An Ethics Commission Recusal When a Political Party Brings a Complaint

While we're in Nevada, there's another interesting case before the state's ethics commission that has ramifications for local government ethics. According to an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a probable cause hearing was to be conducted by one Democratic and one Republican commission member. When it turned out that the case had been brought by the executive director of the state Democratic party committee (against the state's Republican governor), the Democratic ethics commission member recused himself, according to the commission's executive director, "because of concerns that the hearing process wouldn't appear neutral."

State law requires one member from each party on the two-person probable cause panel. This is supposed to make the process look fair. However, many complaints (such as the one in the most recent blog entry) are filed by one party member against someone from the other party. If every party member were to recuse himself because a complaint is partisan, only independents would be able to sit on commissions. Which may not be such a bad idea, after all.

Of course, here the party itself is bringing the complaint, but it could just as easily have had a party member bring it. The perception would not be all that different. Party requirements on panels and commissions should take care of this problem, but the perception doesn't go away as long as partisan individuals choose the commission members. If the Democrat on the commission were to have been the selection of, say, the League of Women Voters, he probably wouldn't have felt the need to recuse himself. And if partisan requirements are there to make the commission look fair, why aren't there requirements for minor parties and, especially, for independents? Because, of course, members of the two big parties are the ones who decide what the partisan requirements are, and they're not about to shoot themselves in the foot in the name of fairness.

What the Democratic panel member did was, I think, unnecessary under the circumstances, but it will hopefully make people think why the selection process and partisan requirements are the way they are, and why not another way, that would be more fair. The City Ethics Model Code Section 203(4) suggests that ethics commission members be selected by nonpartisan organizations, from which the appointing body makes its appointments. Perhaps there should also be a rule not only for limits on any one party, but also for a minimum number of independents or minor party members.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

---