State GOP’s ethics complaint should have named Gibbons, too

By David McGrath Schwartz

Thursday, April 29, 2010 | 2 a.m.

The Nevada Republican Party filed ethics complaints this month against two top Democratic officials for listing their state office phone numbers on official election paperwork.

Those complaints now smack of pots calling kettles black and people in glass houses lobbing stones at their neighbors. It turns out the GOP’s own incumbent governor, Jim Gibbons, also listed his state office number on his “declaration of candidacy.”

The issue may appear picayune. The state form doesn’t specify whether the phone number should be a campaign, personal or business number.

Still, the Nevada Republican Party’s complaints with the state Ethics Commission level serious allegations at Secretary of State Ross Miller and State Treasurer Kate Marshall — “misuse of state government resources for campaign purposes.” Miller and Marshall are Democrats.

Forms signed by Gibbons, Miller and Marshall each listed the state office number as their telephone number. The state’s other three constitutional officers — Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, and Democrats Controller Kim Wallin and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto — listed nongovernmental phone numbers on their paperwork.

That Gibbons used his office number riled Democrats, who have said the Republicans’ ethics complaints are baseless.

“This exposes the hypocrisy they’ve been operating on all along,” said Gary Gray, a political consultant for Marshall. “They indulge in baseless hypocrisy for cute political games.”

Phoebe Sweet, spokeswoman for the Nevada Democratic Party, said the ethics complaints were “partisan game-playing.” She said the party had no plans to file an ethics complaint against the governor.

Critics of the state ethics system often cite complaints they think are sometimes filed frivolously for political ends. To try to mute this, the Ethics Commission doesn’t release or confirm details of complaints until a panel determines whether they have merit.

Gibbons’ campaign spokeswoman Jill Lufrano was asked why Gibbons had included his office phone number on the form. She said she would have to check and did not return calls by deadline.

Gray said Marshall listed the phone number erroneously. Miller has said he listed the phone number in error and called the complaint “silly.”

The complaint against Miller also questioned his brief appearance in an ad promoting the census, which the state spent $156,723 to air from March 10 to April 3.