Election ethics measure killed

Tuesday, May 13, 2003 | 9:26 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- In an about-face, the Senate Government Affairs Committee Monday voted to allow the state Ethics Commission to continue deciding whether a political candidate lied about his opponent during an election campaign.

The committee voted 5-2 to kill Assembly Bill 127, a bill that would have eliminated the authority of the commission to rule on whether a political candidate made a false statement. The current law says a candidate can file a complaint with the Ethics Commission to judge whether his opponent made a false statement that impeded his campaign. If the Ethics Commission determines a candidate did make such a statement, it can fine the candidate up to $5,000.

The commission's power undermines political speech that is at the heart of the First Amendment, said Gary Peck, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada. The ACLU along with the Nevada Press Association and legislators from both sides of the aisles are suing the state to force the commission to give up its "speech police" power.

"The speech police provisions are obviously unconstitutional and a majority of the committee understood that when they voted on the bill the first time," Peck said. "It's just unfortunate that because of this crassly political move to kill the bill, Nevada taxpayers will have to pay for costly litigation that will no doubt result in the law being struck down."

Last week the committee voted 4-3 in favor of AB127, but Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, on Monday called for reconsideration, arguing that the benefit of the current law is that it allows an aggrieved candidate to get "immediate redress." The other option would be a defamation suit, which can take years to resolve, Townsend said.

Voting against the Townsend proposal to kill AB127 were Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus and Sen. Terry Care, both Las Vegas Democrats.

Joining Townsend in voting to kill the bill were Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, Committee Chairwoman Ann O'Connell, R-Las Vegas, Tiffany and Hardy.

And Republican Senators Warren Hardy of Las Vegas and Sandra Tiffany switched from last week to vote with the three other Republicans to kill the bill.

Asked if they got pressure from the Republican leadership to change their votes, Tiffany and Hardy both said they received new information. Tiffany said she read an article over the weekend that changed her mind. "There was no rubber hose," she said. Hardy said he also received new information on the constitutionality of the law.

Peck didn't buy that explanation. He said it should be pretty clear to any reasonable person that the committee members who changed their opinions "did did so because they were politically strong-armed."

"This is a particularly disturbing example of politics trumping the public interest and the Bill of Rights," Peck said.

The committee Monday also reversed itself and voted to kill Assembly Bill 292, which would have prevented local governments from filing suits under certain circumstances to keep an initiative petition off the election ballot.

It was approved last week by the committee 4-3, but on the new vote Monday only Titus and Care supported it.

AB292 would have allowed a local government to file suit before an election to test the constitutionality of the initiative petition.

In Reno, opponents of a train trench through the middle of Reno gathered enough signatures on the initiative petition to scuttle the project. But the Nevada Supreme Court, before the election, said this petition was invalid because it was an administrative decision that is the discretion of local government.

The action by the committee Monday permits local governments in the future to go to court to knock off an initiative petition before it gets to the election.