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United States News Title: Harry reid more worried about prostitutes than economy The most powerful man in the United States Senate, addressing the legislature of his home state at a time of fiscal chaos and potential government shutdown, had something he wanted to talk about Tuesday: hookers. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s impassioned lecture landed in Carson City with a thud. "The time has come for us to outlaw prostitution,” Reid said in his biennial address to the Nevada legislature and an audience that included a legal brothel owner, legal prostitutes and the legal industry’s state lobbyist. Reid paused at that point, one of the few times he did so in a half-hour speech he otherwise seemed to rush through. No one applauded. The whorehouse owner in attendance, Dennis Hof of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, told reporters on the scene: “Harry Reid will have to pry the cathouse keys from my cold, dead hands.” No bills addressing prostitution have been introduced in the current session of the Silver State’s 63-member legislature — which is expected to have its biggest battles in the coming months over the state’s massive budget gap and redrawing the lines of legislative and congressional districts — leaving many lawmakers to wonder where Reid was coming from. “I think everybody is just kind of laughing up their sleeve about it,” said Assemblyman Pete Goicoechea, a Republican from rural Eureka. “I can promise you there’s not any kind of a movement to bring a bill forward.” State Sen. Sheila Leslie, a Reno Democrat, said she didn’t see prostitution coming on the legislature’s radar: “We are consumed by the the budget and its implications for our state,” she said. Legislators of both parties generally see legal prostitution in Nevada, the only state that permits it, as a settled issue of local control by the rural counties where it is allowed. Many voiced surprise that Reid brought it up. Goicoechea, a rancher, joked: “You know, they say sheepherding is the second-oldest profession. Is he going to try to do away with us too?” What prompted Reid to call for abolishing prostitution wasn’t clear. In the speech, he framed it as a matter of economic development — but also a matter of shame. Reid said he’d “recently met with a group of businessmen who run data centers for technology companies” and were thinking of opening a facility in Storey County, a rural area southeast of Reno with less than 5,000 residents. “But one of the businessmen in that meeting told me he simply couldn’t believe that one of the biggest businesses in the county he was considering for his new home is legal prostitution,” Reid said. “I’ve talked to families who feel the same way — parents who don’t want their children to look out of a school bus and see a brothel, or to live in a state with the wrong kind of red lights.” Reid added, “We should do everything we can to make sure the world holds Nevada in the same high regard you and I do.” Though the prostitution remarks amounted to less than 250 words in a more than 4,000-word speech, they immediately, and unsurprisingly, grabbed all the headlines. Nevada’s legal brothels are a relic of the state’s beginnings as a mining and ranching territory. Prostitution is not legal in Reno or Las Vegas; the state’s rural counties can choose whether to allow it, and many do. There are 28 legal bordellos in the state, ranging from lonely trailers along desolate highways to resort-style complexes with tennis courts and swimming pools not far from urban areas. The last time a bill was introduced to ban prostitution statewide was 1985, and it did not even get a committee hearing. In recent years, the brothel owners are more often summoned to the halls of state to beseech lawmakers to impose taxes on them. They believe that being part of the tax base would make it that much harder to outlaw them. But lawmakers have consistently turned down their offer to contribute to the state’s coffers. What no one could figure out was why Reid chose to stir the pot on an issue he’s never previously shown an interest in. In his memoir, “The Good Fight,” Reid recounted learning to swim at a brothel in his hometown of Searchlight, Nev. — the town, he wrote, had 13 brothels and no churches — and that his mother did laundry for the local whorehouses. He has never publicly opposed the state’s brothels before, though one of his sons, Reno lawyer Leif Reid, in 2002 represented a business group that opposed the opening of a Storey County brothel. Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, voiced the standard line Tuesday when he told local reporters he thought the issue ought to be left to local jurisdictions. Lawmakers and lobbyists in Carson City generally shrugged off Reid’s lecture on the topic, which his staff had reportedly tried to talk him out of mentioning. “When I initially heard he was going to mention it I was very surprised, just because it hasn’t been an issue for many [legislative] sessions and there haven’t been any problems,” said Senate Minority Leader Mike McGinness, a Republican with brothels in his district. “It’s always been a local option, and I think that’s where we ought to leave it.” Storey County Commissioner Bum Hess said taxes paid by the county’s two brothels account for about $1 million of the county’s roughly $12 million budget, including licenses, room taxes and property taxes. He believes legal prostitution is safer than illegal prostitution and regulating it reduces crime. “I wouldn’t want my niece or daughter or aunt doing it, but we choose to regulate and control it,” he said. Hess said the county’s Tahoe-Reno industrial center, the nation’s largest industrial park — mentioned approvingly in Reid’s speech — doesn’t seem to be suffering because of the supposed stigma of prostitution. “Since we’ve had the two brothels, we’ve had plenty of Fortune 500 companies move into the industrial park right next to them,” Hess said. “And the person who owns the industrial park also owns the brothels.”
Poster Comment: Quote: "What no one could figure out was why Reid chose to stir the pot on an issue he’s never previously shown an interest in". Maybe he's starting to fell irrelevant in his old age.... I guess that comes with knowing you had to cheat like hell to get re-elected......
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