Gibbons: 2002 quote shows Sandoval would ‘promote ethnic bias’

By David McGrath Schwartz

Published Wednesday, May 5, 2010 | 1:25 p.m.

Updated Wednesday, May 5, 2010 | 4:45 p.m.

Gov. Jim Gibbons has brought up a potentially damaging quote Brian Sandoval made in his 2002 race for attorney general, when he said he would enforce a law even if he found it unconstitutional, including a law requiring Jews to wear Stars of David on their clothing, according to media accounts from the time.

According to a 2002 column by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Sandoval was asked in an editorial board meeting if he would enforce state law “against anonymous political leafletting even though it clearly violates the First Amendment, for instance,” according to the column, which is not available online for free. “Republican attorney general candidate Brian Sandoval explained the AG is obligated to enforce any enactment of the Legislature, no matter how unconstitutional. ‘Come on,’ I demanded, ‘you're saying that if the Legislature passed a law requiring all Jews to wear yellow stars of David sewn on the outside of their clothing, you'd enforce it?’ ‘It's my job to enforce it,’ Mr. Sandoval replied.”

Gibbons’ press release, sent out Wednesday, said Sandoval “would promote ethnic bias and anti-Semitism, justifying this by saying that he would just be doing his job to enforce it.”

He compared Sandoval’s position to Nazis during World War II who said they were “just following orders.”

Sandoval’s quote became a campaign issue in 2002, when he ran for Attorney General against Democrat John Hunt. Hunt’s campaign ran ads with a narrator reading the quote. The ads were ultimately ineffective, with Sandoval winning in a landslide.

(Hunt’s campaign manager at the time was political consultant Dan Hart, a close confidant of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid. Hart is running a third-party group attacking Sandoval that is funded by $500,000 from the Democratic Governors Association.)

Sandoval’s campaign released a statement late Wednesday, saying that the press release “is so repugnant it is beneath the dignity of the office of Governor.” It called the release a “ridiculous act of desperation. But unfortunately this is exactly what we've come to expect from Jim Gibbons.”

Phyllis Friedman, Nevada Director of the Anti-Defamation League, Las Vegas, said she could not comment on Sandoval's statement or Gibbons' release because it involved a political race.

In 2002, Sandoval told the Las Vegas Sun that he stood by the statement that he would uphold the state's laws, but said the entire question was such a "ridiculous premise" that he was simply trying to answer with the attorney general's office job duties in mind.

"I am absolutely not anti-Semitic and any attempt by my opponent to paint me that way would be offensive and an obvious desperation move with two weeks to go before an election," Sandoval said.

At the time, the Jewish community’s reaction to Sandoval’s quote seemed split. At a rally organized by Democrats on the Monday following the column’s publication, attorneys and Jewish community leaders said Sandoval’s statements showed a lack of judgment.

But the then-president of the local Anti-Defamation League, Burton Cohen, defended Sandoval and attacked the question.

"In my close to 40 years in this community, I have never seen a question asked of someone that is more despicable," Cohen said, according to a Las Vegas Sun story at the time. "It is Jew-baiting at its worst.

"A question like that is only designed to incite prejudice."

Cohen said at the time that Sandoval "doesn't have a racist bone in his body."

Sandoval has faced criticism from the Hispanic community over his support of an Arizona law that would give state and local police powers in dealing with illegal immigrants. Critics of that law say it’s unconstitutional, and will inevitably lead to racial profiling.