A small group of locals meets with Niger Innis of North Las Vegas, who is considering challenge 4th District Congressman Stephen Horsford. From left, Robin Rowley, Chris Higbee, Ed Higbee, Innis, Millie Walch and Vaughn Higbee. (Dave Maxwell photo)
Tea Party member and national spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality, Niger Innis made a stop in Alamo Oct. 15, to meet with interested Republicans at Windmill Ridge.
Innis, of North Las Vegas, said he is giving strong consideration to a run for the Nevada 4th Congressional District seat currently held by Democrat Stephen Horsford.
Only a few came out to the Noon meeting at Windmill Ridge. Following the meeting in Alamo, Innis was headed to Ely.
Born in the Bronx, New York, Innis grew up in Harlem, and is a graduate of Georgetown University in Washington D.C. majoring in political science and American history.
He has had a career as a political commentator on Fox News and National Public Radio, and said he was part of the first political commentary team put together by MSNBC in 1996. He said “MSNBC had a different philosophy back then of really trying to bring different points of view to debate the issues of the day.”
During the meeting at Windmill Ridge, he heard Ed and Vaughn Higbee talk a lot about the fight they, and most of Lincoln County, have had with federal regulators and environmentalists. Both said, “The Feds just want to stop us at every turn.” Nearly 98 percent of the state of Nevada is federal land, and 87 percent in Lincoln County.
Ed Higbee said the government gives lip service to disposing of federal land, “but won’t do it.”
Innis said he would like to see a coalition, an alliance of energy consumers in Lincoln and Clark County and producers in the north. “If we can bring those groups together for the benefit of all with lower energy prices, let some inner-city black kid know that he has something in common with some white cowboy up here, that’s a powerful alliance.”
Commenting about Horsford, Innis said, “I think Horsford represents a narrow strip of liberal Democrat interests. He takes his marching orders from Harry Reid and Dina Titus, and I can be a better representative of all the people. That includes the cowboys up here, and the home boys down south.”
He said he plans to make his decision as to whether to challenge Horsford or not, by Jan. 1, 2014.
Meanwhile, the 73-year old Reid has announced he will seek a sixth term in the Senate in 2016, and according the Innis is already looking at the race. “This district was created for his golden boy (Horsford),” Innis said, “thinking that you get just enough of the rurals so that the Republican nominee has to cater to the rurals in the primary, but then they don’t become a viable candidate in the general election. He doesn’t want someone like me running in this race.”
Innis continued, “The Democratic leadership establishment and liberal media cannot afford to have someone like me to win a race in this district. If I win, I will be representing a district that is 50 percent minority, with a lot of Democrats, but it would be a pathway for true Constitutional conservatives to win elections in districts like this.”
Horsford, who was elected to the House in 2012, and recently announced he will run for re-election, underwent six-way bypass heart surgery in July after it was discovered two of the major blood vessels from the heart feeding vital organs were 100 percent blocked.
Horsford said is running again because he wants to finish work on some projects he’s already begun, such as the Yerington federal land bill that will see about 800 jobs created in copper mining. He’s convinced another bill — preserving the archeological finds at Tule Springs — will draw tourists to Nevada.
Steve Sebelius reported in his recent article in the Review-Journal, Horsford’s heart scare has renewed his interest in a another project he supported in the past: a full-fledged medical school in Southern Nevada. Currently, students from the University of Nevada, Reno medical school come to Las Vegas for clinical work after they finish the academic portion of their studies up north.
Horsford says he wants a school in Southern Nevada, training everybody from new doctors and nurses to experts in electronic medical records.
