Friday, April 27, 2018 | 4:08 p.m.
A tight race for a Nevada Senate seat held by Republican Dean Heller has led to a spate of ethics complaints filed by Democrats and the GOP in recent months, with the latest objection filed against the senator Friday over a photo used in campaign materials.
The Nevada Democratic Party filed a complaint with the U.S. Senate ethics committee Friday alleging that a Heller campaign website and email improperly used a photo taken by a government staffer of the senator speaking at a 2014 Senate committee hearing on Veterans Affairs.
Democrats called use of the photo "sloppy and unethical" in their complaint, arguing that a photo taken by a government staffer is a government resource and is barred under Senate rules and federal law from being used for campaign purposes.
It's the party's fifth complaint filed since October against Heller, the only Republican Senator in the country running for re-election in a state won by Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Heller is considered the most vulnerable GOP senator running this year and is expected to face a tough challenge in November from Democratic U.S. Rep. Jacky Rosen, who represents Nevada's third congressional district.
"This latest frivolous complaint shows just how weak Nevada Democrats perceive their anointed candidate, Jacky Rosen," Heller's campaign spokesman Keith Schipper said in a statement. Schipper called on Rosen ask her political party to stop wasting taxpayer dollars spent looking into the complaints. The campaign took the photo down but put it back up Friday after consulting with lawyers.
In recent months, both campaigns have been accused by the opposing political party of improperly soliciting fundraising contributions tied to official actions such as pending legislation or actions in Congress.
Nevada Democrats alleged in complaints that Heller's campaign made blog posts that were identical to official office statements and that Heller's campaign violated Federal Election Commission rules by using billboard advertisements that don't properly disclose who paid for the ads.
Nevada Republicans, in turn, filed two complaints against Rosen in March. In addition to an ethics complaint alleging a Rosen campaign email improperly tied donations to pending action in Congress, the GOP filed an FEC complaint alleging that the work done by law firms representing Rosen in a 2016 defamation case amounts to "enormously excessive" donations that violate campaign finance laws.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to the U.S. House, paid legal bills in the case, which makes the FEC complaint is bogus, according to Rosen's campaign spokesman Stewart Boss.
"Federal law permits party committees to pay for legal expenses and these services have been paid for and appropriately reported to the Federal Election Commission since the 2016 election," Boss said in a statement.
Boss has said the ethics complaint the Nevada GOP filed against Rosen is "desperate and disingenuous and the party's argument only bolsters Democratic complaints filed against Heller.
It's unclear when the Senate Ethics committee and FEC will rule on the complaints. Both bodies keep most details about their investigations secret until complete.
