Hal Rothman uses campaign contributions to see how the state might look under Governor Gibbons

Sunday, Aug. 6, 2006 | 8:51 a.m.

Nevada inverts the old journalistic adage to follow the money. When people say this, they usually follow where the money goes. In Nevada, you get to the truth faster if you see where the money comes from.

For the last decade, we have assumed that Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston has correctly described our gubernatorial elections as "anointments." He has argued that we don't really elect our leaders; instead, a backroom cabal of powerful interests that run the state choose for us and seed the process with so much money - which translates into TV commercials, the only way most of us can tell the candidates apart - that the result is foreordained.

The Abramoff-DeLay scandal has made the American public even more wary of the effect money has on politics. If we didn't already think special interests owned our politicians, Abramoff's manipulation of the system is enough to make anyone a cynic.

Jim Gibbons, the presumptive front-runner in this year's governor's race, is almost glib about financial disclosure. "It is Jim Gibbons' belief that voters should be able to see who is funding each candidate's campaign before voting," Gibbons campaign manager Robert Uithoven told the Associated Press. Gibbons wants you to know who supports him; I want you to think about what it means.

Gibbons' financial disclosure form gives us a heads up about where the power will lie if he is elected. According to AP, Gibbons has amassed $4 million. Included in that amount is $317,000 carried over from his congressional war chest, and $1.7 million that he has raised since the last reporting period.

Gibbons' support comes from a wide base in state business. Twenty percent has come from the gaming and leisure industry, 17 percent from development and construction and 15 percent from physicians and pharmaceutical companies. The mining industry gave him a paltry $12,000, and a number of prominent individuals, including media mogul and university system Chancellor Jim Rogers and Northern Nevada developer and brothel owner Lance Gilman, gave $5,000 apiece.

What does this mean for you and me? For much of the past decade, job growth in the gaming and leisure industry has not been as rapid as in other employment sectors. In Clark County, we have seen employment become more diverse, with an ever-smaller percentage of workers in the resort corridor.

But gaming and leisure is the single biggest giver to Gibbons, a state of affairs that suggests a return to the status quo of the 1980s and 1990s. During the "Mirage Phase," between 1989 and 2000, what was good for gaming and leisure was good for the state. The industry met a sort of Waterloo in the 2003 legislative session, when its dominance of state politics was usurped by competitors. In this changing climate, gaming and leisure's generosity may portend greater influence for this sector of the economy.

The people who supplanted gaming at the table in 2003 were from development and construction. This industry is the fastest-growing in the state, and with the construction boom that is occurring in Las Vegas, its influence is likely to continue to expand. Congressman Gibbons may be disappointed at the comparatively parsimonious giving of this sector.

The doctors and the pharmaceutical companies seem better organized and more generous this year than in the past. Both have real issues to bring before state government. Remember the commercials where doctors walked past the sign for the Nevada state line? Nevada's physicians have seen their malpractice rates soar and they may feel they need a friend in the state house.

The pharmaceutical industry has its own objective. As of July 1, Nevada residents can buy drugs from Canadian pharmacies. Pharmaceutical companies may plan an assault on this law; they may simply be investing as a way to cut their losses.

Mining, essentially a parasite in the state, only gave $12,000. Maybe the mining industry, which statewide employed 11,690 people in 2004, the equivalent of one major hotel-casino, feels like its prior relationship with Gibbons, who represented mining as a congressman, will sustain it. For an industry with amazing profits that paid only $39 million in mineral taxes in 2004 and had little effect on the state economy as a whole, this smacks of arrogance.

So looking at where the money comes from tells you a lot about what Jim Gibbons will do as governor. The question is: Do you like this picture?

Hal Rothman is a history professor at UNLV. His column for the Las Vegas Sun appears on Sunday.