Thursday, Aug. 18, 2005 | 10 a.m.
University Chancellor Jim Rogers swears he's still undecided about whether he's going to try a run for governor, but political analysts say his recent actions smack of someone testing out the territory.
Rogers recently spent $30,000 of his own money for a statewide poll he refuses to release the full results of, except to say that the questions did go beyond higher education issues.
On Wednesday he mailed out letters to all six of the possible gubernatorial candidates asking for formal written responses to 10 questions on higher education policy.
Rogers, who has said he will throw his hat into the ring if there does not appear to be a candidate who will support higher education the way he thinks it should be supported, said he wants to spark a written debate and to nail each candidate down on their positions in regard to higher education.
By getting it in writing, Rogers said, the winner won't be able to "backtrack" on his promises when he gets to the governor's office.
But Rogers also said he'll definitely be passing on all of the responses he gets to the media and that the answers may factor into whether he runs or not or help him decide whether to personally endorse a candidate.
"We don't want them to just say 'I support education,'th" Rogers said. "We want to know how they'll support it and how much they'll support it."
Rogers' request includes detailed questions asking how each candidate would financially support the Nevada System of Higher Education as governor, such as ideas for new revenue streams and whether the candidate would consider raising taxes to expand funding for education.
Rogers particularly takes issue with the idea of a taxpayer's bill of rights and asks the candidates their opinion on the proposed initiative and whether they would approve an exemption to the initiative for education funding.
Political analysts Dan Hart, Steve Wark and Eric Herzik said it was clear Rogers was trying to use his power as chancellor and as a private businessman to gather as much information on the candidates as he could -- either to use in his own run for governor or to help support the candidate of his choice.
But while Hart and Wark felt Rogers' request was the right approach to get the positions out on the table, Herzik, a UNR political science professor, said he found it "arrogant" to expect answers in writing.
"If he is going to run and he is going to take positions on this, then he should take positions and not be trying to smoke everybody else out and play the critic," Herzik said.
"He says he wants to have a debate but only on his terms."
Herzik said the candidates should only respond to Rogers as they would any other citizen, and he questioned whether it was appropriate for Rogers to be this involved in partisan politics as an appointed state employee.
But Hart and Wark, both Las Vegas campaign consultants, said it is part of Rogers' duties as chancellor to seek out where the candidates stand on higher education issues.
"As chancellor you would think that he would want to know where the next governor is going to take funding for higher education, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that," Hart said. "I think the candidates would welcome something."
Wark said he thinks Rogers is feeling the candidates out now in hopes of persuading them to push higher education as part of their campaigns.
"I've never been totally convinced that he wants to be governor, but what he does want to be is the point man in upgrading higher education in the state," Wark said.
"Any way he can persuade, goad, pull or shove the gubernatorial candidates into assuming his positions, I think that is what he is trying to do. And ultimately, if he thinks the only way he can get that point across is to run, obviously he has held that out as an option."
Rogers, the millionaire media mogul owner of Sunbelt Communications, recently changed his registration from Republican to Independent. He said he sent the letter out to all of the expected Democrat and Republican contenders for governor: Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, Republican Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, and Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson. Gibbons, Perkins and Gibson have not formerly announced their candidacies yet.
Both Hunt and Perkins said they looked forward to dialoguing with Rogers on the higher education issues.
Beers, who has already discussed many of his views with Rogers, said he is still deciding whether he would respond. As one of the initiators of the taxpayer bill of rights, now called the Tax and Spend Control for Nevada initiative, Beers said he would definitely have some disagreements with Rogers.
"It's pretty apparent that I am not going to be the reason that he is not going to run. It will have to be somebody else," Beers said.
Titus and Gibson were not reachable for comment Wednesday, and Gibbons' spokesman, Robert Uithoven, declined to comment until actually seeing the letter.
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