Harry Reid speaks
and people chuckle. From
Politico:
Harry Reid�s prostitution lecture bombs
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.�
A bit more:
�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?�
And the numbers?
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.
Nevadans are ruing the day he got re-elected last November. Six years is a long time...
Posted by DaveH at February 24, 2011 8:44 PM