Report details campaign cash's practical payoff

CARSON CITY -- Money talks and the Nevada Legislature listens.

Those industries or organizations, such as gaming and labor, that made the biggest campaign contributions were the most successful in getting tax breaks and sweetheart deals from the 1997 Legislature, a new report said Monday.

The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada released a study called "Cashing In" that suggests taxpayers are "taking a back seat to the interests of major donors."

"The special interests have taken over, and we need a new system," Bob Fulkerson, director of the alliance, said.

The alliance includes minority and womens' organizations, organized labor, the Nevada Trial Lawyers Association and social groups. It wants to change the present system whereby political campaigns for the Legislature are financed from private donations. The alliance says taxpayers should finance the elections.

Fulkerson and Paul Brown, Southern Nevada coordinator of the alliance, said those who benefited the most were casinos, labor, utilities and mining interests, business and construction.

Gaming contributed $671,098 to the campaigns of state lawmakers in 1996, and that industry achieved its six legislative priorities. The bill to raise the tax on liquor, for example, was killed by the Assembly Judiciary Committee, whose members had received a total of $85,370 in campaign contributions from gaming.

"Gaming hit the jackpot in the 1997 legislative session," the alliance said. One bill, the report stated, was a "blatant giveaway" of state funds in a break to casinos and other businesses that buy expensive art.

The art bill was promoted by lobbyists for Las Vegas casino executive Steve Wynn, who gave $70,786 to lawmakers through the Mirage hotel-casino.

Assembly Speaker Joe Dini, D-Yerington, said the premise of the alliance that lawmakers "are bought and sold is a big bunch of baloney." He said there's been a "few bad apples" in the Legislature in the last 30 years, but he said most lawmakers are concerned with the public good.

Dini said many legislators take money from both sides. And then they "have got to pick out what's right for the public."

"All they ever ask is for a fair shake," Dini said of the campaign contributors. "I have never been asked to swing a bill. All they want is a fair shake and no surprises."

Brown suggested that a $7 million appropriation -- an amount equal to all private donations to legislative candidates in 1996 -- would finance all the legislative races in Nevada each election.

With public financing, legislators would "not have to kowtow to all the special interests," Brown said. "If you don't go with gaming, the odds are you will not get re-elected."

The alliance said the legislators face a "terrible dilemma."

"If they want to get re-elected," the report said, "they cannot offend the people who fund their campaigns. Unfortunately, what is good for special interests is not always good for average Nevadans.

"The gaming industry, grabbing a tax break, while at the same time advocating an increase in the regressive sales tax for Southern Nevadans, is one example."

Other examples abound, the report stated.

Organized labor, which included the major schoolteachers union, contributed $520,705 to legislative candidates in 1996 and won on four of its six bills. Labor opposed a bill to create a new treatment system for low-income families because it feared it may weaken a union of health workers. The bill died in the Assembly Health and Human Services Committee, whose members had received $75,078 in campaign contributions from labor.

State legislators received $318,150 from utilities and mining, which won on three of their four key bills. The major bill was the deregulation of the electric industry, which passed with only one "no" vote.

Business and retail contributed $295,713 in the 1996 election and won six out of seven bills. It was able to pass a law to provide immunity from lawsuits for employers who disclose information on employees seeking new jobs.

Construction donated $225,599 to candidates and was able to win passage on four of the six bills it supported. Along with gaming and business, it won on a bill to raise the sales tax in Clark County for the expansion of the water system in Southern Nevada. That issue is on the November election ballot in Clark County.

A bill to publicly finance legislative elections will be introduced in the 1999 Legislature.

Even though Maine and Vermont have begun such election procedures, and other states are considering them, Dini said, "Nevada is not ready for public financing and can't afford it. I would rather we put the money into education and for the kids."

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