ZZZ - GMG - VEGAS INC 2011-2014

15 | 3 F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 4 | C O V E R S T O R Y VEGAS INC ing their donors. Such a situation is a selling point for these groups. "Our donations are confidential," wrote Erin Neff, former executive di- rector of ProgressNow Nevada Action, in an April 27, 2012, fundraising email appealing to Nevadans to donate to a campaign for state Sen. Pat Spearman, D-Las Vegas. "As a 501(c)(4), Progress- Now Nevada Action does not publicly report its donors." The nonprofit organization's 2012 an- nual financial disclosure form shows about $355,000 in "contributions, gifts, grants" but offers no further detail, making good on Neff's promise that do- nors wouldn't be disclosed. Although Neff worked for an organi- zation supporting liberal candidates, this is not a partisan issue. Chuck Muth, with the conservative Citizen Outreach group, is still in court fighting against disclosure. He said he opposes disclosing donors because it could lead to retaliation against donors who are giving money to what might be an unpopular political cause. That would unnecessarily restrict free speech, he said. "I don't know of anybody who cares, other than the media, who the donors are," he said. The courts care. State laws about disclosure have changed numerous times during the past decade. In 2004, the state Supreme Court knocked down a law requiring the names and addresses of financial sponsors of political mailers to appear on the mailer. Since then, state legislators have adopted a law that says donors must be disclosed when a mailer or other "communication, taken as a whole, is susceptible to no other reasonable in- terpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a clearly identified candidate." With the federal Supreme Court weighing a decision about individual campaign contribution caps, election lawyers say financial transparency is the next battle in how American elec- tions will be conducted. "If you're willing to be involved in pol- itics, then go ahead and be involved," said Bradley Schrager, attorney with Wolf, Rifkin, Shapiro, Schulman & Rabkin, who often represents the Ne- vada State Democratic Party in court. "I don't see why anyone needs the cover of darkness when it comes to the Ameri- can political sphere. People have ac- cepted money in politics. What they don't accept is secrecy." In Nevada, it may be the state Su- preme Court that answers these ques- tions of free speech, transparency and money in politics. It also could be an election issue. Miller is running for attorney gen- eral, and Democratic Treasurer Kate Marshall and Republican state Sen. Barbara Cegavske both want to be the next Nevada secretary of state. Marshall said transparency in cam- paign finance is "one of my priorities to deal with when I get into office." "People ought to be able to follow the money, and they ought to be able to know who is spending money to advo- cate various positions," she said. When asked about state law govern- ing campaign finance disclosures, Ce- gavske said in an email: "I firmly believe in the First Amendment." "As Nevada's secretary of state, I will swear to uphold and defend the Consti- tution of the United States and the state of Nevada and will closely examine all issues with this oath in mind," she said. Regardless of who gets elected, you can expect to see plenty of anonymous- ly funded political advertisements in Nevada this year. by andrew Doughman staff writer They are from different political parties, but the two candidates for Nevada secretary of state agree on at least one issue: State laws governing what fi- nancial information must be disclosed by elected officials need to be strengthened. Both state Sen. Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, and state Treasurer Kate Marshall, a Democrat, said they would start by pushing to amend state law to explicitly define what constitutes a gift to an elected official. "We never found a good definition, and that is something I think we should work on, absolutely, because I think everybody wants to be upfront and tell everything," Cegavske said. Cegavske said she's a board member of two policy groups: the Education Commission on the States and the American Legislative Exchange Council. These groups provide her hotel rooms and meals at biannual meetings. She did not disclose these expenses on her own financial disclosure form because the state pays dues to each, so she said she does not believe the expenses are gifts. In an attempt to further define what needs to be reported to the public, she said she would use her experience working with the Legislature to ad- dress gift reporting. Marshall said the Legislature needs to address the definition of a gift "head on" because "people need to know who is receiving gifts and who is re- ceiving certain offers, right? They need to be able to follow the money." She said she would also introduce a separate bill to include cash-on-hand reporting on campaign contribution and expenditure reports. Under cur- rent guidelines, it's difficult to tell how much mon- ey candidates and elected officials have. "In order to follow the money, we need to see who has given them money, how they've spent the mon- ey and then how much is in the bank; that's just ba- sic accounting," she said. She also these reports need to be audited. Elected officials who have attended conferences or events sometimes claim they did not receive gifts and instead used campaign funds to pay their own way. Campaign expense reports often do not clearly show this information, but audits would re- veal whether or not these claims are true. "If you're going to put rules on the books, you're going to need to be able to enforce them, so you're going to need the capability to provide some kind of review or some ability to review," Marshall said. "You can have penalties or audits or periodic re- views; there's lots of different ways. But we do need to talk about how do we have some of these rules on the books and then how do we make sure they're being followed." In most states, elected officials have to publicly disclose gifts they've received. In states like Colorado, lobbyists are banned from giving gifts to public officers. Often, states such as Utah require lobbyists to disclose what they spend on elected officials. In California and Arizona, state law puts a monetary cap on how much any one individual or lobbyist can give to an elected official in a year. In Nevada, lobbyists cannot give gifts worth more than $100 to a legislator in a year. The law, however, has an exception for food, drink and entertain- ment, and the law only applies to the Legislature. It puts no other cap on the value of gifts any person or group can give to an elected official. AS S O C I AT E d p R E S S barbara Cegavske AS S O C I AT E d p R E S S kate marshall marshall, Cegavske seem on the same page 20140203_VI01_F.indd 15 1/30/14 11:52:16 AM

• Cover