Sunday, February 15, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Knight Allen prefers privacy but stands at forefront of effort to ban public employees from Legislature

Knight Allen prepares remarks he's about to give Nov. 19 to the inaugural meeting of the Legislature's Interim Committee on Taxes, Public Revenue and Tax Policy. Allen has led the push to prevent public employees from serving in the Legislature. Photo by Clint Karlsen.

Although he's become the man leading the movement to ban public employees from the Legislature, Knight Allen doesn't relish the public role.

"I'm 60 years old, from Brooklyn and I'm a Jeffersonian Democrat," Allen says. "That's all you need to know about me."

But a funny thing happened to Allen in his quest for his modest and private lifestyle. The public employees began making news, and with every headline about the double dipping of Assemblyman Wendell Williams, more people began listening to what Allen has been railing about, largely unnoticed, for years.

Allen's own aim has targeted the state's top Democrat, foisting him into a spotlight he shuns.

His beliefs about the U.S. Constitution, the Founding Fathers and taxation led him to question how Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins could serve in a partisan office at the same time he had some oversight of federal tax money as a police chief.

"I would love for my petition to not be necessary," Allen said. "The idea that I have to be the spokesman for the separation of powers is a scary thing."

Although Allen twice has run for office, he's not a household name.

The people who really know him are the public servants who have become the target of his comments.

His spot in the front row of the Governor's Task Force on Tax Policy for 11 months in 2002 and his self-described classical liberal ideas on taxation earned him both the ire and respect of those on the panel.

"Even though there's emotion in what he says, it isn't based fully on emotion," said Guy Hobbs, who chaired the task force. "With Knight, there's always research and his thoughts are very logical."

That's how Allen sees the letter he wrote to the Office of Special Counsel, a federal office tasked with enforcing the Hatch Act, a law prohibiting partisan activities by those who administer federal money. The office agreed with Allen's assertion that Perkins, as a deputy police chief in Henderson, is covered under the law and would be "willfully" violating it if he ran for office again.

"It's not personal," Allen said. "It's just not right."

Hot buttons

Allen isn't passionate about partisan politics but in a lunchtime discussion about public employees his rising voice and emphatic pointing with a butter knife drew a nearby diner to the table.

"You must be talking about politics or taxes to be that hot about something," a woman leaving the Palace Station coffee shop remarked to Allen, who was eating a modest lunch of chicken noodle soup and buttered rolls.

"A little of both," he replied, and then quietly and dryly admitted: "You can see I get into this."

Allen, a high school graduate whose family could not afford to send him to college, said he learned everything he needed to start his own business on the streets of the Brooklyn borough of New York, in the mailrooms of companies where he worked and through his avid reading of anything by, or related to, the Founding Fathers.

"It all goes back to the fathers," he said.

Throw in a little of economist Adam Smith and some Ralph Waldo Emerson and you've got the basis for Allen's two-pronged philosophy: "Do not tax the necessities of life," and "Policy should be made by the people."

"You can get as passionate as you want about the First Amendment or the Second Amendment, but what I'm talking about is before the Bill of Rights," he said. "I'm getting to the core."

Private persona

Allen moved to Las Vegas in 1974, and even those who have known him for 20 or more years don't know much about him.

"I can't remember when I didn't know him," said Carole Vilardo, executive director of the Nevada Taxpayers Association. "I have no idea what he does. I just know that he is a very, very interested and concerned citizen."

Indeed, Allen does not want people to know about him. The parameters he set before he would agree to an interview were that he would not pose for a portrait and would not talk about himself, just his "classical liberal beliefs."

Though he did stray a bit into some personal background, Allen implored as he left the interview: "Keep the personal stuff out."

Allen grew up in Brooklyn's Park Ridge, on the border of Queens, in what he calls a "less than successful blue-collar family."

He worked the mailroom in a new company formed by one of the Western Union magnates, a man with whom he talked and from whom he learned business. His next job, also in a mailroom, gave him more insight, he said, and he turned to books to supplement his hands-on knowledge.

On a Review-Journal candidate information form submitted during his 1992 bid for the state Senate he cited his educational background as: "High school plus continuing education at LEU (Life Experience University)."

Source of knowledge

"My political science teacher was Thomas Jefferson," he said in an interview. "I learned from John Adams and Ben Franklin. Right from the source."

Allen said when he sought answers to questions related to an investment business he wanted to pursue, he turned to the founders for answers about taxation.

"I said to myself, `Wow, if we hadn't drifted so far away from this and thrown the ideas on the trash heap of history, we'd have a better society.' "

His ideas sound so simple.

Jefferson, his hero, on ethics: "Would I do this if everybody was watching?"

In discussing Jefferson's philosophy, he added: "If given a choice between a government with no press or a press with no government, he'd choose the latter."

The only thing he'll reveal about his business is that he's "in investing." He said he is not a trader. No business license exists for Allen in the city of Las Vegas, Clark County or the state of Nevada.

He lives in a small Charleston Heights home, built in 1963, and by all accounts lives modestly.

Since Allen refused to offer any personal details, much about him remains a mystery. There are a few general records about him, assessment details on his home, for example. There's no marriage license for Allen in Nevada or New York.

