Editorial: Linking donations to a pledge

Tuesday, July 23, 2002 | 8:41 a.m.

Next week a special session of the Nevada Legislature will consider overhauling laws to address the state's medical malpractice insurance crisis. In advance of that meeting, last week U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., asked Republican state lawmakers to sign a letter endorsing his medical malpractice reforms, a package that includes a cap on jury awards. What makes Ensign's request controversial is that only those state lawmakers who sign his pledge will be eligible for campaign funds from his Battle Born Political Action Committee, which has about $200,000.

"The timing of the letter, happening just before the special session, is coincidental," says Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville. Hettrick adds that the letter won't affect the independence of legislators. Despite Hettrick's assertion, it wouldn't be the first time that campaign contributions affected how a legislator voted.

Politicians know that their votes on well-publicized issues can result in contributions either flowing in or drying up afterward. What is different in this case is that there is an explicit understanding, before a vote, that money won't be there for them if they take a contrary stand. In this instance, the warning came in a single sentence in a cover letter from the Republican Assembly Caucus that was attached to Ensign's pledge: "Enclosed you will find the medical liability pledge, which Senator Ensign is requesting every Assembly candidate must sign to be considered for Battle Born contributions."

If lobbyists for the trial lawyers, insurers or doctors had issued a similar letter to legislators, it would be criticized as a thinly veiled attempt to exchange votes for money. The attorney general's office doesn't believe state bribery laws were broken, but what is clear is that Ensign and the Republican Assembly Caucus made a terrible mistake in making medical malpractice reform a litmus test for doling out campaign cash. It will confirm to many people their cynicism about politics, that decisions too often are based on money and not on the merits of an issue.