Columnist Jon Ralston: Ethics process needs policing

Jon Ralston, who publishes the Ralston Report, writes a column for the Sun on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or through e-mail at [email protected].

LET'S GET to the easy part first: Las Vegas Councilman Michael McDonald used his elected position to benefit his boss, a clear violation of written ethics rules, and his ham-handed behavior merits punishment.

Now for the hard part: What should that punishment be?

And then the really complicated part: When will this state, this county and this city ever have a real, substantive, thoughtful debate about ethics, standards and penalties?

The McDonald case is black and white in the same way that those cases in the late '90s involving Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates were obvious. McDonald shouldn't have needed a manual to tell him not to advocate behind the scenes for a city purchase of a facility in which his boss was losing money.

Similarly, Gates shouldn't have had to look up whether it was copacetic to solicit business from people you regulate or whether it is proper to award government contracts to your cronies. But how should this kind of conduct be punished? And if Gates wasn't thrown out of office for trying to augment her own bank account by getting Strip properties to sponsor daiquiri stands, how can McDonald be tossed for being equally clumsy but not as overtly venal?

I've always been uncomfortable with the notion that these appointed ethics panels should have much authority to punish. How can an unelected bunch, which at the city and state levels have had too many snoozing geezers and clueless wackos, usurp the role of the voters?

The ethics boards should determine whether someone behaved unethically and only in extreme circumstances, when a crime has been committed, should they be able to recommend prosecution and possible removal from office. The public obloquy should be punishment enough and the voters should be the final arbiter.

Yes, too often the voters are ignorant or have short-attention spans. Gates, it should be noted, was re-elected this year essentially without opposition. A small district, inept enemies and good lawyering can trump bad publicity. But more often than not, ethics problems translate into electoral losses. Ask soon-to-be-ex-County Commissioner Lance Malone.

But if McDonald's constituents think his attention to their quotidian needs merits their forgiveness on this issue, so be it. Why should an appointed panel have the authority to subvert their will?

Much more dicey is the issue of what happens in cases that aren't so clear, when the circumstances are murkier, the ties not so obvious. Ironically, on the same day that the city ethics panel was asking for McDonald's ouster, two consultants were meeting with City Attorney Brad Jerbic and Councilman Michael Mack to talk about ethics and conflicts.

Terry Murphy, an adviser to many pols including Mack, and Dan Hart, another Mack kitchen Cabinet member and longtime political adviser, wanted some definition from Jerbic on what and what isn't appropriate. Jerbic apparently didn't clear up much. But how could he? The problem generally isn't with the consultants, who either are hired for their knowledge and skills or their access and influence (or both) in an incestuous environment that surrounds every government body from Las Vegas to Capitol Hill.

No, the fault most often lies with the elected officials, who either are too craven or too arrogant or too dumb not to just disclose and then, usually, go ahead and vote. They worry too much about the proverbial perception, and so they either don't disclose or don't vote when there really is no conflict.

And if it's a higher-profile issue, they're more likely to use ethics to duck -- or conversely, skilled lobbyists can use the media to induce them to declare a conflict and opt out of a tough vote.

The media often is complicit because of its focus on perception versus reality and their willingness to lend a megaphone to a screeching gadfly chorus. There is no bright-line test, no way to codify this lest we create a Guidebook for the Unethical. Better people on ethics panels, elected officials who think about rather than shrink from these issues, a public willing to give the benefit of the doubt.

Which leads me to the most pernicious aspect of cases such as the ones involving McDonald and Gates, which is that often their defense of "everybody does it" mirrors or exacerbates the public's perception that everybody does it. And they don't. Ultimately this comes down to the inherent probity of the elected official. A dollop of common sense helps. So, too, does disclosure. The hard part for the politicians, the media and the public is keeping that faith. Without it, though, the system crumbles.

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