"I've always been curious about what he does," said Hobbs, the governor's task force chairman. "He obviously has a very systematic and logical way of thinking about things, it made me wonder if he was in a technical field."

Although he volunteers weekly, a few hours every Tuesday afternoon, in the accounting office at Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, those he works with there know little about him.

"Actually, I don't know what he does," said office administrator Yolanda Fuquay. "I don't even know if he is Catholic. He's quiet about those particular parts of his life."

Fuquay said her organization practically has to bribe Allen to recognize him for his services, which the group did in 1976 when naming him Volunteer of the Year.

"He doesn't want to be acknowledged," Fuquay said. "He seems to want to do it for the stewardship of giving."

Politically unknown

Although a bit more about him is known politically, even those with whom he has crossed paths are in the dark about how to classify him.

Public employees in the Legislature, who are the subject of his initiative and the Hatch Act complaints, think he is a partisan Republican operative.

Task force member Ken Lange, a Democrat, said Allen's "classical liberal theory of taxation" led him to think Allen was a libertarian.

When told Allen shares his party, Lange resolved the apparent incongruity: "They say the ends of the spectrum bend around."

Mike Sloan, executive vice president and general counsel for Mandalay Resort Group, served on the task force and considered Allen to be a gadfly. Allen, he said, "sang one song and sang it over and over and over."

Still, Sloan said, he appreciated Allen's preparation and knowledge.

Sloan said he "usually disagreed" with Allen, but was not surprised to learn they belong to the same political party.

"Knight is a Democrat in the fact that he believes in the classical liberal definition of that word," Sloan said. "But I'm not sure a literal translation of Jefferson or Adams into today's times would be relevant. Knight is a strict constructionist."

In 1990, Allen ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor, losing to Gov. Bob Miller.

At the time he was known only for securing 2,000 signatures on a Common Cause petition to repeal the Legislature's 300 percent retirement benefit increase. His efforts won him the Common Cause Ethics in Government Award in 1990, but the Legislature repealed the increase before his initiative could make it to the ballot.

His run for governor was based on the notion that government workers should not make more than the average private sector salary.

In 1992, Allen ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic nominee for the state Senate against Ray Rawson on a pledge to cap the growth of the state budget and to privatize many government programs. He also supported school choice.

Allen doesn't mind that people misclassify his political bent.

"Conservatives don't seem to understand that they are supposed to be conserving the most radically liberal ideas," Allen said. "And I've got a university political science professor saying `I don't know what it means to be a Jeffersonian Democrat.' "

The latter comment was a reference to comments made in the media by Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas.

In an interview, Titus countered: "I know what a Jeffersonian Democrat is, but I don't know how Knight Allen thinks he's a Jeffersonian Democrat."

Titus said she sees Allen more as a libertarian and argues his beliefs have gained a spotlight they normally wouldn't have thanks to the double-dipping cases of lawmakers Williams at the city of Las Vegas and of Kelvin Atkinson and Kathy McClain at Clark County.

"His initiative has gotten life that it wouldn't have ordinarily have," Titus said. "Prior to all of this coming out, I don't think anybody in Nevada sat around worrying about public employees in the Legislature."

Titus, who works for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said she worries Allen's petition will qualify for the ballot but is uncertain how voters will treat it.

"If I resigned my position at the university tomorrow nothing would change," Titus said. "My philosophy and my votes would be the same."

Though the petition has the potential to prevent public employees from serving, the Hatch Act complaint specifically targeting Perkins, D-Henderson, could stifle the political aspirations of the state's top Democratic leader.

That's how Allen suddenly found friends in Republican activist George Harris, several of the Independent American Party's Hansen clan and the Nevada Libertarian Party. All stood together on Nevada Day, Oct. 31, to launch separate petition drives to ban public employees from holding elected office and to repeal most of the state's taxes.

"I've got no question about these employees' intentions," Allen said. "But where they're taking us is down a slippery slope to erode the Constitution, and with it, the founders' main goal of individual liberty."

Under scrutiny

The city of Henderson has established a Hatch Act compliance program for the Police Department and has spent some $38,000 on outside legal counsel on the issue. Perkins is confident he can persuade the Office of Special Counsel that he is following the law and that he will take additional steps to distance himself from federal money.

Perkins said despite the complaint, which has resulted in bad press and could mean a possible end to his political career, he does not fault Allen.

"I hold the guy in pretty high regard," Perkins said. "If his motives are partisan, I'd be surprised. I just get the sense the guy has a belief system he follows."

Hobbs and Lange of the task force both noted that Allen's philosophies and beliefs, particularly on taxation, might be too idealistic for the times.

"Adam Smith and Jefferson sound great, but some things you can't do that way, or can't do immediately," Hobbs said. "The poor require the most services and are able to pay the least."

Said Lange: "One of the other problems Mr. Allen has is that while he may relate in some ethereal world with his comments, there are real people with real needs and real expectations who demand services and require services."

"You can disagree with where he's coming from, but you're going to have a problem faulting his research," said Vilardo of the taxpayers association. "Knight and I do not always agree with what should be done, but on those few occasions when that happens, I have a great deal of respect for how he got to his position."

Allen said he isn't sure if his ideas will resonate or if his petition will pass.

"I'll just continue with the process," Allen said. "I try to connect people to the founding principles."