Miller should have pursued Dane more aggressively

By 5 p.m. Friday, political trickster Tony Dane must provide a written explanation to Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske why it appears he illegally funnelled money from others into his political action committee.

Let’s hope Cegavske takes a more skeptical approach to Dane’s answers than her predecessor, Ross Miller did.

In the 2014 election, Dane sent out mailers attacking judicial candidate John Watkins for representing DUI clients. Watkins filed a complaint alleging Dane coordinated with another candidate on the mailer, which would be illegal.

The “investigation” seemed pretty minimal.

Dane wrote Miller back, said he spent his own money when he spent $3,145 on the mailers and didn’t coordinate with political consultant David Thomas, who was working for Richard Scotti, the candidate who won the election.

“I do not consult with anyone when I decide to send out information on a candidate,” Dane wrote.

Miller closed the complaint.

Watkins and I are in agreement that Miller’s office didn’t do much of an investigation. “They didn’t get to the bottom of it,” Watkins said.

Now taking Dane’s word as the truth smacks of naivete.

Dane has shown a longstanding hostility for David Parks, a former Democratic assemblyman and senator who is gay. Dane, who owns a robocall company, ran against Parks in 1996, using homophobic mailers and hateful robocalls.

In 2002 where Dane claimed he had nothing to do with finding a California salesman named David Parks to run against Assemblyman Parks in the Democratic primary and claim he lived in Assembly District 41. Only when Dane’s fax number was found on California Dane’s election filings did Dane admit his involvement.

Then-Chief District Judge Mark Gibbons, now on the Nevada Supreme Court, heard the case and said at the time, “I want to get to the truth. If there is skulduggery here, we need to get that out.” Gibbons booted the California resident off the ballot.

Every election there is plenty of skulduggery, and in 2014 one of the most blatant consisted of illegal mailers and robocalls against Democratic Assembly candidate Gary Fisher in District 34. The mailers and calls broke Nevada law by failing to identify who sent them out.

Miller’s staff seemed to do little to investigate it. Repeated checks with his staff since the complaint was filed in June ended up with the exact same answer: The case is open.

Since the case remains “open,” the elections officials cannot say what steps to investigate, if any, were taken.

Obviously, this was not a priority.

I am told by political operatives that it would have been easy to find out who paid for the mailers. Political mail is usually sent via a postal house and the number of the company is clearly printed on the mail piece. Go to the postal company and find out who paid for the mailer. Use a subpoena if necessary.

Assembly District 34 is now represented by Republican Victoria Seaman. Fisher’s Democratic opponents included Meghan Smith, Sanje Sedera and Fayaz Raja.

I have no idea who was responsible for the mailers and robocalls and am not suggesting Dane was involved. But I do know they are illegal on their face, and I want to know who was behind them.

My beef is with Miller.

That’s the kind of skulduggery that should have been a priority for Miller, who was busy running his own unsuccessful campaign for attorney general. Miller did not return a call placed Tuesday.

Cegavske has moved quickly to find out about Dane’s potential involvement in pass-through donations. Perhaps she is prompted because local police are investigating allegations GOP Assemblyman Chris Edwards may have been extorted by someone to switch his vote for Assembly speaker.

The facts aren’t public yet, but Dane’s Virginia home was one of the sites served with a search warrant looking for financial records, among other things.

Cegavske wants to know if Dane is telling the truth when he said the $245,000 in contributions are his money or if he’s hiding the source of the money, a violation of Nevada law. Pass through contributions concealing the names of actual donors are illegal. The money is supposedly to mount recall efforts against more moderate GOP legislators who have fallen out of favor with Dane.

Cegavske’s spokeswoman Catherine Lu said the Nevada Supreme Court’s ruling Wednesday on behalf of Citizen Outreach regarding PAC mailers does not impact the query into whether Dane should disclose other contributors to his PAC, because that’s a different issue.

Cegavske should make it a priority to find out who sent the illegal mailers involving admitted past drug and alcohol addiction by Fisher. He lost the primary by 22 votes to Meghan Smith, who didn’t live in the district.

Just before the 2014 election I wrote a column asking Miller to do his job and find answers to the mess in Assembly District 34. Nothing was resolved by the time Miller left the secretary of state’s office in January.

Now it’s up to Cegavske.

The pending extortion allegations are obviously a higher priority. But when someone blatantly breaks the law with illegal mailers and no one is held accountable, that deserves some attention.

Fisher, a psychologist, let it go.

I have not.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Thursdays. Email her at jmorrison@reviewjournal.com or leave a message at 702-383-0275. Find her on Twitter @janeannmorrison