By Joan Whitely
Die-hard Nevadans tout the state’s so-called “citizen legislature” as a virtue.
But the State Integrity Investigation suggests that transparency is compromised by lawmakers who meet for just four months every other year.
Nevada ranks 42nd among the states, with a grade of D- and
a numerical score of 60 from the months-long probe, a collaboration of
the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio
International.
The state’s legislative framework factors heavily in that poor grade.
Since part-time lawmakers must earn a living through other jobs, all
face potential conflicts when proposed laws touch their sources of
income.
Other gaps in ethics protection – from flimsy lobbying reporting
requirements to a huge loophole in the state’s open meeting law to
unlimited gifts allowed for public officials – further erode
accountability:
- Lobbyists can operate year round, but their networking and hospitality are tracked for a narrow window of time – just right before, during and right after legislative sessions. Those who lobby members of the executive or judicial branches do not register at all. Every 24 months, lobbyists have 18 months to lobby at will, with no restrictions. In a 2010 report, the Sparks Tribune newspaper called Nevada “A Lobbyist’s Playground,” citing a Pacific Research Institute study that ranked the state 47th for lobbying transparency.
- Budget changes occurring between sessions violate, at least in spirit, the principle of representative democracy, as only a handful of legislators serve on the Interim Finance Committee that makes changes.
- The Nevada Legislature has exempted itself from open-meeting laws. The rationale: Its sessions are so short and jam packed, last-minute items cannot always be announced with adequate legal notice. That exemption, critics say, means the public cannot always readily see what legislators do.
Gov. Brian Sandoval’s office did not respond to several requests for comment.
Ross Miller, Nevada’s secretary of state, said many of the practices cited by the State Integrity Investigation as inadequate “are policy issues that are governed by our state’s Constitution … or long-standing statutes.”
Miller, who advocated vigorously for the reforms to campaign-finance
law adopted by the State Legislature in 2011, said he’s a “strong
believer that lifting the veil of secrecy that often shrouds
governmental procedures benefits both the political process and the
public’s faith in government.” He is the son of former Nevada Gov. Bob
Miller.
The state of 2.7 million residents scored well in some areas, such as
the variety of state records available online free to the general
public.
The Nevada Electronic Legislative Information System, which
debuted in 2011, lets the public track bill status and hearings, floor
sessions and other meetings.
Shortcuts
In 1998, voters amended the Constitution to limit legislative
sessions to 120 days or less.
But 10 special sessions have been held
since 2001, always crisis-based.
Given the Legislature’s tight 120-day regular sessions, “shortcuts” have become the norm in Nevada.
To expedite the finance hearings that bear on the state budget,
committees of the Nevada Senate and Assembly jointly meet. “It’s
efficient,” admitted University of Nevada, Las Vegas administrator Lee
Bernick.
But he believes the arrangement undercuts the public’s ability to
provide input, while limiting the ability of each house to separately
shape the budget.
“In most places, if the state House makes a decision, people can get
active and go to the Senate,” said Bernick, interim dean of the UNLV
College of Urban Affairs.
Other timesavers that critics say shortcut democracy: Last-minute
bill introductions and late-night legislative sessions without any
requirement to give advance notice.
Community activist Michael Ginsburg, southern Nevada director of the
non-profit Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, said one result is
that paid lobbyists are more able to attend the impromptu, late-hours
sessions than ordinary Nevada residents.
Nevada also scored low on the extent to which it asks its public
servants – elected and appointed – to disclose their personal financial
assets. That makes it hard for citizens to judge each servant’s
affiliations and independence.
Many Nevada public servants legally bypass the annual requirement to
disclose personal assets because they serve on state boards that pay a
modest per diem; the low pay puts such board members below the threshold
for reporting, even if the board wields significant power, such as
awarding disability status for state workers or deciding if an
official’s behavior was unethical.
When public servants do
disclose their financial assets, the state monitors the disclosure
statements only for timely filing.
It does not publicize or audit the
contents of the disclosures.
Thus, even a Christmas gift as extravagant as the $85,000 that gaming
Commissioner Dr. Tony Alamo Jr. disclosed receiving in 2010 from a
trust associated with some members of the prominent Ensign gaming family
did not require further detail.
Nor did any Nevada media groups report
on the Ensign Trust’s holiday largesse.
Nevada law sets no maximum gift limit for its officials.
Alamo did abstain from an emergency vote of the Nevada Gaming
Commission earlier in 2010, which paved the way for a group including
some Ensigns to take over the Red Garter, a troubled hotel-casino in
West Wendover, just days before it was to go on the auction block.
Alamo said that he abstains from all votes involving the Ensigns, as
the two families have been close for several generations.
