Nevada needs to toughen ethics laws

The Kathy Augustine debacle in December left no choice for the Nevada Legislature but to enact some tough ethics laws that will close loopholes and remove the vagaries of language now on the books.

Whether legislators will act or not remains to be seen, but Speaker Richard Perkins has confidence there will be broad support for at least some of the provisions he and others are proposing.

"At the end of the day," he told a reporter last week, "it'll be very difficult for any legislator to not be for ethics."

The problem, as we see it, is not so much whether Nevada politicians are for ethics. It's whether they are willing to stand firm when they see a violation.

Augustine paid a hefty fine and suffered the embarrassment of an impeachment hearing. She was censured, kept her office and, in the end, was able to say she felt vindicated.

All of that came about because the state's ethics statutes are wide open to interpretation.

A bill being drafted by Perkins would remove officials from office if they violate ethics laws three times. It would increase fines and and make some ethics violations a criminal offense, rather than civil.

The goal here should be to take politics out of the equation as much as possible. It was clearly a factor in the Augustine case, whether you believe she was persecuted by Democrats or let off easy by Republicans. The perception among the electorate is that politicians were acting in their own self-interest, not necessarily in the best interests of the public.

Aside from one obvious loophole - the baffling conclusion that using state employees on an elected official's campaign isn't an ethical violation - the Legislature also needs to clear up the definition of "willful."

Augustine admitted to a "willful" violation - in the sense that she "should have known" what was going on in her office. If ever a phrase were open to interpretation, that would be it.

We're sure all the members of the Nevada Legislature will say they're for a high standard of ethics. Now let's seem them act on it.