MV Voters Hear From Local Senate Candidate

Bill Parson, a novice Republican politician running for the U.S. Senate, told a Moapa Valley group on Saturday that he believes many of the major issues and problems facing America today could be solved if the federal government would return to the role envisioned by the Founding Fathers and outlined in the Constitution.

Parson said his number one priority if elected would be to lessen the federal government’s involvement in issues he believes should be the purview of the states.

Parson’s appearance at the Overton Community Center was at the behest of Tammy Symons, one of the driving forces behind a Moapa Valley group of “Tea Party” protesters, a grassroots movement that rallies against the current administration and most of its policies. Some of the 17 people in the group listening to Parson appeared to be quasi-supporters and members of Symons’ group, who protest taxes and other issues in front of the Overton center each week.

Although Parson said he resists the confining envelope in which a “conservative label” might place him, in many ways his campaign rhetoric echoes that espoused by the ultra conservative Tea Party protesters.

“The federal government is out of control,” he said. “It is incrementally removing our rights and impinging its will on us. We’re paying for an insufficient system … that’s taking the money out of the pockets of the taxpayers and putting it in the pockets of government and Wall Street.”

Parson explains that in many ways he is philosophically close to Libertarian thought on the Constitution with very strong beliefs in individual liberty and freedom, as well as the sovereignty of the states.

“This campaign is about restoring ‘We the People,'” Parson said. “The people of Nevada, like many others across our nation, are angered that Nevada’s (federal) elected officials are no longer representing the interests and values of our state. Even worse, their agenda is driving our nation down a path of collectivism and implementing socialistic programs that threaten to destroy the very foundation of our country.”

Parson, who spent 23 years in the United States Marine Corps and 10 years as a contract employee for the Department of Energy, has never held public office. A Texas native, he said he is the type of “non-politician candidate” the Founding Fathers envisioned.

“There are too many professional politicians who get elected right out of college and spend the rest of their life in government,” he said. “That was never the intent of the Founding Fathers. They envisioned a citizen legislature with people who have links to real work, making a payroll, running a business.

“These professional politicians lose touch with the common people,” Parson continued. “They lose touch with reality. They no longer have a tie back to the people in the community that elected them.”

Parson told those attending his speech he is a “lifelong Republican, but “I am embarrassed with others within my party with what they have done.”

He said that as a senator the major issues he would address include controlling national spending; lessening the international risk from Russia, China, the Middle East and North Korea, and achieving energy independence.

“I am a great believer in nuclear power,” he said. “I would like to see two, three, four or more nuclear power plants built at the test site.”

Concerning nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain, Parson said he believes the argument has been misdirected. With proper processing nuclear waste could be made safe enough to store.

On other issues such as gay marriage, abortion and health care should not be a concern of the federal government, he said. Those are issues that should be addressed at the individual state level.

“Let each state decide how they want to deal those issues, moral issues,” Parson said. “In my mind health care absolutely is not a federal issue. I believe a few million dollars should be allocated to help states with health care, but the federal government should not try to impose some kind of a solution.”