But it’s all we’ve got

Still, I was somewhat surprised to see the Ethics Commission on a list of possible targets of the new Sunset Subcommittee, a body created to review state government and recommend places to trim.

Apparently, the commission made the list because it didn’t respond to requests for information, although the chairwoman says she didn’t recall receiving any such requests. The sunset group will hold hearings, at which point the Ethics Commission will have a chance to justify its existence.

This isn’t the first time the Ethics Commission has come under fire. Even I have lamented its existence, and recommended either investigations by the state attorney general or the creation of an office of special prosecutor, whose duties would include public corruption investigations.

In part, it’s because the commission so rarely finds a “willful” violation, even when the evidence shows exactly that.

(Take, for example, the case of Las Vegas Councilman Steve Ross, who asked the commission if he could seek an elected union job that might conflict with his duties. The commission said yes, but discouraged him from doing it and predicted Ross would be accused of a violation. Sure enough, he was, for doing precisely what commissioners warned him about. Yet, they found his violation “non-willful,” since he’d received legal advice saying he could vote on a project that would employ members of the union.)

And then there’s the authority the courts have carved from the commission. According to the Nevada Supreme Court, the executive-branch Ethics Commission has no jurisdiction to police the legislative branch when it comes to core legislative functions, such as voting. So if a lawmaker votes even with an egregious conflict of interest, the Ethics Commission can do nothing about it. Instead, it’s left to the Legislature to police itself.

Sure, that could happen. Then again, I could hit the lottery, buy a sailing yacht and spend the rest of my days plying the waters of the Caribbean listening to Jimmy Buffett songs. For the record, I’m not counting on either happening soon.

Then there’s the gross inadequacy of Nevada’s ethics laws. It is not illegal, for example, to accept employment from a group at the very same time you’re writing laws to regulate that group. That’s what state Sen. Allison Copening did during the 2011 session, when she took a job with a homeowners association while writing laws to reform HOAs, laws that not coincidentally were the ones preferred by the industry.

Conflict? Absolutely. But since the laws Copening were writing affected her new employer no differently than any other HOA, Nevada law says her unethical conflict was perfectly OK.

And Copening and Ross are hardly the only offenders.

The need for some kind of code of ethical standards — and somebody to enforce them — is obvious. When you have William Horne, chairman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, taking an all-expenses-paid, non-reportable junket to London, and then returning to introduce a piece of legislation tailor-made for his benefactors, there’s a problem. When you have former state Sen. Mark Amodei (now a congressman) accepting a job as head of a mining trade association with business before the Legislature, you have a problem.

Instead of getting rid of the Ethics Commission, what’s needed is tough reform. But how likely is that to come from the very people whose conduct would be regulated under tougher rules? Only when the public demands it will real change happen.

The Ethics Commission may be imperfect — along with our state’s laws governing the behavior of elected officials — but getting rid of it entirely would be an extremely bad idea. Let’s hope the Sunset Subcommittee comes to that conclusion, too. 

 

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/SteveSebelius or reach him at 387-5276 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com.