Transparency groups celebrate ruling on campaign disclosures

By Riley Snyder and Michelle Rindels, Associated Press

Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2015 | 8:35 p.m.

In a move celebrated by transparency advocates, Nevada's Supreme Court ruled this week against a conservative activist group accused of violating campaign finance law.

The court found in a 5-2 decision that Las Vegas-based advocacy group Citizen Outreach violated campaign finance law by publishing flyers attacking former Democratic Assemblyman John Oceguera in 2010 without disclosing contributors or expenses.

The majority opinion issued Monday disputed the group's argument that state law only applied to communications containing so-called "magic words," or key political terms like "vote" or "elect." The court ruled that limiting law to those communications was too narrow and didn't follow the intent of the law.

Citizen Outreach, led by anti-tax activist Chuck Muth, issued the flyers during Oceguera's re-election campaign and accused the former assemblyman of "Getting Fat off the Taxpayers by earning one salary as a firefighter and one as an assemblyman," and sponsoring "trivial legislation." The court found the flyers to be a "clear and unambiguous plea to vote against Oceguera" and in violation of disclosure law.

The court's decision will improve Nevada's ranking on disclosure requirements, said spokeswoman Denise Barber of the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Nevada received a 'D' ranking from the group for its campaign disclosure requirements in 2014.

"This is definitely a victory for disclosure," she said.

Emily Shaw, an analyst with the nonprofit transparency group The Sunlight Foundation, said Nevada's move toward more disclosure in campaign finance follows several other states looking to tighten up related laws in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United v. FEC case. However, every state has different requirements and measurements in campaign finance disclosures, making it difficult to compare to other states.

"It's a wild West out there in terms of campaign disclosures," she said.

Oceguera, who won his Assembly race in 2010 but made an unsuccessful bid for Congress against Rep. Joe Heck in 2012, said he was pleased with the court's decision.

"It feels good, because in the sense that everyone else is reporting the money that they put in to do these kinds of ads, they were doing them anonymously," the former lawmaker said. "That's just not right. Do what you want, but report it."

Two justices dissented from the majority and said they agreed with the district court's original decision in the case.

Citizen Outreach head Chuck Muth said he disagreed with the court's legal argument and called the decision "troubling."

"We will explore what further legal avenues we might pursue in defense of free speech in Nevada," he said in an email.

Sun reporter Cy Ryan contributed to this report.