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When Rory Reid proposed a series of ethics reforms last week, his timing seemed impeccable.
Just days before, Dario Herrera, a former Clark County commissioner who was convicted of accepting bribes from a strip club owner in 2006, had been released from federal custody — an event noted by the local media.
The previous week, the Nevada Ethics Commission found Las Vegas Councilman Steve Ross had violated ethics rules for a series of votes on the proposed city hall, a project that could benefit the union members he represents in his day job.
Reid, a Democratic candidate for governor, said the timing was sheer coincidence. But his proposals, if enacted, would seem to go a long way toward curbing what political scientists and longtime observers describe as an endless parade of ethical scandals in Nevada politics.
“Because we’re a state that depends so much on a culture of luck and instant gratification, it lends itself to taking the ethical curve on the accelerator instead of the brake,” historian Mike Green said.
Specifically, Reid would mandate ethics education for all state employees, eliminate “nonwillful” ethics violations and make it illegal for lawmakers to lobby state agencies in a private capacity. The goal, he said, is to close loopholes and stiffen penalties for unethical behavior.
“There’s obvious problems in the way we govern elected officials in Nevada,” he said. “I think people, when they are raising their children, sense more justice than they find in our ethics laws.”
The most glaring example of unethical behavior by politicians in recent years involved four Clark County commissioners who were sentenced to federal prison for accepting bribes from strip club owner Michael Galardi.
It’s not a coincidence that Reid, who is chairman of the County Commission, has proposed such reforms as he seeks statewide office. “I got elected (to the County Commission) not knowing I would inherit a significant credibility problem with the government agency I was elected to,” Reid said.
But reforming the system from within has proved difficult because doing so requires elected officials to act against their own political and personal interests.
During the 2009 session, after the state Supreme Court ruled that the Ethics Commission had no jurisdiction over the Legislature, the Assembly and Senate formed ethics committees to police their members. Those committees never met.
To explain the challenge facing reformers, political scientists and other longtime observers of Nevada’s political system point to a wide range of factors, from the part-time Legislature, to our incestuous political culture, to weak enforcement, to Nevada’s permissive atmosphere.
“There’s a permissive culture,” said David Damore, a UNLV political scientist. “The notion that if it’s not explicitly against the law, then you’re dumb not to do it.”
There are numerous examples of conflicts, both real and perceived.
State Sen. Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas, proposed a light rail line during the 2009 legislative session that would have been near property he owns. State Sen. Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, led the effort during the same session to reform the construction-defect law; his law partner was general counsel of the Nevada chapter of the Associated General Contractors and said he lobbied Care on the issue.
Also, the Legislature is filled with teachers and other public-sector employees who vote on their own salaries. Labor unions are represented, too.
In the case of Ross, who was advised not to take the union position, the conflict was largely avoidable.
Reid declined to comment on the Ross case.
“I’m not trying to make an example out of anyone,” Reid said. “I don’t want to look behind me, I want to look in front of me. I want to improve the policy.”
The group Ross heads, the Southern Nevada Building and Construction Trades Council, has endorsed Reid for governor.
Reid noted Nevada’s poor rankings among the states in ethics laws (34th) and conflicts of interests (40th), according to the Better Government Association.
Experts agree the state’s current ethics laws leave plenty of room for additional regulation.
“Outside federal prosecution, the enforcement mechanisms seem to be pretty much nonexistent,” Damore said.
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