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Last-minute attacks in any election are normal and many voters know that that is why they do not pay attention to those last-minute lies and innuendos.Most of the time that type of behavior is due to the lack of real credibility on the side of those bringing up the lie. The mainstream media doesn’t care because they are only interested in the advertising dollars and allow it to take place.
However, when a candidate and his campaign team misrepresent facts and mislead the public to gain the credibility they don’t have, it is bordering on the unethical and such actions are despicable, as far as we are concerned.
Richard Scotti has a television commercial in which he starts out inflating his qualifications and the truth about his background experience, then he ends by saying, “Your vote will allow me to keep serving you as a judge,” giving the impression that he is already a judge when he is not and has never been one.
Scotti’s desperation to be a judge got him to create his own Political Action Committee (PAC), known as Citizens For an Ethical Judiciary, and the first person Scotti endorsed with his Citizens For an Ethical Judiciary was himself, Richard Scotti. He then added a group of insecure and frustrated candidates belonging to Dave Thomas’ stable of judges that had to pay $1,000 each to be endorsed by the PAC.
Issues such as this one created by Richard Scotti and his master, Dave Thomas, are among the reasons why endorsements are losing the credibility of the intended endorsement process and the interest of those who used to gain the endorsement of unions and organizations that in the long run cannot force the members to vote for whomever the
group endorsed and have no way to verify who they do vote for.
These issues may cause voters to wonder why Richard Scotti is willing to gamble over $100,000 of his own money and beg to raise another $200,000 in contributions to try to get a job that pays that much only if you include insurance and other little perks.
Citizens For an Ethical Judiciary was founded and created by Melody Howard, the president of a local organization that in part is financially supported by Dave Thomas; it supposedly exists to cater to and care about veterans, but few of the endorsed candidates are veterans.
It is very noble to see a woman getting involved with veterans and the political scene of Southern Nevada to ensure that only “good” candidates are elected to represent the people of the community in which they reside.
However, in looking a little deeper into who Melody Howard is, the Las Vegas Tribune was surprised to learn that Melody Howard is employed by the law firm of Kemp, Jones & Couthard, the same law firm for which Richard Scotti works.
Coincidence? Some people who are familiar with the modus operandi of Dave Thomas are not surprised at all with this type of coincidence; however, a few of these people are surprised to see Richard Scotti operating such a dirty campaign and a few more of them were disappointed with such unethical behavior by a man for whom they were planning to vote.
Judges with impeccable reputations and stellar qualifications such as District Court Judge Kerry Earley in Department 4, District Court Judge Adriana Escobar (endorsed by Radio Tribune) in Department 14, and even District Court Judge Jerry Tao (who will never be endorsed by any organization under the Tribune umbrella until he apologizes to the founder of the Las Vegas Tribune) — who are all very well respected and are doing a good job on the bench — are paraded by Thomas and Scotti in the endorsement fliers that everyone knows costs the grand total of $1,000 each.
That is when the question is begged as to why judges with a good reputation, doing a great job, and with an impeccable record, need to pay for endorsements. The endorsements are given to qualified elected officials; why then do they have to pay?
It is because the endorsements belong to the campaign manager and who knows how many people participate in the splitting up of the $16,000 collected by the PAC, which is collected by the secretary in the law office where Richard Scotti works.
It is understandable that judges like Bill Gonzalez and Vincent Ochoa and Sandra Pomeranze pay for the endorsements due to the poor report card they all have with several organizations and with litigants in family court.
It is also understandable that Susan Bush had to pay for an endorsement after her campaign took a 360-degree turn when she allowed a pair of local attorneys to compromise her reputation by adding her to a campaign fund-raising event with Judge Doug Smith to make the judge look good by being connected with her.