‘LYING THROUGH HER TEETH’: NRCC Rips Titus as Gas-Tax ‘Relief’ Claim Collides With Her Own Record

Rep. Dina Titus is scrambling to defend her record on gasoline taxes after Republican challenger Carrie Buck revived a decades-old Nevada vote and a video of the longtime Democrat declaring, “You’ve got to raise the gas tax.”

The fight erupted after Titus accused Buck of distorting her record, pointing to her 2022 co-sponsorship of the Gas Prices Relief Act.

“The fact is I co-sponsored legislation in 2022, the Gas Prices Relief Act, to reduce the federal gas tax from 18.4 percent to zero,” Titus wrote on X, while blaming the war in Iran for Nevada gas prices reaching roughly $5.50 per gallon. The federal gasoline tax is actually 18.4 cents per gallon, not 18.4 percent. 

Titus is correct that she co-sponsored the 2022 legislation. The bill would have temporarily suspended the 18.4-cent federal gasoline tax through the end of 2022 and directed the Treasury Department to ensure the savings reached consumers. 

But there is a Nevada-sized catch.

In 1997, while serving in the Nevada Senate, Titus voted for Assembly Bill 525, which amended state law governing what happens when Washington cuts the federal gas tax. The measure passed the Senate 19-2, with Titus among the yes votes. 

The law says Nevada’s state fuel tax “will increase” if the federal tax is reduced or discontinued and requires the state increase to equal the federal reduction. The 1997 legislation removed a previous four-cent cap on that mechanism. That language remains in Nevada law today. 

Translation: a federal gas-tax cut could be offset by an automatic increase in Nevada’s state tax.

NRCC spokesman Christian Martinez unloaded on Titus after her attempted defense.

“This decrepit, washed-up hack is either senile or lying through her teeth,” Martinez wrote on X, before pointing to her 1997 vote. “She built the trap, sold fake relief, and screwed Nevadans. She doesn’t give a damn.” The reference to senility was political rhetoric, not a medical finding. 

Then there is Titus on tape.

During a 2020 infrastructure discussion with the American Council of Engineering Companies, Titus was asked how to finance the Highway Trust Fund.

“Well, you’ve got to raise the gas tax,” Titus responded, adding that increases should later take effect automatically. 

Buck seized on the contradiction Thursday.

“Dina Titus is lying and thinks you’re not paying attention enough to believe it,” Buck wrote on X. “Titus is clueless and out-of-touch, and will say anything to stay in office.”

With Las Vegas gasoline recently averaging about $5.50 per gallon, that 29-year-old vote has suddenly become anything but ancient history.

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