Holland announces

Former Reno mayoral candidate Erik Holland announced in a March 12 Facebook post that he will seek election to the U.S. House of Representatives.

“I’m running because I’m concerned about recent erosions of civil liberties, and want to see a return to fiscal sanity—as in paying our bills,” Democrat Holland wrote. “How odd—conservative reasons!!!”

He has been outspoken in his opposition to provisions of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that critics say allows detention of U.S. citizens who the executive branch considers terror suspects, sections that have drawn wide attention because they give wide latitude to presidential powers.

Holland was Mayor Robert Cashell’s opponent in the 2006 campaign, expressing his opposition to sprawl, particularly the Winnemucca Ranch development 30 miles from Reno proper.

The U.S. House seat is currently held by Republican Mark Amodei, who won a special election last fall for a partial term. Told that Holland would be running on NDAA and the deficit, Amodei said, “Great. He’s on the right track.”

Amodei also said there is considerable misinformation about NDAA spread by the blogosphere on what the law contains. He said there are three different provisions in the language that make clear it does not apply to U.S. citizens.