Craig Mueller, candidate for Nevada attorney general, stopped into The Ely Times office for a quick interview before he continued on his travels across the state in his campaign travels.
Mueller spoke of how he had an uncle who lived in Elko, and they would travel the state noting that it wasn’t the ride that was the hard part it was all of the stopping along the way to all the people they knew. It was the politics of the drive he noted.
Mueller went to the Naval Academy and was recommended by Senator Paul Laxalt in 1979.
Mueller is 57, and for the first time ever he began considering the end of his legal career and what he wanted to do with it.
“I have always been interested in public service but I’ve never run, and I’d like to give back to the community. I believe in limited government, if I do nothing else I want to sue the BLM, I can find no constitutional authority for a BLM.”
Mueller spoke about the Bundy case, citing that he could talk all day about it, but he wanted to touch on how there were two government’s trying to control the same piece of land, there was the federal government and the state government fighting over who was in charge of a piece of land, and as horrible as that whole Bundy thing was, nothing got solved.
“There was an unnecessary standoff, thank god for Sheriff Gillespie, his timely intervention, and I believe that was the only thing that prevent blood shed.”
Mueller stated that now the BLM has a couple of people to keep track of federal unclaimed land that was going to be given to the states to become this all uncompassing burden and there’s no authority over the constitution.
“There is no authority for it, and I don’t think anybody who wants to make a career out of politics is going to have the gumption to go into court and piss off the feds but that’s what I want to do.”
Mueller spoke about his career and noted that he has done about 150 jury trials, mentioning that he has done more trials than this opponent, laughing stating that he’s done more trials during the campaign then his candidate has done in his life.
“That’s a simple statement of fact,” Mueller said.
When asked what his mission and goals were he said he wants to sue the feds, and he wants to enforce the State constitution.
“There are several key provisions in our constitution that we don’t enforce, one which is Article Three, Section One, no person can assume duties in two branches of government at the same time. You can read that to mean no public employees in the legislature, it’s old as the bible, and it’s enshrined in every concept of western democratic thought, branches of government have different functions and are kept separate to prevent cronyism and prevent a tyrannical form of government from evolving.
This idea that we;re going to have six full time legislaturers or legislaturers that that are full time employees and another half dozen that have really strong ties to the government is just wrong and the second thing I’m going to do is day one I’m going to file for injunction and I’m going to force them to pick a side. You can be a legislaturer you can be an employee but you can’t be both.”
This could be an uphill battle for Mueller, but he agreed saying that he is not a politician, “I promise you if I don’t win my life will be just fine.”
Mueller understands he’s not going to make friends, and mentioned that he has spent a life time unfortunately standing on toes to enforce the law on both sides of prosecution and defense but it’s got to happen he said.
Mueller said “I’m not afraid of tough subjects. I intend to run a significantly more activist office, I’m not afraid to pick up a file and go to trial, that’s s what I’ve done for 25 years and that’s what I’d like to do on the behalf of the State of Nevada.
“It’s my plan when I run the office, I’m not sitting behind a desk letting people shuffle me information, and I want to get out to court at least once a month, and it would send a very strong message I expect people to represent the state aggressively.”
Mueller plans on coordinating a meet and greet in the future in Ely.
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