Filing deadline gives candidates and voters interesting choices

Don Chairez demonstrated one of the most indecisive filing episodes I’ve ever observed, when in 1998 he couldn’t decide whether to run against Shelley Berkley. At the 5 p.m. deadline he finally did the deed, and probably shouldn’t have. He lost. Now she’s an entrenched, irrepressible and unbeatable Democratic congresswoman.

Chairez, a former judge, runs a lot and changes parties a lot, so many times I’ve lost track. However, he was a Republican when he ran for Congress and again for attorney general. This time he’s a Democrat challenging District Attorney David Roger, a Republican.

I can never decide whether the likable Chairez can’t decide which party he believes in, or whether he’s trying to figure out which party offers him the better chance of victory.

Then there is Kevin Child, a perennial loser as a Republican. In what is expected to be a GOP year, he opts to run for Assembly District 8 (the seat Speaker Barbara Buckley is term-limited out of) and suddenly he’s a born again Democrat in a district in which Democrats outnumber Republicans.

A change of faith or an opportunist? You decide.

Assembly District 15 candidate Lou Toomin, a one-time assemblyman as a Democrat who turned Republican and lost a bunch of races, again is a Democrat.

Can’t these people make up their minds?

Assembly District 14 is already shaping up as a down-ballot race to watch.

Assemblywoman Ellen Koivisto, a Democrat, can’t run because of term limits, so her husband, Victor Koivisto, hopes to keep it all in the family.

This is another heavily Democratic district, courtesy of the 2001 reapportionment in which district lines were drawn to equal out the number of people in each district. Surely it was just a coincidence Democrats and Republicans drew the lines so that no matter who ran in their districts in the future, the same party would stay in power. Surely.

So far, only Democrats have filed for that seat. Maggie Carlton, the Culinary union waitress swept into the state Senate in 1998, is term-limited out of the Senate. She’s running for Koivisto’s seat in the Assembly, so she can still promote and defend union positions. But former Clark County Commissioner Karen Hayes, now remarried and known as Karen Hayes King, also filed to run. This could be a race where there’s stiff competition between three candidates all pulling from different Democratic constituencies.

Then there’s the two Steve Sansons, father and son, who don’t even give you a fighting chance to distinguish one from another by using Jr. and Sr.

Nope. Both are on the ballot as Republicans.

The dad is running for Clark County public administrator, and the son is running for state Senate District 12. Maybe the duo think that whatever positive vibes the voters feel for one, they’ll feel for the other, and their money will stretch twice as far and spread their name recognition far and wide. However, the negative news attaches to both as well. Dad was arrested on two gun charges in January while he was intoxicated.

OK, I can’t vote for anyone named Steve Sanson because both are trying to deceive me by not even using Jr. and Sr.

Two days left for the races to take final shape, for good or bad. But count on some surprises by 5 p.m. Friday.

Nevada politics are always filled with surprises … and embarrassments. And yes, some thoughtful candidates who actually care about policy. Seek them out.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison.