Four-term assemblyman, political newcomer face off for AD4 seat

Four-term Assemblyman Richard McArthur faces political newcomer Darby Lee Burns, a Libertarian, in the race for northwest Las Vegas Assembly District 4.

No Democrat has filed for the race.

McArthur served as the district’s assemblyman from 2008-12, and then again from 2016-18. The Las Vegas Republican most recently won the seat in 2020.

McArthur, a former FBI agent and U.S. Air Force pilot who served in Vietnam, said he’s running again for the same reason he originally ran for the seat in 2008.

“I was looking around at what was going on and I just didn’t like what was happening in our state,” he said. “What I really wanted to do was make Nevada a good place to be, a good place to live, raise a family, feel safe. Those are the things I wanted to do for our state. So that’s why I keep running.”

McArthur said he’s proposing a bill that would cut down on the number of bill draft requests that can be introduced.

“I think we have way too many bills that are through for us to really look at them, talk them over, read them and that sort of thing,” he said. (In the 2021 session alone, the Legislature saw 958 bills introduced in the Assembly and Senate.)

McArthur’s other priorities include school choice, the economy and supporting law enforcement.

Burns was born and raised in Las Vegas.

A self-identified “austro-libertarian,” Burns said he decided to run when the Democrats failed to produce a candidate to challenge the Republican incumbent.

“When the party leadership realized that there was no Democrat that was going to be running, they called me because I’m the only person who’s an active participant in our state party who lives in this district. I felt I had to step up and run even though I never would have before,” he said.

Burns, a music industry entrepreneur of five years, got involved with the Libertarian Party of Nevada about a year and half ago after becoming interested in politics amid the implementation of COVID-19 related mandates.

Burns supports the “full decriminalization” of sex work and drug possession.

“I’m not at all against the distribution of drugs. I believe that if free people want to purchase drugs, that it’s an impairment of the person’s freedom and individual liberty inherent natural in our humanity to have that restricted from them,” he said.

Burns also named “Defend the Guard,” a nationwide movement to block the federal government’s ability to deploy states’ National Guard service members overseas without a formal declaration of war by Congress, and making it illegal for police agencies to seize people’s assets as primary policy goals.

Contact Taylor R. Avery at TAvery@reviewjournal.com. Follow @travery98 on Twitter.