Columnist Jeff German: Amodei conflict surfaces

Friday, May 27, 2005 | 11:09 a.m.

There's a reason why the public lacks confidence in the integrity of the state's legislative process.

The saga of Assembly Bill 485 is a prime example of how the lines of ethical propriety are easily blurred in Carson City.

Sen. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held a hearing last week on AB485, may know something about this.

As I've reported, Amodei's committee passed AB485 with an amendment that would inhibit the ability of residents to oppose the spread of neighborhood casinos. The bill was to go before the full Senate today.

AB485 was basically a technical gaming measure that had nothing to do with neighborhood casinos until high-powered lobbyists for gaming giants Station Casinos and Boyd Gaming and bigtime developer Focus Property Group got their hands on it.

The lobbyists included language that would only allow casinos to be built in the future in master-planned communities, which coincidentally are what Focus Properties specializes in developing.

Another new provision would eliminate the state appeal process, which is the only way residents in the past have been able to block neighborhood casino projects by Station Casinos and Boyd Gaming.

As it turns out, Las Vegas attorney Mark Fiorentino, the chief architect of the amendment, is Amodei's law partner. Fiorentino, who lobbies for Boyd Gaming and Focus Property, testified in favor of the amendment during the Judiciary Committee hearing last week.

On Feb. 24 Amodei, as required by state law, sent a letter to the Legislative Counsel Bureau disclosing that Fiorentino and four other associates of his law firm, Kummer Kaempfer, Bonner & Renshaw, were registered lobbyists.

"I recognize that I may be perceived as having a pecuniary interest in or commitment in a private capacity to the law firm's interests or clientele, which may raise a potential conflict of interest," Amodei wrote.

"Therefore, I will be watchful for bills, resolutions and amendments regarding matters for which these persons make an appearance as lobbyists." Amodei did more than watch for Fiorentino's amendment.

He chaired the Judiciary Committee hearing on it, directed the debate and then voted for the measure.

His actions illustrate the weakness of the state's ethics law.

Amodei never disclosed his ties to Fiorentino at the hearing. By law he wasn't obligated to do that -- though Stacy Jennings, executive director of the Nevada Ethics Commission, says "serial disclosure" is recommended.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, several times this session has disclosed potential conflicts when lobbyists for his law firm, Jones Vargas, made appearances before his committees. Usually Raggio ended up abstaining from voting.

Amodei says he felt he didn't have to abstain in the case of AB485 because the amendment, in his judgment, didn't unfairly benefit the clients of his firm.

"It was a global application to anybody wanting to do gaming," Amodei says. "It was not specific to any one property."

Whether Amodei's judgment, however, was correct is something the Ethics Commission might be better suited to determine.

Craig Walton, emeritus professor of ethics at UNLV, says Amodei put himself in a "murky zone" by not abstaining.

At the very least, Walton says, Amodei should have explained at the hearing why he was voting.

"It's just prudent out of respect for the rest of us," Walton says. "He's supposed to be speaking for all of us."

Walton, who runs the Nevada Center for Public Ethics, a political watchdog group, is lobbying to strengthen the ethics law to force public officials who don't abstain in the face of a potential conflict to give the public an explanation.

"It would expose them to the light of day," he says.