Nevada Congressional Race Draws Out Exotic Politicians

It was candidates night in this desert community of 5,200 people, 135 miles southeast of Reno, where much of the nation’s ammunition was produced and stored during World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars.

Huge supplies of explosives still surround the town and the Army Ammunition Depot is the major local employer.

Office seekers, or their surrogates, trooped to the El Capitan casino on a recent night to tell an audience of about 75 people why they should be elected. The event proved once again that when it comes to exotic politicians, Nevada stands alone.

Among them were candidates for Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District--the largest in the nation geographically--in which conservative Republican Barbara Vucanovich is seeking a sixth term, with Reno Mayor Pete Sferrazza, a moderate Democrat, as her chief opponent.

Because Congress was in session, Vucanovich could not be present. In her place, Norma Joy Scott offered a curious message:

“I’m not here to answer questions and I’m not here to defend Barbara,” Scott said, “but when it comes to the bottom line, I’m sorry, but I’m going to vote for her.” She then read a brief message from Vucanovich.

In his allotted three minutes, Sferrazza said he had signed a pledge to leave office after four years if the national deficit had not been cut in half.

Sferrazza also promised to roll back congressional salaries to $89,500 (from $129,500) and, if that effort failed, to donate his salary above that amount to scholarships for Nevada college students.

Sharon Engel, representing absent independent candidate Joe S. Garcia Jr., sang the Garcia campaign song, to the tune of “America, the Beautiful,” accompanying herself on guitar. The song began: “America you used to be, one nation under God, but now you’re fat and full of sin, you’ve lost your faith in God.”

Jack McCloskey, editor of the local newspaper, the Mineral County Independent News, said that when Garcia was a county commissioner, “he went out in the hall and prayed before every important vote, but it didn’t seem to help him much.”

Dan Becam, running for the ninth time as a Libertarian candidate, criticized both major parties as “Republocrats,” and said that if elected, he will vote to abolish the U.S. Department of Education because “education begins in the home.”

Daniel Hansen of the American Independent Party carried a sign that read: “If Guns Are Outlawed, How Can We Shoot the Liberals?” He wore a Stetson hat, a string tie, and a fierce expression.

“Don’t give up your guns, folks,” Hansen told the group. “That’s all we’ve got to protect us against the advance of socialism. America is in a survival phase.”

“I don’t know why it is, but we seem to attract these goofy candidates,” said Bill Martin, a Reno public relations man who is working for the Vucanovich campaign.

In the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate this year, Emil Tolotti Jr. took advantage of Nevada’s liberal election laws to place himself on the ballot as “God Almighty.” Fittingly, he voted absentee but received only 2% of the vote.

Something called the Natural Law Party has qualified for the November presidential ballot, although Nevada Secretary of State Dale Erquiaga said the party’s filing papers do not indicate which “natural laws” its adherents favor.

When the 2nd Congressional District seat was created in 1982, Vucanovich won out over a colorful assemblage, including a woman who had served time in federal prison for shooting up the Reno offices of the Internal Revenue Service, a cupcake salesman who said he would win because “it is the will of God,” and a man whose campaign manager was a large, belligerent dog.

Since then, Vucanovich has won handily four times, including a 58%-42% victory over Sferrazza in 1986.

But Mayor Pete, as many call him because his last name is difficult to pronounce, may be a more formidable opponent for Vucanovich this time.

“It’s a tough year for incumbents,” the congresswoman said in a telephone interview from Washington, “and it’s even tougher for Republicans since the President is obviously having trouble.”

As a result, she plans to spend $700,000 or more on the campaign--more than in her previous campaigns and probably three or four times more than Sferrazza is spending.

Vucanovich has been emphasizing her important House of Representatives committee assignments--Appropriations and Interior--and the role she has played in protecting the interests of Nevada ranchers and mining companies and in helping to keep a much-detested nuclear waste dump from being placed beneath Yucca Mountain, north of Las Vegas.

She is a staunch conservative who has supported presidents Ronald Reagan and Bush most of the time. The American Conservative Union gave her a 90% rating last year, while she received a zero from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action.

A 71-year-old great-grandmother, Vucanovich is a strong opponent of abortion under most circumstances and also has voted against the Family Medical Leave Act and other legislation supported by women’s organizations.

One of her major assets is a Cessna 182, which she and her husband, George, pilot around the district’s 110,000 square miles, including all of Nevada except Las Vegas and 80% of surrounding Clark County.

District voter registration is 48% Republican, 40% Democrat.

Sferrazza, 47, who calls himself a “reform Democrat,” is a lawyer who moved to the state in 1975 to become director of Nevada Indian Legal services. He has been mayor of Reno since 1983.

“He’s been a good mayor,” said Prof. Richard Siegel, chairman of the political science department at the University of Nevada at Reno. “He’s been progressive and fairly environmentally sensitive, although he has had to operate within very serious fiscal constraints.”

In 1989, Mayor Pete received unwelcome national publicity when his former wife, Leslie, to whom he has been married twice, posed nude for Playboy magazine.

“I think she did it as retribution against me,” Sferrazza said, though his ex-wife said at the time she posed to “restore my self-confidence” after a bitter divorce.

Now, Mayor Pete said, “we’re friends again.”