The state’s conscience

Retired ethics professor Craig Walton, who taught at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for 33 years, died Monday of complications from surgery. He was 72.

He initiated the Ethics and Policies Studies program at the school, and -- upon retirement -- continued his work in that field by founding the Nevada Center for Public Ethics.

Given how important ethics in government are to the survival of that great unspoken contract between governors and governed -- especially given how those vital bonds of trust are strained in an era when government seeks to meddle everywhere, creating the impression that the very right to do business is "up for bids" -- it's interesting how few competitors professor Walton had when a Nevada news-hound needed to pick up the phone and ask someone, "Is that ethical?"

The picture was further clouded by a state Ethics Commission that insists on answering a question other than the one most frequently asked.

Voters, presented with news of a complex (but all too common) financial arrangement in which a regulated person or entity seems to be currying favor with an office-holder, generally want to know, "Is that ethical?" But commission members -- who are, after all, political appointees and thus political creatures -- prefer to answer, "What happened was within the law."

Given how vastly different are the burdens of proof, that answer qualifies as "non-responsive."

It was vastly to Mr. Walton's credit that he rarely couched his answers in such Delphic evasions. While "As a philosopher he tried to take the charitable view" -- in the words of former student and former state lawmaker Jim Spinello -- Mr. Walton called issues as he saw them, straight down the middle, without perceptible personal bias.

"He has been the conscience of the state," said his friend, state Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, on Wednesday.

Not a bad epitaph, at all.