Clarification sought on campaign funds

Thursday, Jan. 24, 2002 | 10:49 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- State election officials received a request for interpretation into whether a Las Vegas councilman was legally allowed to use campaign funds to pay for his defense of ethics and criminal charges.

Political activist Robert Rose wrote a letter to Susan Morandi, the deputy secretary of state in charge of elections, asking her to define whether Councilman Michael McDonald's use of $23,319 in campaign funds to pay a lawyer who defended him last year was a proper expenditure of campaign donations. Morandi was at a meeting at Lake Tahoe Wednesday and could not be reached for comment.

Morandi has said that personal use of campaign funds is a violation of the law, but her office wouldn't weigh into the fray until it received a complaint or a request.

Legal experts say there is a gray area in the law as to whether an elected official can use campaign money to pay for the legal defense of an ethics probe. Attorneys for the city and county have advised that it is acceptable, while critics say it appears to be a personal matter and thus banned.

The law, experts say, isn't clear.

Rose said Morandi would probably ask the office of Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa for legal advice. But he said the law needs to be defined.

"I'm not trying to pick on anybody," Rose said. "But if the law is ambiguous, it should be clarified."

Rose in the past filed several ethics complaints against McDonald and other public officials.

McDonald, in his campaign contribution and expense report filed this month, showed that he made six payments to the law firm of Wright, Judd and Winckler last year. He said the money went to pay Richard Wright for his work in defending him against ethics and criminal charges.

The councilman said Wright and the city attorney's office told him it was lawful to use campaign money to pay legal fees.

McDonald said other elected officials have done the same. Last week Clark County counsel Mary-Anne Miller wrote a letter to county commissioners telling them that using campaign money to pay legal fees related to their office is lawful.