Jackson calls for major voter registration drive

LAS VEGAS - The Rev. Jesse Jackson urged members of the black community to do whatever they can to register at least 20,000 more people to vote so Nevada can help shape the next president's agenda.

Jackson said Tuesday that Nevada needs to initiate a major voter registration drive because so much is riding on who the state elects as its next U.S. senator - Democrat Ed Bernstein or Republican John Ensign.

He said putting 20,000 to 30,000 more votes on the books ''will determine the next senator.''

''We will be a cool spot in the desert come November,'' Jackson told about 150 people gathered at a local library in west Las Vegas.

Jackson, who twice sought the Democratic presidential nomination, cautioned the crowd that before voting for GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush or Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore, consider who they want on the president's team.

''You might vote for that team, but at least know who's on the team,'' he said.

Jackson has been tapped by the Gore campaign as its liaison to the party's liberal factions.

He said voters should pick the team that will raise the minimum wage, stand for a patients' bill of rights and give women the right to choose.

He poked fun at Republicans, saying that at their national convention, ''They had all these black and brown people at the party, but not in the party.''

He called the Democrats the ''all-American team.''

Jackson criticized Bush for letting the death penalty continue in Texas and said he and his father, whom he called the ''Bush boys,'' are just privileged people who were born into wealth.

''Both of them were born on third base and thought they hit triples,'' he said.

Jackson was insistent that the Ensign-Bernstein race is not only critical to Nevada, but to Congress as well.

He said a vote for Ensign would be an anti-labor, anti-woman and anti-patient bill of rights vote.

Ensign's camp disputed those claims.

''I'm certain the reverend was campaigning for the Democratic Party, but he's not from Nevada and may not know the facts as well as a Nevadan might,'' Ensign's campaign manager Mike Slanker said.

Jackson called on the black community to initiate a voter registration drive at churches, high schools and colleges. ''We simply have too many unregistered voters,'' he said.

Patricia Cunningham said she and many others in the black community have tried to register voters, but it hasn't been enough.

Nevada has 945,760 registered voters, but only 21 percent turned out in the Sept. 5 primary election. In Clark County, there are 615,169 registered voters. Just 22 percent voted in the primary.

''There's a perception in the black community that their vote has been taken advantage of,'' said Cunningham, founder of the Alliance for Social Justice, which works to advance education issues.

She said voter apathy doesn't just affect the black community, but ''certainly the black community stands to lose more.''