Tea party activists gather at Legislature

More than 500 people gathered Thursday in the quad between the Capitol and Legislature for the second annual tax day protest - one of hundreds of similar gatherings across the country.

The Capitol protest also drew more than a dozen candidates, including Gov. Jim Gibbons and U.S. Senate contenders Sue Lowden and John Chachas.

"We're the only special interest group that matters," said Debbie Landis, president of Anger is Brewing. "Taxpayers should be the only special interest group that counts in Washington, D.C."

Big government - and incumbents - were the clear targets of protesters.

"There's too much government in our life," Dottie Finnell of Dayton said. Her husband, John, carried a sign reading, "Harry Reid has embarrassed Nevada long enough."

Donald Frye of Silver Springs, sporting a long gray beard, sunglasses and a holstered pistol on his hip, said he came to the event to "show my support for the Constitution and make a distinction of how far we've gone from it."

He said he hasn't decided who he'll vote for in June, but will support "whichever Republican" wins.

Nancy Worthington, a former prosecutor for the Justice Department, said she was there because of concerns over what she called Washington's "over extension" of power.

"There has been a problem the last 10-20 years," she said, adding she believes the health reform bill pushed by Democrats and signed by President Obama in March violates the Constitution.

"We will end up with a single-payer plan. That's the inevitable consequence," she said.

Warren Jensen, 73, stood along the highway front holding a sign that read, "You can't fix stupid." Jensen said he's voted all his life, but never attended a political rally until the last year's tea party event, which drew more than 2,000 people.

"It's the way our government's going. The debt we're getting into," he said of his newfound activism. "The government is completely out of control."

Gibbons thanked the crowd for joining him "to celebrate aversion to taxes."

"All of you are speaking out about a government that has not listened to you for many years," he said. "It's time to take our government back. It's time to fire Harry Reid."

Chachas was applauded for helping make the event possible. He paid the $3,000 for liability insurance for the protest.

Chachas said that, as a businessman who rescues financially troubled companies, he is best equipped to shrink government. He said if elected to the Senate he would freeze remaining stimulus money, halt the growth of the federal government and begin a program of reducing government spending every year.

"Businesses do it all day long. Families do it all day long," he said.

Chachas said the problem is there are 535 people in Washington whose sole goal is to stay there.

Lowden told the crowd she is a "businesswoman who makes the tough decisions every day." She said she would cut corporate taxes to bring companies back to the U.S.

"Let's empower the private sector instead of what's going on now," she said. "Reid, the most powerful man Nevada has ever had in Washington, is not going back to Washington in November."

The crowd, which in the middle of a work day was predominantly seniors, was peaceful, as was the progressive TEA party demonstration across the street. Organizers of the large anti-tax protest invited the two dozen or so progressives to join them on the legislative grounds.

"Somewhere between the party of no and the party of yes are solutions," Landis told them.

Several counter-protesters, including Bob Fulkerson, director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, did so.

- The Associated Press contributed to this report.