Columnist Jon Ralston: Disdain of ethics sadly routine

Friday, Nov. 14, 2003 | 5:49 a.m.

Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the Ralston Report. He can be reached at (702) 870-7997 or at ralston@vegas.com.

WEEKEND EDITION Nov. 15 - 16, 2003

WITH OPERATION G-Sting having stung, Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey having receded and Las Vegas Councilman Michael Mack having pseudo-skated, it's worth revisiting the nagging question: What exactly is corruption?

The word has an expansive definition. Webster's says it can mean dishonest and venal -- that is, what those indicted in G-Sting have been accused of being. Or it can mean putrid, as in there's something rotten in City Hall -- that is, what the Mack case demonstrates. Or it can mean tainted, as in the integrity has been undermined -- that is generally what has happened to the political system.

As I continue to try to distinguish between what has been so long accepted and even condoned and what former Chairwoman Kincaid-Chauncey and three former commissioners are alleged to have done, I keep seeing only gray.

If the worst that anyone here has done is taken a few thousand bucks from a strip club owner who hired a goofy bagman, I'd say there's not much corruption here, any way you define it. Raise your hand, though, if you believe that's the worst that has gone on.

The system, especially in a world where incest is not just legal but also encouraged, is corrupt. And while there remain honest and perhaps incorruptible inhabitants, they continue to struggle in a universe that does not often reward them and frequently pushes them to bend or break their principles.

Just look at what is happening on Grand Central Parkway and Stewart Avenue. The county, with four former and current commissioners facing federal charges, is now hopelessly blackened by an indictment that portrays the sandstone headquarters as worse than Jaguar's or Cheetahs and more like the Chicken Ranch. They can pass all the ethics rules this week that they want. New ethics guidelines are nice; what we need are better ethics.

Over at City Hall, despite the absence (so far) of any of its officials being indicted, corruption also flourishes, with a councilman (Mack) auctioning himself to city supplicants and in business with the mayor's family, which suddenly seems to have increasing business before this house of ill repute.

Some of this is more subtle, more insidious; some of it is blatant. Legally sanctioned or not, it is corruption -- and no one seems to care.

The grotesque story of G-Sting is that Kincaid-Chauncey, Dario Herrera and Erin Kenny are alleged to have violated ex-California Speaker Jesse "Big Daddy" Unruh's dictum (cleaned up a little here): "If you can't drink their booze, take their money, screw their women and then vote against 'em, you don't belong in politics."

Kincaid-Chauncey and her two former colleagues are charged with taking the money, maybe a few drinks and some lap dances and then voting for Mike Galardi in the morning. At best they didn't disclose some legal campaign contributions and some pretty sleazy gifts. At worst, they were bribed.

What will astonish ethical people is that before any of this happened -- if it happened -- certain conversations didn't take place. Why didn't Kincaid-Chauncey and her daughter decide it wasn't a good idea to let someone the commissioner regulates pony up for her grandson's ski school fund? Why didn't Herrera and his advisers chat about how it wouldn't look good asking for money for his campaigning and the Democratic Party while he was being lobbied by Galardi agent Lance Malone?

They will say that's just politics, only the system. I say it's corruption, whether or not it's criminal.

Similar colloquies also apparently did not take place at City Hall before Mack landed in front of the ethics tribunal. There has been much scuttlebutt in G-Sting about racketeering and conspiracies. But just look at the racket Mack has going at City Hall.

Mack has been acquiring public relations clients -- as I have documented -- despite having no background in the field. Many of them -- Binion's, Poggemeyer Design, Treasures -- are affected by his decisions as a councilman.

Anyone wonder why he never talked to his confidants about the propriety of him soliciting or being solicited by people he regulates. If those talks had occurred -- or had he listened -- he would not be under such scrutiny now.

And even though he can declare victory with the state Ethics Commission's 4-1 vote that he didn't violate any ethics laws, Mack was admonished for not disclosing more of his relationship with Goodman the Youngers.

But why would either of the mayor's sons, both lawyers, even have business before City Hall, much less with Mack, who Big Daddy Goodman knows can barely make an electro-encephalograph beep? Why wouldn't the mayor sit down with his family before he took office and explain to his lawyer children that whatever else they did, they should never practice before the council while he is there?

Instead, Ross Goodman has clients with city ties, including a billboard company that surely doesn't need his expertise, and he is in business with Mack on an innovative idea for promotional computer discs. Eric Goodman's firm is employed by Mack and, coincidentally, Herrera, with speculation that Goodman the Elder might be the G-Sting trial lawyer. A small, cozy circle, isn't it?

Mayor Goodman, who ran as an outsider, has now at the very least tacitly condoned this obvious incest and at worst encouraged it. Does this stink like G-Sting? You be the judge.

But one thing both of these scandals have in common is this: Methinks we've only seen the tip of the corruption iceberg.