Vets assess

Nevada Republicans have a poor record of supporting U.S. military servicepeople in the war zones, according to a voting record analysis released by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).

The group calculated grades for members of Congress based on 158 Senate votes and 175 House votes since Sept. 11, 2001. “For each piece of legislation that affected troops, veterans or military families, IAVA took a position either in support of, or in opposition to its passage,” the group’s Web site reads. “The letter grades were derived from the percentage of times that each legislator’s vote matched the official IAVA stance.”

These are the grades for the members of the Nevada delegation in Congress:

John Ensign (Rep)        D minus
Jim Gibbons (Rep)        C plus
Jon Porter (R)        C plus
Harry Reid (D)        A minus
Shelley Berkley (D)        A minus

In May, Sen. Ensign said in a speech at the Republican convention in Mesquite that Democrats had “hurt our country” with their criticism of the Iraq war.

On Nov. 1, Nevada Republican Party Chairman Paul Adams issued a statement accusing Nevada Democratic leaders of failing to support the troops.

Columnist Bob Geiger, who covers the U.S. Senate, examined the IAVA rankings and pointed out, “Cutting to the chase—and, perhaps more than anything I’ve seen in recent years, truly defining the difference between the two parties—is that the worst grade received by a Senate Democrat was higher than the best grade granted a Republican. GOP-lite Ben Nelson, D-NE, received the lowest grade of any Democrat with a B-, while Lincoln Chafee, R-RI, Olympia Snowe, R-ME, and Arlen Specter, R-PA, managed a C grade from IAVA.”