Elizabeth Halsteth: My Thoughts By Andrew Davey

In case you missed the big news, State Senator Elizabeth Halseth (R-Enterprise) resigned from office on Friday. Halseth claims she’s leaving because she can’t find work in Nevada, but the real reason may involve the desire to be with her new boyfriend out of state. And for all the “tea party” talk of personal responsibility, Halseth was especially willing to blame all her problems on President Obama and “reckless bloggers” in her resignation letter.

How precious.

What’s especially appalling for us is that she and her “proud” apologists are still acting like she did nothing wrong.

Now we don’t want to judge Elizabeth Halseth for her personal life choices. However, we can’t ignore her consistent votes against equality. While many of us were in Carson City last March for Equality Days, Halseth came to our breakfast at the Legislature building. She greeted Equality Days participants warmly, and it seemed like she was genuinely interested in learning about the issues affecting Nevada’s LGBTQ families. So when she later voted against every pro-equality bill, from workplace equality to protecting kids in school from dangerous bullying, we were quite disappointed.

No, it’s not that Elizabeth Halseth is a Republican. Our problem goes further than that. We were troubled that Halseth was more interested in pursuing a narrow ideological agenda and pleasing out-of-state special interests than actually doing her job and serving her constituents.

So instead of finishing her term and fulfilling her duties to constituents in Senate District 9, Elizabeth Halseth is fleeing Nevada with her new boyfriend. Wow. If only a transgender Nevadan seeking work or a gay person seeking to marry his ill partner were that fortunate…

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