Nevada senator questions staffing changes on national gambling panel

Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., said in a letter to Kay James, the commission chairwoman, that he's concerned about claims that the panel's work isn't being done "in a fair and impartial manner."

Bryan added he understands other staffers also are thinking of quitting "at this critical time in the commission's work." The panel has two years to study the social and economic effects of gambling in the United States.

The senator said three of eight professional staffers listed in the commission's budget quit in the past month.

As a result, "anyone interested in the product of the commission must raise questions asking why this is happening," he said. "Certainly there have been no public statements to adequately answer this."

Concerns about the staff changes were downplayed by Tim Kelly, the commission's acting executive director, who said the panel's relatively short life span of two years makes turnover inevitable.

The departing staffers include the executive director, Nancy Mohr Kennedy, and Allison Flatt, an associate research director.

Kennedy left citing unstated "personal reasons." Flatt will leave her post Aug. 7 to accept a job with the National Association of Attorneys General.

And late Monday, commission spokeswoman Amy Ricketts announced she's taking a job in the press office of Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal on Monday quoted sources, including at least one commission member, as speculating that the trio left out of frustration with what they saw as the anti-gambling agenda of James and panel member James Dobson.

James is dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University, a Virginia Beach, Va.-based college that was founded by televangelist Pat Robertson. Dobson is a Colorado Springs, Colo.-based psychologist who hosts a radio show that reaches fundamentalist Christians through his Focus on the Family.

James serves on the board of directors of Dobson's organization.

Ron Reno, a Dobson spokesman, dismissed concerns that his boss is meddling in the work of the gaming commission's staff.

The "resignations took us by complete surprise," Reno said, "and we accept it at face value ... as to why they've left. We have no reason not to trust their words."

The resignations are likely to consume some time during the panel's next meetings, scheduled for July 29 and 30 in San Diego and Phoenix.

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