Wednesday, Oct. 21, 1998 | 10:54 a.m.
Assembly District 4 candidate Bob Beers won't have to pay a $5,000 fine levied against him by the Nevada Ethics Commission over a primary election campaign flier it ruled had improperly linked his opponent to an arson fire -- at least not yet.
It appears, however, a cloud of controversy will hang over his head until after the election because there isn't time for a court decision on the issue before the Nov. 3 election.
U.S. District Judge Philip Pro decided Tuesday that it was unreasonable to require Beers to post a bond in the amount of the fine pending a court ruling on the candidate's contention that Nevada's "truth in campaigning" law is unconstitutional. Instead, Pro set a token bond figure at $1.
Beers' attorney Craig Mueller told the judge that the controversial campaign flier was truthful and carefully researched and the ruling by the commission "punished his truthful speech."
What Pro's ruling did was free up Beers' money for a last-minute mailer in his northwest Las Vegas district. That prompted the Republican candidate to joke that he knew the money was going to go to the government one way or the other -- instead of the state, it will be going to the U.S. Postal Service.
Pro concluded it is "unrealistic" to expect a ruling on the constitutional challenge before the election and seemingly won't be rushing the case, frustrating attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union.
The ACLU is seeking to join in Beers' lawsuit because of the free speech issues involved, but a decision whether to allow that won't come until next week at the earliest.
ACLU lawyer Allen Lichtenstein called the commission a "politically appointed truth commission" that can have a chilling affect on candidates who might have truthful information they want to put forward about their opponents but will be afraid to do so.
"To put it bluntly, this is un-American, as fundamentally un-American as one can get," Lichtenstein said.
He asked the judge to order the commission not to take any action pending an ultimate decision in Beers' case, but Pro had to put off the request because the ACLU had not been legally added to the case.
The ACLU is not endorsing Beers' candidacy but only is involved in the case as a third party to test the constitutionality of the state law.
The campaign literature at issue was distributed before the Sept. 1 primary and hinted that Beers' primary opponent, Dennis Silvers, could have been culpable for a crime.
The ad read, in part, "By November 1996, Alias Smith and Jones was over $20,000 in debt, had 13 late rent notices, before the third arson fire destroyed it, killing 66 pets at a nearby clinic. The fire is still under investigation."
In his complaint to the Ethics Commission, Silvers said Beers knew he didn't own the restaurant at that time, having sold it to his partner five months earlier.
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