Dump advocate defeated
Nye County, a thorn in the side of state leaders opposing the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, has voted to unseat a county commissioner who has been a leading supporter of the dump.
Commissioner Dan Schinhofen lost the Republican primary to Debra Strickland, who will take office in January. In a four-person race with fewer than 1,200 votes cast in the small county, Strickland won by a plurality, not a majority—36.5 percent to Schinhofen’s 31.7 percent—still enough to elect her outright under a peculiar Nevada law.
Strickland, a real estate broker and long time county resident, told the Pahrump Valley Times she will be seeking more science—and more recent science—on the Yucca project before she decides whether to support it. “The science is 10 years old on Yucca Mountain, and I would like to see some more recent science,” she said. The Obama administration deemphasized the dump project in 2009 and eventually shut it down by cutting off funding for it. Republicans and the nuclear industry are trying to revive it.
Nye and Lincoln counties have had a reputation for trying to lure businesses or projects to Nevada that most jurisdictions would reject (“Nye County comes calling,” RN&R, Jan. 15, 2004). Schinhofen is one in a series of Nye officials who were enthusiastic about the dump while the state was trying to fight it off, causing mixed messages to the feds.
Schinhofen claims Strickland was backed by brothel owner Dennis Hof and credited that with her victory.
Under a section of state law, races in which only members of one political party run can be decided in the primary, with the general election electorate excluded from the decision. Until this law, the two top candidates would advance to the general election. The new law was enacted to accommodate Dean Rhodes, an Elko County Republican senator who wearied of facing general elections when no Democrat was running. The first winner under the new law was Dawn Gibbons in Washoe County in 1998, who was elected to the Nevada Assembly in a three-person Republican primary. Gibbons and her leading opponent in that race—Patty Caferrata—tried to have the law repealed but failed.