Governor tries to outfox Nevadans, argues he’s above ethics oversight

Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023 | 2 a.m.

Ethics are at the heart of good governance. After all, the government can only be “of the people, by the people (and) for the people,” as Abraham Lincoln so eloquently called for, if the actions of those in power serve the people and not political self-interest.

Unfortunately, as we’ve discussed in numerous editorials in the past, Gov. Joe Lombardo too often demonstrates an inability to understand, and sometimes a dreadful unwillingness to care, about ethical issues.

But last week, in the governor’s ongoing fight with the Nevada Ethics Commission over his abuse of his uniform and badge to raise funds for his campaign, the former sheriff reached a new low. Not only did he file a lawsuit seeking to overturn a ruling by the Ethics Commission against him, but he is also seeking a declaration that the existence of the commission is itself unconstitutional.

Most honorable governors would encourage and support ethics commissions. Our governor wants to put himself beyond the reach of ethics watchdogs.

According to Lombardo’s court filings, on the state government’s organizational chart, the commission is part of the executive branch. As the leader of the executive branch, Lombardo claims the Nevada Constitution gives him the sole and exclusive authority to appoint members to executive branch positions, yet that is not the way the Ethics Commission functions.

In reality, the commission is a now 40-year-old compromise between the legislative and executive branches that allows each to share the responsibility for ensuring that the people within Nevada’s government operate in an ethical manner. As such, the executive and legislative branches each appoint half of the commission’s eight members.

By Lombardo’s logic, the commission can only be constitutional and only have authority over the governor’s office when the governor’s authority to control 100% of the appointments is restored.

Think about that. No really, think about that for a moment.

Lombardo is arguing that the Ethics Commission can only exist if he gets to control who sits on it. He is arguing that the only possible way that he can be held accountable for his actions is if the people holding him accountable are his friends and allies.

Elected officials in other states have made similar moves in the past and it always ends badly. The only elected officials who fear ethics commissions are those who have questionable ethics. Good, clean leaders don’t fight scrutiny, they welcome it.

While playful anecdotes about the “fox guarding the henhouse” may come to mind in response to Lombardo’s arguments, we must bear in mind that the henhouse allegory concludes with the death of the hens at the hands of the fox, who escapes accountability altogether.

Applying that allegory to the current situation results in the death of accountability and the death of institutions designed to ensure that our elected leaders serve the people rather than themselves.It also raises the specter of Lombardo using hand-picked partisan “ethics” officials — his cronies and lackeys, in other words — to launch investigations of anyone who stands in his way and to harass other public officials with phony complaints. Avoiding that is precisely why you have nonpartisan independent ethics officials. Good government demands it.

This is particularly important when Lombardo owes his successful campaign for governor to activist billionaire Robert Bigelow. We need an independent ethics commission that will keep a close eye on whether Lombardo is paying back his supporters with favors. Heaven knows the Sun is watching closely for its part.

Moreover, Lombardo is not acting alone in his attempts to destroy institutions of ethics and good governance in the Silver State.

Former state Sen. Warren Hardy, a Republican from Las Vegas first elected to legislative office in 1991, made arguments similar to Lombardo’s back in 2009. He also argued that the Ethics Commission’s place on the organizational chart was more important than its role in good governance, and claimed that the Legislature couldn’t be overseen by an executive appointee. As a result, he left the commission with only limited authority to investigate ethical violations by legislators that were not related to “core legislative functions.”

Then in 2015, with Republicans having control of a legislative trifecta, legislators passed a law to limit the ability of the ethics commission to investigate lawmakers generally. The bill, AB 496 (2015), turned much of the investigative power for ethics violations over to the Legislative Counsel Bureau, an agency housed in and controlled by, you guessed it, the Legislature. The bill also ensured that government watchdogs such as nonprofit and news organizations would have almost no ability to receive information about ethics complaints against members of the Legislature.

The law was drafted, proposed and passed as an “emergency measure” in less than 48 hours, and received unanimous support in both the state Senate and the Assembly — meaning Democrats bear some responsibility for the fiasco as well.

Surely the foxes must have gorged themselves sufficiently by now.

Nevadans deserve to know that the people entrusted with making public laws and spending public money are accountable to bipartisan and nonpartisan independent commissions, and not self-serving politicians.

Lombardo’s lawsuit seeks to gut an essential instrument of good governance in Nevada and should be rejected by the people and the courts alike. Meanwhile, Democrats, who now control both houses of the Legislature, should do everything in their power to restore independent ethical oversight of the government.

As for the governor, we would call on him to join in the effort, but he’s already proven too many times that he’s not interested in ethics or oversight. It is up to the people of Nevada to hold him accountable at the ballot box.