Monday, Nov. 29, 2004 | 11:02 a.m.
People who have watched Kathy Augustine's quick rise through Nevada's political stratosphere say they aren't surprised the state controller is kicking and screaming on the way back down.
Augustine, who is set to go before the state Senate today on impeachment charges, is sometimes called one of the most disliked people in Nevada politics.
Yet she has been a relatively successful politician.
A tenacious opponent and vigorous campaigner, the former flight attendant and Catholic schoolteacher rose to an unknown state office after just two terms in the Legislature. Just a year ago, national Republican forces were recruiting Augustine to challenge Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Her political run is seemingly over now, as Augustine has become the first state officer to be impeached by the Assembly and face a trial in the Senate. Starting today, her former colleagues -- the 21 members of the Senate -- must separate her admitted indiscretions as state controller from her infamous history as a shrewd and ambitious politician.
This week could be, as Las Vegas Sun columnist and political analyst Jon Ralston termed it, a trial of "a woman nobody likes who has a job nobody cares about."
Some state senators are already mulling over ideas of censuring Augustine or suspending her without pay instead of removing her from office. Her attorney, Dominic Gentile, argues that she didn't order her employees to do the campaign work, just that she knew it was happening on state time.
Getting away with something less than removal from office would likely be seen as a win for Augustine, who has won grudging admiration and scorn for her aggressive style, a style that has left some scorched earth politically.
Pete Ernaut, a high-profile lobbyist, campaign consultant and former lawmaker and chief of staff to Gov. Kenny Guinn, said he thinks that "down deep that Kathy is a good person."
"Unfortunately, she'd give a woodpecker a headache," he said. "I'm not sure that being a pain in the ass is a criminal offense, but if there's anyone who will test that theory, it's Kathy."
Augustine proved her mettle the first time she ran for office when she made a bid for an Assembly seat in 1992. More Democrats than Republicans were registered in the district, meaning Augustine had a serious disadvantage.
But Augustine printed a controversial political mail piece that, according to media reports of the time, contrasted a clean, crisp picture of Augustine, a blond woman, next to a fuzzy picture of her Democratic opponent, Dora Harris, who is black.
A caption read, "there are two women running for Assembly in this district, but. ... There is a real difference."
Political consultant Gary Gray handled Harris' campaign and said he and many others thought Augustine was trying to highlight Harris' race in a largely white district. The mail piece caused him to realize for the first time that Augustine didn't worry about ruffling feather in politics, Gray said.
"Kathy was able to ingratiate herself with those she needed," Gray said. "She had no hesitation to go very negative very fast."
Harris disappeared from the political scene and could not be reached for comment.
Augustine, who holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Occidental College in Los Angeles and a master's of public administration from Cal State Long Beach, spent just one term in the Assembly before she eyed another seat, this time in a state Senate seat typically held by Democrats.
Former state Sen. Lori Lipman Brown, D-Las Vegas, said she had heard rumors midway through the 1993 legislative session that Augustine planned to challenge her.
A campaign issue sprouted toward the end of that session, when a new speaker pro tem in the Senate started allowing only Christian prayers to open the day.
Lipman Brown, who is Jewish, said she spoke to Senate leaders about saying her own prayers in the back of the Senate. She said they agreed.
Yet in the 1994 election, Augustine ran print and television ads saying that Lipman Brown "actively opposed prayer and refused to participate in Pledge of Allegiance in legislative sessions."
Lipman Brown lost the seat and filed a lawsuit against Augustine and other Republican senators who backed Augustine's story. The suit yielded a settlement including a 1997 letter from Augustine:
"As you indicated in your speech on the Senate floor, your decision to pray separately was actually the result of your discomfort praying to Christ each day, as you are not Christian; rather than an opposition to prayer generally," Augustine wrote.
"It is my understanding that, when prayers included you (and were non-denominational), you prayed with the other senators.
"My statement regarding the pledge was my way of characterizing information received from other state senators who recounted a few occasions in which you were delayed entering the chambers. The term 'refuses to participate in the pledge of allegiance' was an unfortunate choice of words developed during the heat of an election campaign."
