Perkins lashes out at accusers

Dan Kulin

Thursday, Aug. 12, 2004 | 9:33 a.m.

Richard Perkins, Assembly speaker and a Henderson deputy police chief, lashed out Wednesday at the federal office accusing him of violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits some government employees from running in partisan elections.

As he has before, Perkins, a Democrat, denied any wrongdoing and said he feels the U.S. Office of Special Counsel's charges that he violated the Hatch Act were politically motivated.

"For 20 years I've put bad guys behind bars, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let some Washington, D.C., bureaucrat tell me and my colleagues in Nevada what to do based on some political agenda," Perkins said in a prepared statement.

Perkins said Wednesday that he feels the Republican administration in Washington is trying to harm his reputation because of his "political profile."

Perkins' comments came as his attorneys filed a formal response to the accusations from the Office of Special Counsel.

On June 16 that office filed a formal complaint with the Merit Systems Protection Board, which oversees enforcement of the Hatch Act among other duties. The complaint said Perkins violated the Hatch Act when he ran for re-election in 2002 and again this year.

The Office of Special Counsel, in its complaint, said Perkins' police work puts him in connection with federal grants. The Hatch Act prohibits federal and most state and local workers who are paid with or oversee federal funds from participating in partisan political activity.

But in the response, Perkins' attorneys said Perkins does not have contact with federal funds the police department receives. The response also pointed out that the city developed a Hatch Act Compliance Program to ensure Perkins was kept away from federal money.

"Mr. Perkins has practically no connection to any activity funded in whole or in part with federal funds," the response said.

The police department has received federal funds to hire additional police officers, pay for some overtime related to anti-drunken driving and other initiatives, and to help pay for computers that were put in patrol cars.

If Perkins' situation is considered in light of how the law was intended to be enforced, the response said, Perkins would not be considered someone covered by the Hatch Act because he does not have "very significant involvement with federal funds."

Perkins' response said the board "should repudiate the Special Counsel's efforts to be 'more aggressive' by distorting the traditional boundaries of Hatch Act coverage."

Perkins' response also said that the Office of Special Counsel has just recently changed its opinion on his activities.

The response said Perkins and city officials were under the impression they had ironed out whatever problems existed after reviewing the issue with Office of Special Counsel representatives in 2002 and again in late 2003. But then the office "reversed themselves" in early 2004, it said.

Perkins said he believes that the push to implicate him Hatch Act violations is politically motivated.

"There are a number of things that point me in that direction," he said. "When they changed special counsels last year, that office took a completely different tone with their contacts with me. All along they'd been willing to work with us and at least discuss the issues and all of the sudden they discontinued conversations. ...

"The most important piece here is this administration is more partisan than any I've ever dealt with," Perkins said. "They're just applying a completely different standard with me. "

The Office of Special Counsel has a policy of declining comment on pending cases such as Perkins'.

The city, which has also argued Perkins' dual roles do not violate the Hatch Act, is also expected to file a formal response.

Henderson city officials have said they will let Perkins keep his city job until this legal process runs its course.

If found guilty of violating the Hatch Act, Perkins could be forced to leave his city job, or the city could lose federal funds equal to two years of Perkins' salary, which is roughly $130,000 a year.

Perkins is the second Las Vegas Valley politician to come under scrutiny recently for possible violations of the Hatch Act.

In April the Office of Special Counsel decided that John Oceguera's dual role as a Democratic assemblyman and a North Las Vegas firefighter did not violate the Hatch Act because his involvement with a city program funded by a federal grant was not significant.