Friday, March 11, 2005 | 6:31 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
March 12 - 13, 2005
Over the past two years elected officials in Nevada have made news for many of the wrong reasons.
There was the so-called double-dipping controversy involving Nevada legislators who got paid as public employees at the same time they were working in Carson City.
There was the University System's Board of Regents, which used closed-door meetings to discuss and demote two community college officials without allowing them to attend, raising the attorney general's ire.
And there was Controller Kathy Augustine, who was impeached and censured for using state office equipment to help her win re-election.
Taken as a whole, these events have inspired numerous proposals this session to make government more open and ethical.
Time will tell whether any of the proposals -- if they become law -- elevate people's faith in government.
"I would certainly hope so," Sen. Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, said. "But that's asking a lot in Nevada. If it comes down to the quality of the people who get elected, who's to say?
"You have former county commissioners under federal indictment. There was the double dipping. There was the North Las Vegas councilman who was found guilty of insurance fraud."
The optimistic view from Craig Walton, UNLV emeritus professor of ethics and policy studies, is that Nevada could "move up the ladder" in the way it is compared with other states on ethical issues if many of the bills pass.
"It would help the better politicians by reinforcing the good decisions they're already making," Walton said. "The people who skirt around the borders would have a more difficult time if these bills go through."
The pessimistic view from UNLV political science professor Ted Jelen is that the bills may discourage "otherwise worthy people" from seeking elected office because of the increased public scrutiny.
"All of this reinforces the assumption that people in politics are not trustworthy and that there is something sinister that needs to be exposed with sunlight," Jelen said.
Double dipping
The double-dipping affair came to a head last year when longtime Assembly Education Committee Chairman Wendell Williams, D-Las Vegas, lost his re-election bid. He had already been fired from the Las Vegas Neighborhood Services Department for billing his employer for hours he didn't work while serving as a lawmaker in Carson City.
But he was not alone. Assemblywoman Kathy McClain, D-Las Vegas, and Assemblyman Kelvin Atkinson, D-North Las Vegas, were fired from their Clark County jobs last year after they had been accused of improperly claiming sick days while serving as legislators. Both got their jobs back and were re-elected in November.
Also scrutinized were Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, and Assemblyman John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas.
Perkins, a Henderson deputy police chief, has said that he received permission from his employer to draw city pay while in Carson City. Oceguera, a North Las Vegas Fire Department captain, has said he traded shifts with other firefighters to get city pay -- as of last year, he owed nearly 800 hours to fellow firefighters who filled in for him dating back to 1999.
The result of the double-dipping controversy is Senate Bill 129, which has 15 sponsors, nearly one-fourth of the Legislature.
"My feeling is there is no way anybody should be paid twice by the taxpayers in one day," Care, one of the bill's sponsors, said. "They should only pay you once."
SB129, which has been referred to the Senate Legislative Operations and Elections Committee, would require legislators who are employees of state or local governments to take leaves of absence without pay during any regular or special sessions of the Legislature. If approved, the law would take effect on Jan. 1.
Perkins last week came out against SB129 even though he stated previously that he would support an unpaid leave law. He changed his position, he said, based on concerns from public employees who argued that they couldn't participate in a citizen legislature if forced to take unpaid leave.
But Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, a former school teacher and former Community College of Southern Nevada director of school district and community relations, took unpaid leave and believes all public employees in the Legislature should do likewise.
"I don't think public-sector employees should be paid during legislative sessions, but why aren't we also dealing with the private sector?" she said. "At least with public employees you always know where their money is coming from. With private-sector employees you don't necessarily know. We should be looking at the issue of consistency."
Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, a UNLV political science professor who has always taken unpaid leaves of absence, said she sympathizes with public employees who believe that SB129 is unfair. But Titus, a co-sponsor of the bill, said that "public employees who take public dollars should be held to a higher standard."
"This bill will probably die in the Assembly, and if it does, the public will not appreciate it," Titus said.
Open meetings
Regents drew scorn in November 2003 when they met twice in closed session to discuss the status of, and ultimately demote, then-Community College of Southern Nevada President Ron Remington and his legislative lobbyist, John Cummings.
Cummings was accused of circumventing University and Community College System of Nevada policy by pushing the Legislature to establish a four-year degree program at CCSN. The board also expressed concerns about the hiring, firing and reinstatement of clerical trainee Topazia "Briget" Jones, who also described herself as an aide to Williams.
But Clark County District Judge Jackie Glass in June sided with the Nevada attorney general's office in ruling that the regents violated the state open meeting law by deliberating behind closed doors. Her ruling overturned the demotions.
Remington and Cummings eventually reached out-of-court settlements with the regents and are teaching at UNLV and CCSN, respectively. But their ordeal with the regents spawned Senate Bill 83.
SB83 would require that when the regents meet behind closed doors to consider a person's character, health, alleged misconduct or professional competence, the person in question has the right to attend the meeting, testify and present evidence.
"A change in the way personnel sessions work would be good for the system and its employees," Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, a sponsor of SB83, said. "There would be more faith in a system which allows due process, of a sort, to people who are called up before the regents."
The board last month adopted a policy to allow the subject of a closed meeting to attend that meeting and testify. SB83 would turn that policy into law.
