Lawmakers move on from election challenge

Erin Neff

Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2003 | 9:43 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Lawmakers agreed to put a bitter partisan elections challenge behind them Tuesday despite threats of political retribution and the assessment of nearly $40,000 in costs.

The three-month saga into the Assembly District 37 contest ended in a legislative committee with pledges by a Republican lawmaker at the center of the controversy to make a campaign contribution to the Democrat he once worked to oust from office.

Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, told Assemblyman Marcus Conklin, D-Las Vegas, he would write him a $500 check from his campaign coffers.

Beers had supported Republican candidate Francis Allen in the race for the open seat, and later spearheaded a volunteer campaign suggesting voter fraud had given the Democrat the 134 votes he needed to beat Allen.

The Assembly's Select Committee on Credentials grilled an attorney -- under subpoena to the Legislature -- on why he had pursued the challenge for months after filing it and doing no work to prove whether the allegations contained within were true.

"We had enough evidence to be suspicious, but not enough to come to this committee with a straight face asking to unseat Assemblyman Conklin," testified Las Vegas attorney Craig Mueller.

Mueller said he advised his client to wait for the district attorney's office to get to the bottom of alleged fraud involving five or six voters alleged to have been influenced by failed GOP primary candidate Gary Horrocks.

But Mueller also said the grand jury did not convene until Jan. 30 -- just three days before the Assembly convened -- and just one day before the challenge was officially withdrawn.

The challenge included a total of 160 names voters whom Republican voter Sandra Vitolo said she thought were suspicious enough to cause concern. Vitolo, who filed the challenge on behalf of Allen, told the committee she was an Air Force veteran simply trying to protect the integrity of the vote.

But Assembly Democrats inferred that Vitolo was a pawn "duped" by Beers, Allen and GOP activists Dan Burdish and George Harris.

"You may have been in the position to trust someone you didn't know," Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said.

Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, said he did not think Vitolo's contest was frivolous because it did include several names of voters alleged to be registered by Horrocks and currently under investigation by the grand jury.

Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, encouraged both sides to get back to the state's business.

"I guess I would like to see us just move on," Buckley said.

She suggested the Assembly's Elections, Procedures and Ethics Committee consider amending Nevada's law pertaining to election challenges.

One of the proposed reforms would be to require any challenge filed within 14 days of an election to later be supplemented with supporting documentation and sent to leaders of both political parties in the Assembly or Senate.

Scott Wasserman, an attorney with the Legislative Counsel Bureau, told the committee it could assess attorney's fees to the person who filed the contest. Since none of the committee members wanted to saddle Vitolo with the bill, they dropped the request made by Conklin's attorney Kathleen England.