Hafen seeking re-election in AD-36 against one GOP challenger

In the Republican primary for Nevada’s 36th Assembly District seat, incumbent Gregory Hafen II is seeking re-election against Joe Bradley, a Las Vegas chiropractor who ran for the seat in 2018.

There is no Democratic candidate running in November, so the winner of the GOP primary will assume the seat. Hafen was appointed in December 2018 after brothel owner Dennis Hof won the election posthumously.

The district covers three counties, most of Nye and Lincoln and the northwest section of Clark.

Hafen is the general manager of Pahrump Utility Co. Inc., a family-run water utility started by his grandfather. In an interview, he said his overarching priority was protecting the lifestyle of rural Nevada.

Bradley describes himself as an “addictionologist” who sees addiction as the nation’s No. 1 health care epidemic. He did not respond to two emailed requests for an interview. On his website, he said he is committed to “making sure that Nevada never becomes California.” He vows never to raise taxes, defend gun owner rights, and protect private water rights. He opposes abortion and says the Affordable Care Act “has been a disaster for Nevadans.”

As with most candidates, Hafen said the COVID-19 pandemic has upended his list of priorities if he is elected.

“If you’d asked me before the pandemic, I would have told you that my priorities were protecting the Second Amendment and actually trying to repeal some of the bad gun bills that were passed,” he said. Reapportionment following the 2020 Census remains important, he said.

But his top priority is “to really protect the rural lifestyle, because that’s the vast majority of my district.”

The pandemic’s effects on state spending and revenue, he said, will require a lot of tough decisions.” He and Republican colleagues, who are currently outnumbered just over 2-1 in the Assembly, have started “to look at the budget and not just look to see where we can cut things, but actually also look at areas where maybe we shouldn’t be cutting portions of the budget because they’re essential services.”

During his first term, Hafen said he kept a binder of potential future draft bills – “little minor red tape things” – that he hopes might find bipartisan support in the next session. He said he wants to resurrect a bill that would allow concealed firearms carry permit holders to keep their weapons locked in their vehicle when visiting a state university campus, while attending a sporting event, for example.

“A lot of the bills that come forward that are sponsored by legislators out of Vegas or Reno, they don’t necessarily see the unintended consequences to the rural communities of those bills,” he said. “It’s s just a matter of being able to sit down with them and say, ‘Hey, this is what’s going to happen to the rural communities if you do that, and is there a way to just tweak it a little bit so the impact on the rural communities isn’t as dramatic as it could be, or completely eliminated if we can possibly come up with a solution to do that.’”

Contact Capital Bureau reporter Bill Dentzer at bdentzer@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DentzerNews on Twitter.