Emailed by David Colborne to [email protected]:
At 14.6%, nearly 5% higher than the national average, Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the nation. Consequently, when Harry Reid, Nevada’s senior politician in Washington and the current Senate Majority Leader, came to address the Nevada Legislature on Tuesday, his focus was, logically enough, on jobs. He discussed how many jobs his support for the stimulus package from two years ago had saved, noting especially how much money went directly to Nevada’s teachers from the stimulus. He highlighted his efforts at bringing clean energy companies to the state and how many jobs that would bring in.
Then he suggested that Nevada, the state with the highest unemployment rate in the nation, should abolish an industry.
Thirty years ago this year, Storey County became the first county in Nevada to officially license and regulate a brothel, starting with the infamous Mustang Ranch. Now, Nevada’s safe, well regulated brothels employ hundreds of women, providing a substantial boost to the local and regional economies and tax bases that they serve. Every year, for example, each brothel in Storey County is required to furnish at least $75,000 a year in licensing fees – each brothel effectively pays the entire salary, including health and retirement benefits, of one school teacher, and that doesn’t even include property or sales taxes. Brothels also exhibit a salutary effect to the tourism industry, providing yet another unique attraction to advertise that’s only available in Nevada. They do all this while maintaining the safest working conditions for prostitutes and their customers in the country, if not the world, with regular screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and a consistent application of the same labor and safety laws followed fastidiously by every other legitimate business in the country. Consequently, drugs, diseases, and pimps might all be common ailments of illegal streetwalkers, but they’re unheard of among the employees of Nevada’s legal brothels.
How would abolishing this industry bring jobs to Nevada? It wouldn’t, unless you relied upon the anecdotal evidence of one senator, who quoted a single, unnamed businessman that was mortified that brothels were legal in Nevada. According to Senator Reid, there are legions of parents and businessmen who fear that their children will see a brothel on their way to school; this is curious since less than 10% of Nevada’s 2.7 million people live in a county with a licensed brothel present. Surely the longest serving Senator for the state of Nevada could point these parents and businessmen toward any of Nevada’s brothel-free urban school districts, including the ones serving Carson City, Reno, or Las Vegas?
Of course, Nevadans know the real reason why Senator Reid wishes to end legal prostitution in Nevada – it’s politics, pure and simple. Nevada’s rural counties failed to support Senator Reid, so he wants to cut their economies off at the knees. Even when Nevada’s unemployment rate is the worst in the nation, Senator Reid can’t help but put petty, partisan politics above the needs of his constituents.
David Colborne is the Chair of the Nevada Capital Libertarian Party (http://www.nvclp.org) and the Northern Regional Representative for the Libertarian Party of Nevada (http://nv.lp.org). He can be reached at [email protected].
Got some more info about this from LG. Article coming later (probably tomorrow at this rate). In the meantime…..
Debra Dedmon to SWOP-LV:
Hi , Im Debra Dedmon , Im a Libertarian Party activist and I started a Libertarians for Saving Nevada Brothels Face Book group .
I was thinking the exact same thing as you .
I got your guys name from some JD Holveck , who asked me to be on his radio show Tuesday night along with a rep from your org…
Anybody know who’s going on with me and Id also love a good resource for statistics so I can polish up a little before the show…lol
cant wait to work together 🙂
debra dedmon
Susan Lopez responds:
Hi all,
I apologize- I have been extremely overstretched lately with finishing the history of prostitution exhibit at the EHM, and Sagan’s playdates, and then Harry Reid’s craziness on top of it all, to which we needed to respond immediately (I wish I had done so earlier!!). JD messaged me on FB to see if I wanted to go on the show to talk about this, so I accepted. I am going on not necessarily as a SWOP rep, because I didn’t have time to run it by the group, but as an individual. I would be happy to go on to officially represent SWOP if you’re all ok with that. I also plan to run it by the NV/SNV NOW Board, to see if I can say I represent them too. 🙂
So, Debra, I will be joining you! Please call me and we can chat re this!
xoxo Susan 702-xxx-xxxx
“No bad women. Just bad laws.”
The US is the world’s #1 user of illegal targeted killings by drones and the Obama
admin has done more of them than the Bush admin. Drones kill not only the people who
they target but also civilians in the area. Two studies conclude that between 33% and 90% of
the deaths from drones are civilians.
http://www.nevadadesertexperience.org/lit/Drone.Strike_War.Crime.pdf
Larry Ashley responds:
Go for it.
(P: I presume that means that Susan Lopez will be on as a Sex Workers Outreach Project-Las Vegas representative, with Debra Dedmon of the Libertarian Party, on JD Holveck’s Grotto Radio on VegasallNetradio.com, this Tuesday night 3/1/11, 8-10 PM Pacific Time. If any of that is wrong let me know).
K…send me everything on that…I’ll work up another post closer to show time
correct but I had contacted their org b4 the radio offer looking for allies so who knows how the offer came about
I only did a modest amount of promotion , maybe an hr. I made a FB group , shot out an email to some folks , gathered a little research on potential allies and finally , pitched the idea to my state and county affiliates .
No response at the County level from any excom member. No response from the state LP save David Coleborne , Isabel Isherwood , Sandra Darby and a few others
That’s what I thought you meant the first time 🙂
So, you don’t know who the other person is, is how I understand it now..
that was me ill be on the show as a guest with another guest from SWOPNV
Yes, but when you said BTW ill be doing a radio show on tuesday with a rep from the SWOPNV
http://www.swopusa.org/
ill post the link later
was that you or quoting?
lol , im debra dedmon , LibertarianGirl , LP activist and the 2nd post was an email sent 2me..
Are you one of them, or was someone else posting under your name @ 5-6 or were you just copy and pasting?
dont know
So who are the guests on the show going to be?
http://vegasallnetradio.com/Programs/ProgramDetails/tabid/417/program/724/Default.aspx
Yeah, might as well run with it 🙂
upon further reflection Im becoming convinced this is simply a diversionary tactic of some kind … Reid knows it wont pass but its still an excellent opportunity to make allies and piggy back some media and champion a cause we stand for . Im sure the hoopla will be short lived so im gonna try and milk it
LG – make sure to remind me about that radio show
My friends in the business have told me that a lot of control freaks, such as politicians, have a jekyll/hide personality and let their submissive side out in sexual settings, while others are bullies through and through.
Harmless Harry Reid
Could help a girl in need
He could let her work
But he likes to jerk
So from her bad sin
She is freed!
Greetings. My name is JD Holveck, and I run a show called Grotto Radio on VegasallNetradio.com. I’m a supporter of SWOP-LV and am having one of the high ranking members of SWOP-Lv to talk about this issue on my radio show this week. I’d like to invite you on the show as well. It would be on Tuesday night starting at 8pm Pacific. This is something I support fully and would love to get you take on it.
Hope to hear back from you soon.
Enjoy
-JD
BTW ill be doing a radio show on tuesday with a rep from the SWOPNV
http://www.swopusa.org/
ill post the link later
Sen Ensign (Rep-Nevada) opposes banning prostitution according to Fox News:http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/24/ensign-nevada-ban-prostitution/#
Yes I know it is Fox News, but why would they lie about this?
From my ex’s experience in that business, and others I have known, that seems entirely plausible.
Maybe Reid is stimulated by illegal prostitution? I would not be surprised.
Reid is a waste of old, leathery skin that could make a nice saddle for a horse somewhere, perhaps in Storey County.
And to the article, completely agreed!