Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2001 | 11:18 a.m.
Special interests
Here's a list of lawmakers who got the most in campaign contributions from major special interests. Assembly members, who serve two-year terms, got the funds for 1998 campaigns. Senators serve four-year terms, and some got the funds for 1998 campaigns while others collected the money for 1996 campaigns:
CARSON CITY -- Special interests that include casinos, labor unions and business have "incredible leverage" over the Nevada Legislature because of their big campaign contributions and the problem is getting worse, says a group of social activists.
Large cash donations permit special interests to win 90 percent of the time when they are involved in an issue in the Legislature, says the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN) that issued its report Tuesday.
But Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio strongly disagreed, saying the contributions "don't give these groups any special favor, although these people (PLAN) may think so."
"We listen to the groups that don't give campaign contributions just as much as we do otherwise," Raggio said. "We certainly give them the same amount of time. And often they are on the right side of an issue."
The alliance is a group that includes organizations of racial minorities, women, labor unions, gay and lesbian groups, environmentalists, Planned Parenthood and trial lawyers.
Its study said $6.7 million was contributed to members of the 1999 Legislature, with $3.3 million coming from gaming, labor, business, mining and construction.
The casino industry contributed the biggest amount of any group -- $860,787. Paul Brown, Southern Nevada director of the alliance, said it paid off. "Lawmakers rubber-stamped the industry's entire agenda and gaming received tax breaks worth millions of dollars despite the fact that the state was experiencing budget shortfalls." He said the casino industry "has an iron grip on the state..."
The alliance said the gamers were able to defeat a bill to raise taxes, pass a follow-up bill to give a tax break worth more than $18 million to then-Mirage Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn concerning his art collection, and push through an electric deregulation bill that was aimed at helping lower the power costs for the industry.
While Wynn got an $18 million tax break, his Mirage Resorts casino group contributed $87,168 to lawmakers.
The only lobbyist singled out in the study was Reno lawyer Harvey Whittemore, who represented the tobacco industry. He defeated the Clark County Health District, the Clark County Commission and the city councils of North Las Vegas, Henderson and Las Vegas that supported giving local governments more authority to control smoking.
"The local governments proved to be no match for Whittemore," said Brown.
The study said tobacco interests gave $15,950 to the members of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, where the bill died. Whittemore said there has been a debate on this issue for 20 years and "our argument carried the day." He said the bill would have hurt the economy.
Whittemore, who represents a variety of interests at the Legislature, is one of the most successful lobbyists in Carson City.
The alliance said a clean-air bill to require inspection of diesel vehicles was severely weakened at the request of the construction, mining and transportation industries. Instead, the legislators agreed to spend $400,000 to study the problem.
Brown said, "Everyone in Las Vegas knows the air is dirty. On some days, it is difficult if not impossible to see the mountains during the winter months. The mountains are shrouded in haze with a significant amount of that haze coming from diesel vehicles."
He said that doesn't need another study.
Bob Fulkerson, state director of the alliance, said this was a "clear case of special interests prevailing over the citizens of Nevada. Special interests coughed up the money while regular Nevadans just coughed."
The group cited other cases where it believed that money talked in shaping the legislation to the will of those who donated.
Raggio said lawmakers should not be expected to turn a deaf ear toward the business sector of the economy. "We listen to those who oppose them just as well. I never thought that was a legitimate complaint."
Raggio said when all contributions are analyzed, trial lawyers, labor unions and the teachers unions are the biggest campaign contributors.
"I think this is just whose ox is being gored," Raggio said. "As far as access to Legislature, I think everyone gets a fair shot in this state."
But the alliance said, "Access is power, especially in the final days of the Legislature when lawmakers suspend the rules and basically conduct public business in private. If the public does not have 'access' to legislators when they are making decisions, then the public is powerless."
To remedy what it sees as the problem, the alliance proposes a system of public financing for the races for the Legislature. But it admits it can't get that passed in the Legislature or get enough signatures on an initiative petition to send it to the voters. Fulkerson estimates public financing may be anywhere from four years to 10 years in the future.
It would cost about $8 million to finance the legislative campaigns, said Brown. And that money could be raised by tacking a surcharge on civil penalties and adding a fee to the registered lobbyists in the Legislature. In fact, he said, Gov. Kenny Guinn could take that out of the estimated surplus of $200 million without putting a dent in it.
Jim Hulse, president of Common Cause, said the problem of campaign contributions isn't limited to the Legislature. He said a candidate gets a big war chest of money and it discourages other candidates from running.
"In Nevada's last gubernatorial campaign, Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa dropped out of the race because the state's No. 1 special interest -- gaming -- refused to contribute to her coffers," said the alliance.
Hulse said the same thing happens in the race for judges, where an incumbent piles up large contributions and lawyers are afraid to take him or her on.
"The whole system is an oligarchy run by big money," complained Hulse.
But the alliance conceded that doesn't always come true. Sen. Joe Neal, D-Las Vegas, who pushed for an increased tax on gaming, was opposed in the last election by a candidate backed by casino money. Neal won.
And the teachers unions, which contributed more than $300,000 to lawmakers, failed to get a pay raise from the 1999 Legislature.
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