Ethics panel won’t reconsider fine

Erin Neff

Thursday, Oct. 17, 2002 | 11:21 a.m.

The state Ethics Commission told Assemblyman Bob Beers on Wednesday that it is in no position to reconsider a 1998 fine against him stemming from a political mailer.

Beers wrote to the commission in June after receiving a letter from the commission asking him the status of the $5,000 fine Beers was assessed in 1998, but that he has never paid. The commission has never sought to collect it, and when Beers wrote back to discuss the case, he asked the board to reconsider the old opinion.

At Wednesday's meeting of the commission in Henderson, Chairman Todd Russell told Beers revisiting the case would open the board up to potential lawsuits from others fined by the commission.

"Let's say hypothetically that you're absolutely correct," Russell said. "We don't have the legal authority to go back and reconsider."

When Beers, R-Las Vegas, first ran for Assembly District 4 in 1998, he sent a mailer before the Republican primary election alleging that his opponent Dennis Silvers' restaurant was more than $20,000 in debt, had late rent notices and was the subject of three arson fires, the last of which destroyed the business and killed 66 pets at a nearby clinic.

Silvers filed an ethics complaint alleging Beers essentially called him an arsonist. The commission, although it did not dispute the facts Beers had presented in the mailer, agreed and fined him $5,000.

Beers did not appeal the decision, but instead sought relief in U.S. District Court claiming Nevada's "truth in campaigning" law is unconstitutional. But by the time that court told Beers he first had to exhaust his state court remedies, his window to pursue a state appeal had closed.

"This opinion represents a deep and profound embarrassment not only to this board, but to the entire state," Beers told five commissioners, none of whom was on the board in 1998. "That puts the commission in the almost unconstitutional and definitely unfair position of fining people for the truth. It's dangerous territory."

Russell told Beers to try to work out a settlement with the commission's legal counsel on a reduced fine. But in an interview after the meeting Beers said the only settlement that he would accept would be reversal of the original opinion.

Beers said he sought to have the case overturned because the commission has new members now who Beers said have a recent voting history of protecting political speech.

Last month the commission unanimously threw out a complaint filed by defeated Assembly candidate Earlene Forsythe which alleged mail sent on behalf of her primary opponent Francis Allen cost her the election. Allen won the primary by nine votes.

After that ethics complaint was filed, a number of parties including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Nevada Press Association and the Republican Liberty Caucus filed a suit in U.S. District Court saying the ethics commission should have no jurisdiction in defamation cases linked to political speech.

Beers is a plaintiff in that case.

In his letter to the commission Beers said he would like the board to reconsider his case after the Nov. 5 election. Beers is facing Democrat Howard Wade Bycroft.

But Beers also acknowledged Wednesday that his fight against the commission "has been very, very good to me."

He cited press attention he won for his fight as part of the reason for his victory in that 1998 election and re-election in 2000.

"It's a core American value," Beers told the commission. "People die for it."