Still, Augustine was in her seat and had the backing of much of the political establishment. Lipman Brown, who ran this year for a state Supreme Court seat, said it took her years of work, including appealing to her own faith, to get over the incident.
"She never apologized for what she did, never admitted she did anything wrong, just said she did it in the heat of a campaign," Lipman Brown said. "I think there's just a personality that is very amoral. I don't mean that positively or negatively. She doesn't think about what she's doing is right or wrong. She just thinks if she'll win or not."
Again, after just one term in her position as state senator, Augustine set her sights on becoming the state's first female controller in 1998.
The position is arguably the least known among the state's constitutional offices, but the state controller is the state's chief fiscal officer, in charge of the state's accounting system and debt collection.
Clearly, Augustine had a hunger for politics. Rose McKinney-James, another self-proclaimed strong female politician, is a lobbyist who ran for lieutenant governor in 1998 and was a former member of the state Public Service Commission when Augustine was a state senator.
"She struck me as someone who was very ambitious, very focused on her goals and very politically savvy," McKinney-James said. "Did I ever think I would see her facing this situation? No."
In 1998, Augustine beat Democrat Mary Sanada, who worked for the previous controller and said she had the experience to do the job.
Augustine negotiated a rather rough first year as controller, rebuffing criticisms from Democrats that she used money from the state's emergency funds for public school instruction. She and her staff proved those charges were wrong.
Media accounts quoted state officials saying that Augustine wielded a "big stick," but she soon won the support of Guinn, who often backed her publicly, and she started work to collect millions in unpaid debts to the state.
In 2002, Augustine won reelection decisively over Democratic Assemblyman John Lee, who this year won a state Senate seat. Gray, who also represented Lee, said he felt Augustine's 2002 win was largely the result of the Republican sweep of state constitutional offices.
Yet Augustine was doing well. Several times, state legislators have introduced bills to combine the offices of state treasurer and state controller. She argued for the separation of the offices, saying it was another check and balance on state spending. And she touted the more than $1.1 million in uncollected debts she had returned to state coffers, along with about $450,000 she pinched from her own budget.
In the meantime, Augustine established herself as a regular at many charity events and, according to one lobbyist who asked not to be named because she didn't want her company to be involved in the impeachment, was always very generous to charity causes.
Augustine frequently came alone or with a friend, the lobbyist said. Her second second husband, Charles, died in 2003. Weeks later, Augustine married one of his nurses in Honolulu. It was the third marriage for both, according to media accounts.
Augustine relied largely on political contributions to fund her way through the Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Real estate lobbyist Kevin Child said that Augustine was noticed by fellow politicians who recognized her yearning for power. Child said his dealings with the controller were mostly positive.
"She's a good businesswoman," Child said. "She's very effective. A lot of people don't like people who are effective. People hate people who have power."
Behind the scenes, however, Augustine was beginning to feud with an employee, Jennifer Normington, one of several employees who said Augustine forced her to work on her 2002 reelection campaign.
Augustine stipulated to a $15,000 fine by the state Ethics Commission and admitted that she should have known that her employees were working on the campaign on state hours. She also admitted that the state's computer system and other equipment was used for campaign matters.
Investigators interviewed former employees who said that Augustine was a tough boss who demanded nothing but the best, even on her campaign work.
Former Assistant Controller Jeannine Coward joked about the "Wrath of Kath," a riff on Star Trek movie, saying "she's a screamer and a yeller and a pounder on the desk, and you know you tried to avoid any unpleasant situation with her."
Normington, Augustine's former assistant, said that Augustine wanted her full attention, even telling her not to go home in evening hours to give her diabetic cat insulin shots and visit her grandmother on weekends in Sacramento.
"That cat's interfering with your life. You need to kill it," Normington said Augustine told her.
After admitting to the ethics violations, Republicans from Guinn, her former ally, to Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., called for Augustine's resignation.
Instead, she has vowed to tell of other public officials who she said have used state time for campaign duties.
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