preparing to leave the Assembly in 2024 in order to challenge Rep. Susie Lee in the 3rd Congressional District, but decided against it after Lombardo asked her to stay in Carson City to prevent Democrats from reaching a veto-proof majority.
Mack, by contrast, touts his business experience as giving him an edge and criticizes Kasama for the dearth of legislation with her name on it that passed.
(In the Nevada Legislature, the majority party controls the flow of legislation, and minority Republicans often are denied chances to pass bills that might give them something to campaign on in the next election.)
With him, Mack says, "you get a businessman and not a politician. You get somebody who spent their career negotiating deals, working with small business, signing the front of a paycheck, understanding what [profit and loss] really is, understanding how you can affect a business and earn a living and actually be able to have your employees earn a living."
Mack says he's well-off enough not to need lobbyists or contributions from industries, and pledges to stick to his promises.
"You see people, politicians, will tell you to your face, 'this is what I believe' in an election cycle, and then when they're actually in office, those votes don't match," he says.
Mack also cites his charity work, service on the Metro Use of Force Review Board and his hearty endorsement from Sheriff Kevin McMahill, who cut a TV ad for Mack's campaign.
Top priorities
Asked about his top priority, Mack says holding elected and government officials accountable for doing their jobs and keeping their promises. But he also cited the valley's affordable housing crisis, which has seen median home prices rise much higher than a person with the median income can afford.
"Development is a core principle for me," he says. "I do believe we need to fill in all the areas that we have to fill in. We do need housing that's attainable. So again, we're talking about bringing down the price of homes, well, we need more homes to do that."
Kasama says public safety is her No. 1 priority, since quality of life rests on that.
"Even if we have the best schools, or the best restaurants, if you're afraid to drop your kid off, or you're afraid to get out of the car and walk into a restaurant because you don't feel safe, the economy fails," she said.
But Kasama also said she'd prefer to take a long-term look at the county's future.
"It's going to be the difficult questions of future development and population growth," she said. "And I would like to see that we have a long-term plan, not a 12-month or two-year plan. We need to have a 50-year plan."
The winner of the Republican primary will face the winner of a five-way Democratic primary in the Nov. 3 general election, along with two non-partisan candidates, including former Republican state Sen. Becky Harris, the first woman to head the Gaming Control Board.
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