The regents are already required to give the subject of a closed session written notice about the time and place of the meeting. SB83, which was referred to the Senate Government Affairs Committee, would also require the board to include in the notice the general topics that will be discussed.
"Giving them notice of the meeting purpose and allowing them to bring exculpatory or explanatory evidence would make sure that more than one side of an issue is heard," Coffin said.
The attorney general's office has taken a neutral position on SB83, but Special Assistant Attorney General Randy Munn said lawmakers may want to consider including more than just the regents in that bill.
"If it makes sense for one board, then it probably makes sense for all of them," Munn said.
Impeachment
Augustine became the first constitutional officer in state history to be impeached when the Assembly ruled in November that there was sufficient evidence to hold an impeachment trial in the Senate based on three allegations against her.
She had already admitted to three willful violations of state ethics laws and was fined $15,000 by the Nevada Ethics Commission for using state equipment and her staff to help her win re-election in 2002.
The Senate in December found Augustine guilty of one count of misuse of state equipment and censured her, but she stayed in office.
Her impeachment led to Senate Bill 162, which has 28 sponsors, nearly half of the Legislature.
"Part of the argument Kathy used was, what is public time and use of government equipment?" Giunchigliani, a co-sponsor of SB162, said. "This bill makes it clear so that no one can play that game any longer."
SB162 would prohibit a public officer or employee or a legislator from using any government time, property or equipment for a political campaign, or to prepare financial disclosure or campaign finance reports.
"There is no excuse for any public official being able to use state property for political activity," Care, another co-sponsor of SB162, said.
Willful violations
For more than 20 years Nevada's ethics laws have represented a work in progress. Practically every time a public official has been brought up on ethics charges, the case has either been dismissed or the official wound up with only a minor penalty. Critics say this has occurred because lawmakers haven't had the stomach to pass ethics laws that have teeth.
But a bill draft request from Clark County could add some bite.
The request, patterned after recommendations from a citizens' ethics task force that were endorsed by the Clark County Commission in 2003, seeks to clarify "willful" state ethics violations.
This became a sticking point with the Nevada Ethics Commission in May. The commission unanimously found that Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman had committed an ethics violation by using his office to promote his son's business. But it was evenly divided on whether the violation was willful. Because of the split, Goodman was not fined.
Under existing law a willful violation means the public official or employee "knew or reasonably should have known" his conduct violated the law.
The county recommendation is: "Willful means the action of the public officer or employee was not coerced and the public officer or employee knew or reasonably should have known the consequences of the action."
"The intent of this is to make it more difficult for someone to claim, 'I did it but it wasn't willful,' " said James Spinello, the county's assistant director for administrative services. "If there is evidence of a violation, there is a presumption that the official should have known there was a violation. So you don't have to prove a mind-set."
Also, when a city or county has stronger ethics guidelines than the state, the state commission could use the tougher provisions.
"Our position is we're fine with that as long as we get the additional staff that we have requested from the Legislature," Stacy Jennings, executive director of the ethics commission, said. "If we get an investigator, we can handle any increased caseload from Clark County."
Another provision would prohibit public officials from accepting gifts with an aggregate value of more than $50 a year from a donor unless the gifts were not offered because of their public position. Under state law, there is no cap on the value of the gifts they may receive.
And the county request seeks to expand conflicts of interest by public officials or employees to include relationships involving donors or donees, debtors or creditors, consulting arrangements, personal relationships, legal or financial arrangements and business investments. That recommendation came from Richard Morgan, dean of UNLV's Boyd School of Law and chairman of the citizens' task force.
"What I wanted to do was to promote lots and lots of disclosure by public officials of all the relationships that could have influence on their behavior so that the voters would know their relationships," Morgan said. "It doesn't take long to disclose a conflict of interest, and it doesn't necessarily mean that they have to abstain.
"The bottom line is we've got to put people in office who behave ethically and if they don't, we have to vote them out of office. The real determinant factor of ethical behavior is the person. You can't legislate ethical behavior."
The ethics commission also has a bill draft request that adds a three-year statute of limitations for ethics complaints to be filed after an alleged violation has occurred or after reasonable discovery of the alleged violation.
"Most things that are subject to prosecution, unless it is murder, have a statute of limitations," Jennings said. "The way it is now, a person who has been in office for 20 years can have a complaint filed against him for something he did in his first year in office. That doesn't seem fair."
Care is co-sponsoring Senate Bill 140, which would require public officials and candidates for office to disclose the value of all items having to do with parties, meals or other social events hosted by lobbyists and special interest groups.
And Giunchigliani is proposing that the financial disclosure statements now required of elected officials must also be completed by all public officials who handle money.
Perkins also has an ethics proposal that is still being drafted that would remove a public official from office after the official committed a third willful ethics violation. His "three strikes" proposal would have meant that Augustine would have been removed from office after admitting to the ethics commission that she had committed three willful violations of the law.
He also is seeking better protection for whistle-blowers who expose ethics violations and would make "egregious" ethics violations punishable as Class D felonies, which carry penalties of one to four years in prison and a maximum $5,000 fine.
"It's a much bigger deterrent for someone who considers breaking the law," Perkins said of the proposed felony.
"There is a great cloud over the integrity of government after several former county commissioners were indicted and the impeachment we went through. In general, the basic premise of my bill draft is to try to restore confidence in our elected officials."
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