Friday, Aug. 31, 2001 | 4:02 a.m.
Jon Ralston hosts the public affairs program "Face to Face" on Las Vegas ONE and also publishes the Ralston Report. His column for the Sun appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or by e-mail at [email protected]
CONTRITION is found in the political world even less often than fortitude. If only it were in greater supply, taxpayers would save money on predictable ethics hearings, politicians would save money spent on lawyers and avoid damage to their careers, and the media would have much less to talk about.
For instance, can anyone imagine a scene where Las Vegas City Councilman Michael Mack called a news conference to say the following: "I would like to say today that I know what I did was unethical. And I am sorry. I never should have taken a loan from someone over whom I have power as a councilman. That was wrong. It doesn't matter whether I had paid him back or not.
"And, of course, it's also obvious I should never have solicited investments in my business from others who come before the city, people like Billy Walters and Michael Gaughan. That was wrong. And I am sorry. These were bad mistakes. I was not thinking. I apologize to my constituents and my colleagues for the embarrassment."
The public is often ignorant, but the people are forgiving. In a business where sorry seems to be the hardest word, it is often the best lifeline to escape political quicksand. Instead, politicians wriggle and sink further by serial dissembling, legal wrangling and finger-pointing. An abundance of ego, a dollop of hubris and a lot of denial play into the decision to endure an elongated public flogging rather than a moment of public confession.
Mack is no different in most ways -- although he will suffer more because he can't seem to keep his story straight and he has unusually aggressive antagonists. After watching the vaudeville act last week wherein two members of the city Ethics Review Board voted to move forward on a complaint against Mack -- amid conflicting legal opinions and questions of due process -- I felt like I was watching a rerun. And a bad one.
This process has become a tragicomedy, familiar and interminable. The trajectory rarely changes: Politician does something stupid or corrupt -- or both. Ethics complaints are filed. Politician hires clever lawyer. Attorney uses legalisms and smokescreens to mask awful set of facts about client. Ethics boards governed by sometimes alien procedures reach a conclusion apparent to anyone and find the politician violated the code.
The story stretches out for months, the media drumbeat does not abate, the politician is forever damaged.
What has always surprised me about these high-profile cases is how clear is it even to the most benighted observer how egregious the conduct has been.
Mack has abused his city position --- of that there can be no doubt. Like ex-Councilman Frank Hawkins (golf tournament) and Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates (daiquiri stands), he has gone to people he regulates and asked them to invest in his business. It may never be clear whether he behaved this way with malice aforethought or whether he just doesn't get it. But he did it. End of story.
Or it would be, if he'd just say this was more than his lame story about not realizing the loan was outstanding -- a fact of little relevance vis-a-vis ethics. The councilman eventually will have to say more when he is sworn in during the ethics and court proceedings.
He surely will have to explain why he developed such a close relationship with Courtesy owner Joe Scala that the car magnate would be writing personal checks to Mack's bank to pay down a loan. Mack also should have to detail exactly who he solicited to invest in his sinking pawn business, when he made the offers and how that might have affected his judgment on votes on their issues.
The council has mucked up the process by changing the ethics procedures in the middle of the Mack complaint and withholding appointment of new members. Then again, if they waited until there are no complaints pending, the council folks' grandchildren might be seeking a council seat.
And, yes, Mack's attorney Rick Wright (speaking of reruns, he must be getting sick of these) correctly points out that Scala's rivals are manipulating the process to reverse a council decision. And he is dead-on about how the city and state ethics boards should not hear the same complaints. (The council actually should have abolished its own board, set up by a bunch of self-righteous predecessors, some of whom were later hoisted on their own pandering pitard.)
But all of those ancillary issues cannot obscure the reality that Mack has behaved unethically and very, very foolishly. By continuing to drag this out, he can't win. Even if he is absolved by the ethics panels and in court, people will just flay the ethics process and continue to believe he is an unethical, arrogant politician.
Like many before him, he could have headed off all of the pain to come -- or at least some of it. But I won't hold my breath now for his contrition-laden news conference.
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