Columnist Jeff German: Lipman Brown vindicated in legislative prayer battle

Tuesday, June 3, 1997 | 11:32 a.m.

IT WASN'T EXACTLY an apology, but it was good enough for former state Sen. Lori Lipman Brown, D-Las Vegas.

Four of Brown's ex-Republican Senate colleagues -- Bill Raggio, Ray Rawson, Sue Lowden and Kathy Augustine -- have acknowledged in writing that they took things too far in accusing Brown of ducking morning prayers and the Pledge of Allegiance during the 1993 session.

The admissions have allowed Brown to drop her defamation suit against the four.

The suit dates to 1994, when Raggio, Rawson and Lowden, the Republican leaders of the Senate, signed their names to a letter raising the prayer allegations as part of a campaign ploy to help Augustine unseat Brown.

Augustine got much political mileage out of the claims even though Brown denied them.

Brown contended she was not un-American as Augustine's campaign attacks had alleged.

Brown also maintained that she did not participate in denominational prayers referring to Jesus Christ the last two weeks of the 1993 session because she is Jewish.

This week, after agreeing to drop her defamation suit against her former colleagues, Brown released letters all four had written setting the record straight.

It was 3 1/2 years too late to salvage her political career. But it was enough for Brown to proclaim with finality that she indeed was wronged by the influential Republicans. Lowden has since lost her own re-election bid.

"This makes all candidates for any political office aware that they can be held accountable for what they're saying," said Melvin Lipman, Brown's father and lawyer.

For the past 3 1/2 years, Lipman was relentless in pursuing legal claims against the four Republicans in his bid to clear his daughter's good name.

The concessions he won for Brown over the weekend during a mediation conference in Reno accomplished that goal.

The settlement closed the book on an ugly chapter at the Nevada Legislature and served notice to elected officials that the truth should be the ultimate objective in politics.

Lipman's persistence also showed that the little guy can get a fair shake in Nevada's judicial system, even when the odds are against it.

Because of the prominence of the defendants, all but one of Clark County's district judges had taken themselves off the case as it moved through the court system at a snail's pace.

In her letter to Brown, Augustine retracted campaign rhetoric in which she charged that Brown had "actively opposed prayer" and refused to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Augustine said Brown was right all along in standing up for her own religious beliefs.

Wrote Augustine:

"As you indicated in your speech on the Senate floor, your decision to pray separately was actually the result of your discomfort of praying to Christ each day as you are not Christian; rather than an opposition to prayers generally.

"It is my understanding that, when the prayers included you (and were nondenominational), you prayed with the other senators."

Augustine also admitted using an "unfortunate choice of words" when she claimed in campaign literature that Brown "refuses" to cite the pledge.

"I acknowledge that you had a 100 percent voting record for veterans and had never actually done anything to my knowledge which showed anything but the utmost respect for our flag and for the veterans of our nation," Augustine wrote.

Raggio, Rawson and Lowden acknowledged in their letters to Brown that they were overzealous in their 1994 correspondence attacking the one-term senator.

"The words 'every day' and 'each day' in our 1994 letter may have led some people to conclude that we were referring to the bulk of the 1993 legislative session," the trio wrote.

"However, our comment referred only to the approximate two-week period at the end of the legislative session during which Ms. Brown intentionally absented herself for the opening prayer."

Raggio and company also acknowledged that Brown participated in the Pledge of Allegiance during the majority of the 1994 session.

In return for the admissions of the four Republicans, Brown wrote them each a letter indicating she no longer believes they are anti-Semitic.

This week, Brown issued a statement saying: "The purpose of my lawsuit was to make the truth known. We've waited 3 1/2 years to clear my name."

It didn't come easy, but in the end, Brown found the truth. And the system worked.