Rogers may reveal whether he will run for governor

Monday, Aug. 22, 2005 | 11:10 a.m.

University Chancellor Jim Rogers is planning to discuss whether he will run for governor at a press conference Wednesday morning.

Rogers wouldn't say this morning whether he is or isn't running.

"If I did, I would just rather not have" the press conference, Rogers, the multimillionaire owner of Sunbelt Communications, said from his Montana ranch."It's just a press conference that relates to where I am in my personal and professional life."

The press conference will not take place on university system property. It is scheduled for 9 a.m. in the Blue Room at the Stirling Club, 2827 Paradise Road.

Speculation that Rogers is planning a run for governor has been swirling in recent weeks because Rogers changed his voter registration from Republican to independent, spent $30,000 on a poll to see how the different candidates in the gubernatorial race stacked up, and on Thursday he started a political action committee called Nevadans Committed to Education.

The PAC was registered Thursday with the Secretary of State's office, said Francisco Aguilar, Roger's personal attorney who handles community relations issues for the Nevada System of Higher Education. It lists Rogers as the president and as the sole contributor with $5,000.

Rogers said the PAC will primarily be about "educating the public about education."

He said he will likely use the PAC to buy television or newspaper advertisements to inform the public about different educational issues and where the different candidates stand on those issues. The PAC is independent of any candidate, Aguilar said, and if Rogers does indeed run for governor he would have to hand the PAC over to someone else.

Chancellor Rogers, meanwhile, sent out letters last week to all six of the expected gubernatorial candidates asking for details responses as to how each candidate would support and fund education. Rogers said he plans to send out a second letter asking for candidate's opinions on the recent U.S. News and World Report rankings of UNLV and UNR this week, although he hasn't yet received any responses to his first letter.

The national college rankings guide, which hits newsstands today, ranked UNR in the third tier and UNLV in the fourth, the bottom, tier. Rogers wants input from the candidates on how they would try to improve those rankings.

Rogers said he would resign from the chancellorship if he does run for governor, mainly because the federal Hatch Act prohibits anyone who oversees federal dollars from participating too actively in partisan politics. But Rogers said the time and distraction of a campaign would be too much to handle on top of his chancellor duties.

"You don't have to go much further than the Hatch Act to say I would have to resign, but I think that if you ran for governor it would be so distracting you couldn't do both."

If he was to resign to run for governor, he said he does have someone in mind as a recommended interim chancellor.

"I have an idea but I am not going to tell you," Rogers said. Upon further questioning, Rogers did say that he would support his vice chancellor for legal affairs, Dan Klaich, for interim chancellor. He also said that there is no way former chancellor Jane Nichols would take the job.

Rogers recently hired Nichols as his vice chancellor for academic and student affairs. Her hiring came with the condition that air travel be limited because of her health, Rogers said, and she wouldn't want the stress of the chancellors job again.

If Rogers is running for governor, he hasn't told the Board of Regents anything yet, several members said this morning. Most were taken by surprise that he was even planning a press conference, and a handful said they were still pretty sure he wasn't going to run.

Rogers promised regents when they appointed him as fulltime chancellor in May that he wasn't interested in being governor. Later, he said he would only run if he thought he could do more for higher education as governor than as chancellor.

Regent Steve Sisolak, for one, thinks the press conference is more likely to be about the academic medical center or some issues going on up at UNR than about Rogers running for governor.

"He gave me his word that he was going to be chancellor and I think that he could do more for higher education as chancellor than governor," Sisolak said. "But ultimately I think he is going to do what he and Beverly want."