Second-term Nevada state Rep. Michele Fiore, who helped negotiate the surrender in February of anti-government activists occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, is the political pop star in the race for the Republican nomination in the third congressional district of Nevada, says Roll Call. The district runs from the southern tip of the state to the Las Vegas suburbs. It’s an open seat because incumbent Joe Heck is running for the Senate. Fifteen candidates – Republican, Democrat and third party members – filed to run. The Republican primary, on June 14, has a field of seven, including Michael Roberson, majority leader of the state Senate.
Fiore “went from local curiosity to national figure with two high-caliber standoffs involving Nevada’s Bundy ranching clan,” says Roll Call. The first involved unpaid grazing fees at the Bundy ranch in Nevada and the other was the takeover of the Oregon wildlife refuge. Fiore is a member of the Coalition of Western States, a group “dedicated to stopping government overreach” and putting public land under state control rather than the federal government.