Editorial: Clarify Moncrief case

Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2005 | 9:46 a.m.

Janet Moncrief won her seat on the Las Vegas City Council in June 2003. Any celebration, however, was short-lived, as allegations soon surfaced by two of her former campaign workers that she had violated campaign-finance laws. In August 2004 she was indicted on four counts of filing false campaign finance reports and one count of perjury.

Now there is a question of whether Moncrief was treated fairly. Secretary of State Dean Heller, in charge of elections in Nevada, had referred the allegations against Moncrief to Attorney General Brian Sandoval. But Heller is furious that Sandoval's office proceeded with the prosecution without consulting his office. Heller is also upset that his office is being denied access to the case's investigative reports. Heller said his office had suggested, in a March meeting with the attorney general's office, that the allegations against Moncrief be handled much the way recent campaign-finance allegations against Assemblyman Chad Christensen were handled -- with a fine.

Heller says his staff feels the evidence against Moncrief was weak, and that he believes her indictment was the result of an "overzealous" division within the attorney general's office. The attorney general's office denies the accusation. The two offices have engaged in a war of memos. The heated exchanges cannot be dismissed as a partisan flap -- both Heller and Sandoval are Republicans.

In our view, Heller's allegations are serious enough to warrant hearings by the Legislature, which writes campaign-finance laws. Perhaps an amendment is needed to clarify when criminal prosecutions for violations are appropriate.