“Mr. (Mike)
Ensign is like a father to me,” the physician and commissioner said,
describing Ensign – the father of former U.S. Sen. John Ensign – as the
person who gave the gift.
Lawyer Scott Scherer, who represented primary owner David Ensign in
the Red Garter transaction, said Alamo’s gift was unconnected to the
hotel deal.
Scherer said Michael and Sharon Ensign have no stake in the
hotel.
David Ensign, the former senator’s half-brother, holds the
majority membership of the company that owns the Red Garter, according
to Scherer. Other membership is held by trusts for several Ensigns who
are of minor age, the lawyer said.
A mixed bag
Reno lawyer Caren Jenkins and Las Vegas lawyer Alan Lefebvre, who
have each served on state boards or commissions, said Nevada’s part-time
public servants are a mix of the dedicated and less-than-dedicated.
“It’s a resume builder,” said Jenkins, executive director of the
Nevada Commission on Ethics since September 2009. Spotty attendance and
limited expertise are typical for some appointees, she said.
Some state and community leaders contend more rules in state
government wouldn’t necessarily bar ethical missteps.
Some contend the State Integrity Investigation is biased toward urban states, whose large populations might require more extensive regulations.
“There’s a regional bias, of the ‘wild West,’ that resonates through
our law. … if it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” said lawyer Lefebvre.
Lefebvre – vice president of the State Bar of Nevada – said the state
depends more on “the morals and ethics of the people … than an
infrastructure of rules.”
Nevada rarely sets a “cooling off” period for elected or appointed
officials who leave public office to take a job in the business sector.
The risk of no cooling off: The state official could be induced to act
favorably toward a company before leaving office, knowing a lucrative
private-sector job is in the waiting.
Lawyers who counsel the state’s public utilities commission are one
rare group subject to a cooling-off period; yet the state has granted
several “cooling off” waivers, said Jenkins of the ethics commission.
Nevada government often devises informal ethical codes for its
workers, or grants them vast discretion, rather than cementing formal
rules into statute.
State purchasing officials in Nevada, for example, are guided in part
by a code of ethics that is not in state law, but has been adopted by
management.
This internal code matches that of the National Association
of State Procurement Officials, said Kimberlee Tarter, deputy
administrator of the Nevada State Purchasing Division.
Nevada regulation allows “sole sourcing” of professional services
such as engineering, architecture and other costly design work.
But
being exempt from a comparative bidding process does “not mean you move
forward without the same due diligence,” Tarter said.
The state rarely bars businesses that have skirted bidding
regulations from again seeking state contracts; Tarter, the state
official, could cite just one instance, from more than a decade ago.
Nevada law does not bar former state workers convicted of corruption
from applying to work again for the state.
“For all practical purposes, if they were convicted of embezzling,
they wouldn’t get hired again. It just wouldn’t happen. We’re a pretty
small state. Everyone knows that,” said Mark Stevens, vice chancellor of
finance for the Nevada System of Higher Education, who was assembly
fiscal analyst at the Legislative 
Counsel Bureau for more than 25 years.
Counsel Bureau for more than 25 years.
Voters have resisted some reforms. In November 2010, for instance,
voters killed measures that would have switched Nevada judges from an
elective to appointive system; instituted a formal system to measure
judges’ performance; and added an intermediate appeals level.
The radical judicial measures, defeated by voter margins of 53 and 58 percent, were pitched after a 2006 Los Angeles Times
series on Nevada judges focused on conflicts of interest.
The “Juice
vs. Justice” series asserted: “In Las Vegas, they’re playing with a
stacked judicial deck.”
A unique history
Sondra Cosgrove, a history professor at the College of Southern
Nevada, offers her own theory on why Nevada has enjoyed an extended
“adolescence.”
Personalities and special interests, Cosgrove said, have always been
key factors in civic life in Nevada, the Battle-Born State, since its
birth in 1864, during the Civil War.
It bypassed Congressional approval
for statehood, in a unique deal brokered by President Lincoln. Part of
Lincoln’s deal required Nevadans to rapidly pass a state constitution,
which enshrined mining as a special interest, which continues to this
day.
In 1864, the Nevada constitution guaranteed that mining would pay tax
“at a rate not to exceed 5 percent of the net proceeds,” no matter how
high the value of the precious metals extracted from Nevada mines –
which in 2012 are the No. 1 producer of gold in the United States.
In 2011, reinforcing mining’s sweetheart deal in Nevada, state
legislators were surprised to learn from the state’s tax chief that his
auditors hadn’t conducted financial audits of mining companies in two
years, despite the rough economy, low state revenues and gold’s value
rocketing to more than $1,500 an ounce.
The chief, Dino DiCianno, abruptly resigned amid the firestorm but
proffered that his office simply lacked the staff to conduct the audits.
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