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LAS VEGAS (AP) — A PAC is launching a $1.2 million ad blitz this week to criticize Democratic Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto for her role in ride-hailing service Uber's temporary shutdown in Nevada.
The three-week campaign starts Wednesday and is funded by Freedom Partners Action Fund, a conservative PAC affiliated with the billionaire Koch Brothers. It comes as Cortez Masto faces off with Republican Rep. Joe Heck in a highly competitive race that will determine who replaces retiring Sen. Harry Reid and which party holds a majority in the U.S. Senate.
The commercials say that Cortez Masto, who was Nevada's attorney general at the time, undermined people's livelihood when her office challenged Uber's launch in the state in 2014. Uber argued it didn't fall under the traditional definition of transportation companies and didn't need to go through the same regulatory hoops as taxi companies.
Freedom Partners officials say Cortez Masto was "overaggressive" in fighting the company, which eventually stopped operations at a judge's order. The ads characterize her challenge as a favor to taxi companies that donated to her campaign, referring to $70,000 in campaign contributions from cab companies and their owners from 2005 to 2010.
"She put campaign donors ahead of Nevadans, and protected special interests instead of us," the commercial says.
Cortez Masto's campaign says Uber was operating without a license, and she was enforcing laws to protect passenger safety. The campaign says her fight came after regulators at the Nevada Transportation Authority requested help.
"Considering they support Congressman Heck, someone who is part of the dysfunction and gridlock in Washington, we guess it isn't surprising that the Koch Brothers would attack Catherine Cortez Masto for actually doing her job," said Zach Hudson, a spokesman for Cortez Masto.
Cortez Masto's campaign also says the ads lie about the status of Uber's operations by saying the company was driven out of town.
While Uber stopped running for a time, it later relaunched in Nevada, after lawmakers last spring authorized a regulatory structure specific to ride-hailing companies.
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