Sunday, Dec. 11, 2005 | 9:01 a.m.
Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face with Jon Ralston on Las Vegas ONE and also publishes the daily e-mail newsletter RalstonFlash.com. His column for the Las Vegas Sun appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or through e-mail at [email protected].
As I approach the end of my 20th year covering politics in Nevada, I am struck not so much by what has changed but what has not. And although I would like to declare how much better it is now than in days of yore, I think it has degenerated.
This comes to mind with the recent media coverage of Waltersgate and Airportlandgate, two scandals that may never lead to criminal charges but surely have exacerbated whatever cynicism and distrust permeates the body politic.
This is not just about a quarter-century being bookended by political corruption probes that yield indictments -- Operation Yobo in the 1980s and Operation G-Sting in the new millennium. I still believe -- cue the gadfly chorus -- that there is less taking of bucks and much more passing of bucks, a continuous failure to take responsibility and to display character in the face of adversity.
Yes, the cliche says that this is about leadership. And it is. But it is much more elemental than that.
Both of these recent scandals are a direct result of government behaving weakly in the face of businessmen trying to use them to make a profit. They likely behaved weakly for one of two reasons -- juice, that legalized form of incest, or contributions, that legalized form of bribery.
Did illegal conduct occur? There are enough law enforcement types with their olfactories engaged that the parade of elected Pinocchios should be worried if they did anything seriously wrong.
I guess it all depends on how you define the word "seriously." Bill Walters could never have succeeded in getting the Las Vegas City Council to rubber-stamp his deal for a fraction of what his land is worth if the elected officials weren't willing to have backbone removal surgery before they assumed the position.
And broker Scott Gragson and others could not have speculated on land in the McCarran International Airport environs and then flipped it for millions in profits without the assistance of a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil and, especially, speak-no-evil Clark County Commission.
There are appointed folks at fault, too. City Manager Doug Selby should not be so willing to do whatever his elected masters want or what Walters desires. And airport boss Randy Walker cannot play the absentee landlord and hope to get the rent paid in full.
But the Louis Renault acts and the finger-wagging and showboating by these elected officials is nothing short of grotesque.
Some of those county commissioners were around when the airport folks advised against allowing nonconforming zone changes -- but they did not stand up to developers who wanted them. And some of those city councilmen were there when Walters asked for this deal and others, and rather than questioning the details, they stood mute and rolled over.
And it's not just local government. Those politicians are just there every day; the Gang of 63 only is visible for four months out of every 24.
In fact, I heard some veteran lobbyists in Carson City lament during recent sessions that in the old days "a deal was a deal" and that they can't count on anything anymore. Some will cheer such sentiments, believing this indicates legislators are more independent, more free-thinking.
But that's not what's happening. What you are seeing is more and more elected officials who are so eager to please, so eager to have it both ways, or perhaps all ways, that they can't stick to a position and can only spew rhetorical mush.
I long for the days of the likes of Assemblyman Marvin Sedway and County Commissioner Paul Christensen -- a couple of elected officials who at times were bellicose, but who at least were smart, straight and sincere. I still find it difficult to digest that Christensen was taken out of office after being accused of misdeeds by one Lance Malone, now the poster boy for political corruption. Imagine how Christensen feels.
Look at what we have now. It takes someone as inexperienced but direct as Lois Tarkanian to stop the City Council in its tracks on Waltersgate after the deal was all but done.
But that is secondary to the immutable, Pontius Pilate culture that continues to pervade government, where elected officials are only too willing to crucify others and wash their hands of any culpability.
You know what takes real courage and real leadership, and you know what we haven't seen yet in Waltersgate or Airportlandgate? I haven't heard one elected leader pause from the pusillanimous fingerprinting and sanctimonious speechifying to simply say, "I'm sorry."
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