Jon Ralston imagines a capital city debate on ethics, conflicts of interest

Sunday, Aug. 19, 2007 | 1:15 a.m.

CARSON CITY, May 1, 2009 - Lawmakers this week killed an ethics bill that would have banned them from holding jobs that could conflict with their legislative duties. The vote was unanimous in both houses.

"This is a great day reaffirming Nevada's citizen Legislature and transparent system of government," declared a beaming state Sen. Bob Beers, recently installed as the president of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce. "This is yet another example of us telling the public that we don't need laws to tell us what's ethical."

The debate in both houses was characterized by outrage from lawmakers that anyone would even question the propriety of such arrangements.

"You say that we have to be careful of what you call 'a commitment in a private capacity to the interests of others,' Judiciary Chairman Mark Amodei, the president of the Nevada Mining Association, told ethics law author Spike Wilson when he appeared before the panel. "Isn't being in the Legislature about having a commitment in a public capacity to the interests of others than the ones who voted for us?"

Vice Chairman Maurice Washington, the president of the Nevada Bankers Association, thundered at Wilson, "How dare you try to prevent us from making a good living? This is discrimination, plain and simple."

Gov. Jim Gibbons, recently appointed as government relations director for Las Vegas Sands Inc., made an unusual appearance in the building because of the critical nature of the issue.

"This bill empowers no one," the governor said. "It could only be supported by Communists who don't understand the free market."

Mayor Oscar Goodman, recently named president of REI LLC, which is building a multi-billion-dollar complex downtown, testified that the notion of a conflict is nonsense.

"You should just tell people who call this unethical to go jump in the lake," Goodman fulminated. "No one has ever questioned my integrity and they won't start now because of this arrangement. If they do, I'll bring out my baseball bat."

Goodman's colleague, Steve Ross, the head of the building trades union, chimed in: "People wondered if that was a conflict when I made that approval of John Ritter's development contingent on him hiring union labor. Conflict? What conflict? I am committed to my labor peeps and the public knows that."

The floor debate in both houses was dramatic.

The ever-wry Randolph Townsend, the Senate Commerce Committee chairman recently named to replace Walt Higgins as the head of Sierra Pacific Resources, wondered why the bill was needed.

"I ask my colleagues this simple question: So many of us up here do the bidding of certain special interests who hold disproportionate sway over the process. Isn't allowing these kinds of conflicts making the process more open?"

State Sen. Joe Heck, the president of the Nevada State Medical Association, read into the record a letter co-signed by the head of the Clark County Medical Association, Assemblyman Garn Mabey. State Sen. Mike Schneider, the president of the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, questioned the need for the bill. "I was hired by 10 different lobbyists to help them buy new houses last year," Schneider related. "Did they hire me because I am a legislator? I don't think so."

The only attempt to change the bill came from Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, recently named as the lobbyist for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, and state Sen. Maggie Carlton, the political director of the Culinary union. They argued for an amendment banning lawmakers from jobs with corporations.

"There's no conflict when we are working for the public interest such as environmental groups, universities, schools and, of course, unions," their written testimony began.

Leslie and Carlton's amendment failed, with only Assemblyman Tick Segerblom, the president of the Nevada Trial Lawyers Association, voting with them.

The only opposition to the final measure emanated from the blogosphere, where one commentator opined, "This is positively Orwellian. I am reminded of how he concluded 'Animal Farm' with these words: ' The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.' "

But there was no stopping this steamroller. Immediately after the bills were killed, lawmakers jumped on the Las Vegas Sands private plane, piloted by the governor, and flew to a celebratory wake for the proposed law at the Venetian Macau.

One legislat ure-watcher, after observing the floor debate, shook his head and lamented, "It really is true. Sometimes reality is stranger than fantasy."