Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2007 | 7 a.m.
Tessa Hafen said she didn't see it coming.
The former Democratic congressional candidate said she landed her new job, as a lobbyist for University of Nevada Health Sciences System, after she made a chance phone call to a former associate.
She insisted that she did not get the job as the result of some backroom political deal, as conservative critics allege .
By her description, Hafen's hiring by university system Chancellor Jim Rogers relied on a dose of happenstance. After losing a razor-thin race to Republican Rep. Jon Porter last year, Hafen took some time off, both to enjoy the honeymoon she had postponed during the campaign and to consider her professional future. On the Internet, she saw a job listing for governmental relations director at UNLV, she said.
"Good opportunities came up," Hafen told the Sun. "But that was the opening that really interested me."
So, for more details she said she called Marcia Turner, who held the job before being promoted to interim chancellor of the university health science system. Before running for Congress, Hafen had been press secretary for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and had worked with Turner on education and health care policy issues over the years.
Turner told the Sun that by the time Hafen called, UNLV had filled the position. But she said she then described another opening, a lobbying job with the Nevada System of Higher Education. The job would be under a short-term contract, subject to annual renewal pending the selection of a permanent vice chancellor for the health science system, who could then make permanent appointments.
The brevity of the contract proved a hindrance to filling the position, Turner said. Also, with the 2007 Legislature a month away, the system was in desperate need.
"Most folks who do government relations were already signed up" with other agencies, Turner said. "It's a fortunate fluke (Hafen) came to us."
Turner said she then spoke with Rogers about Hafen's credentials - eight years of legislative and communication experience in Reid's office. "I've seen her in action, working with so many people on both sides of the aisle," she said. "She's very qualified."
Short on time, Rogers decided to waive the search process and hired Hafen on a six-month contract at a pro rated salary of $100,000 a year. Hafen said she had no interaction with Rogers during the process.
Hafen started work on Jan. 9. Her duties, as manager of government relations for the university health sciences system, include "managing the local, state and federal government relations activities" for the system throughout the upcoming legislative session.
When Rogers announced her hire, he cited her Washington experience and called her "uniquely and totally qualified for this position."
Some Republicans disagree. They say she lacks experience as a lobbyist at the state level and argue that her previous job creates difficulties. She spent years targeting Republicans as Reid's spokeswoman, they say, and lacks the ability to reach out to the Republican majority in the state Senate.
Hafen dismissed that argument, saying that health care is fundamentally a nonpartisan issue. "I can understand how that question would come up But this is about producing more health care professionals to stay here in Nevada. It's not about me. I don't think that's a party issue."
She also rebuffed claims of her lobbying inexperience. In Reid's office, she coordinated with a variety of agencies on the federal, state and local levels, she said. "This process will be similar to what I worked on in Washington," she said.
Still, some Republicans say Hafen's hiring constitutes an ethical foul.
Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, who's set to be vice chairman of the Finance Committee and will have significant effect on the university system budget, released a statement Monday saying that Hafen's hiring "smacked of the kind of partisan political patronage one would expect from a ward boss in New York, not in Nevada."
Rogers and his family had donated more than $10,000 to Hafen's campaign, but they also gave $8,000 to Porter.
Also at issue: Hafen was the fifth major hire for the system in almost as many months without searches and all without consulting regents. The health sciences system, proposed by Rogers last year, is a fledgling education initiative designed to expand the state's school of medicine, double the state's nursing programs and create a school of pharmacy.
For his part, Rogers, in an interview Friday, made no apologies. "The feeling was, for what we needed, Tessa was absolutely perfect," he said. "Believe me, we did not create a job for her."
Rogers said he considered Hafen's federal ties a plus, and that she had "creative ideas" on how to get more federal funding for the health care system.
Hafen, he said, was a critical addition to a small, overworked staff.
Carson City conservative activist Chuck Muth disagrees. Muth - through his Citizen Outreach group - has been firing off e-mails questioning the need for the position.
"There ought to be a law banning the use of taxpayer dollars to pay lobbyists for government entities," he wrote on his blog. "Let the department heads, who are already on the public dole, do their own lobbying for more of our money."
Despite questions about her hiring, Hafen does not appear to be in jeopardy. Regents do not have the power to fire system employees, and would not get into that kind of micromanagement, Regent Chairman Bret Whipple said. Firing power rests solely with the chancellor.
"Tessa Hafen has a contract with the system," Whipple said. "As long as her superior is happy with her performance, I'm happy with her."
Sun reporters Christina Littlefield and J. Patrick Coolican contributed to this report.
archive
