Columnist Jon Ralston: Donors forced to fork it over

Saturday, Feb. 3, 2001 | 11:06 a.m.

Jon Ralston, who publishes the Ralston Report, writes a column for the Sun on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or by e-mail at ralston@vegas.com

DICK BRYAN did it. So did Harry Reid. And John Ensign. And many, many others -- Jan Jones, Lorraine Hunt, Bob Miller and Jon Porter.

Still others are contemplating committing the crime. Dario Herrera. Erin Kenny. Mark James. Dina Titus. Maybe even Oscar Goodman. To name only a few of the possible future offenders.

They would all be guilty of the same transgression: extortion.

Stop dialing your lawyers, all you elected officials mentioned above. I don't mean the kind of extortion that gets you thrown in prison, where you use threats and intimidation to enrich yourself. No, this is the kind where you can do it passively (although it's not always done this way), but the threats are nevertheless implied, the intimidation is palpable.

When a politician uses his title to raise money from people who come before him or her, it is legalized extortion, plain and simple. And it should not be legal. It's hard to do much about a county commissioner running for re-election asking developers and gamers for bundles of cash. Unless you go to public financing of campaigns, you can't stop that -- although you could narrow the fund-raising time frame or have more disclosure periods.

But when an elected official uses his or her job as a springboard for another office, thus using the power of that title to extract money from donors who have little choice, that can be stopped. And, as Legislature '01 convenes this week, it is one of the first laws the Gang of 63 should pass. That is, a statute that mandates two things: One, if you are running for another office, you must resign your current one. And, two, if you raise money for your current office, you cannot use those funds to run for another job.

With Gov. Kenny Guinn and lawmakers strangely silent on ethics laws this time as scandals continue to erupt in Southern Nevada local government, no single proposal could have a more salutary effect on the body politic. How many politicians do you think might devote more attention to their current jobs if they weren't spending so much time, and raising so much money, to run for others?

Yes, folks, I know I'm dreaming. The chances of politicians, many of whom covet higher office, passing a law that would make stepping up that much more difficult probably is fantasy. But this is the dirty little secret of campaign-finance reform, the mirror-image of what most people think. When arguments are presented for fixing the money machine that drives politics, people lament the influence donations give the private sector. But what about the other side -- the influence over the private sector that these elected officials have when it comes to fund raising? They hold the hammer of regulation in one hand and a tin cup in the other. How can a casino say no to a county commissioner?

A relevant example: Besides being one of the state's most marketable political commodities, Clark County Commissioner Herrera is the front-runner for that third congressional seat because he can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from his perch. And he's the chairman, too.

The same was true when Gov. Bryan ran for the U.S. Senate, when Mayor Jones ran for governor, when District Attorney Miller ran for lieutenant governor, when Reps. Ensign and Reid ran for the U.S. Senate. And the same would be so if Mayor Goodman ran for governor, if Commissioner Kenny ran for attorney general or Congress, if state Sen. James ran for Congress or attorney general, if state Sen. Titus runs for the commission.

State senators actually are a perfect example. Porter ran for Congress midway through a four-year term. How much more difficult would his decision to run have been if he had to resign from the state Senate? And how many legislative supplicants would have contributed to his campaign if they knew he wasn't coming back and no longer had his title? Other state senators -- Ray Shaffer and Joe Neal come to mind -- ran for statewide office knowing that they would have their jobs waiting for them if they lost.

Ambition is not evil. But why shouldn't it be purified by forcing pols to show how badly they really want to serve as governor or on Capitol Hill? Oh, and one last point about passing a law forcing politicians to resign their current jobs to run for another: I'm still waiting to hear an argument against it.