Editorial: Common sense and ethics laws

STRONG ethics laws are essential to ensuring public trust. But unless ethics laws are grounded in common sense they can unintentionally end up creating more confusion than clarity, causing more harm than good. One of those instances happened last week.

State Ethics Commission Chairwoman Mary Boetsch told two commissioners prior to a Clark County Commission meeting -- a meeting to decide which of three applicants would be allowed to develop a golf course on the Strip -- they couldn't vote because they were close friends with some of the applicants.

Because two other commissioners also abstained, one based on friendship and another because the commissioner's father once worked for one of the applicants, only three -- a minority of the commission -- actually voted to approve Billy Walters' proposal to develop 155 acres of publicly owned land for 27 holes of golf.

There are a couple of issues involved here. One deals with what constitutes friendship and when that requires abstaining from voting. The second deals with the issue of having a quorum to conduct business.

Friendship is an especially thorny issue. Successful politicians, by their nature, have to be outgoing. In other words, it's hard to imagine a situation where politicians aren't acquainted with business leaders and power brokers. And because friendship is so nebulous, it's tough to imagine any rule or law that adequately could define this term. One man's friend might be another man's acquaintance. And for those elected officials who have lived here a long time, making a lot of friends in the process, it is easy to think of many situations where they won't be able to vote, paralyzing elected boards.

Because all laws must be applied equally and uniformly throughout the state, it also will be interesting to see how a voting ban on matters involving friends will work in the smaller-populated rural counties, where elected officials are friends with many of those who appear before them.

Some ethics laws are easy to follow. If an elected official or a member of his family has a financial interest in a project before the commission he serves on, it's clear he should abstain from voting. But friendship isn't an easy question to resolve.

Stricter requirements for abstentions involving friends also affects representation. A minority of commissioners may end up deciding important issues in the future because too many commissioners may have to abstain because of friendships.

As most good students of civics know, public bodies are supposed to have a quorum -- a majority of its members -- to conduct business. For the seven-member County Commission that means four commissioners. But state legislators, when drafting ethics legislation in 1977, contemplated that some members might have to abstain on some votes to avoid improprieties. State law covers this by saying that if members have to abstain because of ethical considerations, then the number for a quorum also decreases. Therefore, a quorum for four or five members present is three members.

When just three commissioners are deciding the public's business, however, this is a troubling situation. But there are alternatives to Nevada's approach. As Ed Koch reported Friday, elected officials in Arizona must declare their conflicts, but still are allowed to vote.

It's easy to sit back and simply say the law doesn't need clarification, that politicians should use their best judgment in deciding whether to abstain. But sound ethics laws shouldn't be ambiguous. When the 1999 Nevada Legislature meets it should remedy this situation, providing clear direction to the Ethics Commission and elected officials.

Allowing elected officials to vote on matters involving friends -- as long as they publicly admit the possibility of a conflict -- is preferable. If an elected official does this too often, or the stench from a single vote upsets voters, they can throw them out of office at the next election.

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