Saturday, July 10, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

JANE ANN MORRISON: Augustine's impending political end rooted in past skulduggery

Comeuppance is such a delightful Victorian word. It doesn't get enough use because it doesn't happen often enough.

State Controller Kathy Augustine is finally going to get hers.

But for two Las Vegas women, Dora Harris and Lori Lipman Brown, it is more than a decade overdue. Augustine engaged in foul deeds against them both. Both times she was rewarded for her bad actions, winning political office as a proud Republican.

Now, depending on what the Nevada Ethics Commission and the Legislature do, Augustine could go down in Nevada history as the first constitutional officer to be impeached, a definite political career-ender.

Augustine has agreed to admit to willfully violating state ethics laws.

While complete details are not public, at least one state employee did political work for Augustine's 2002 re-election effort while she was supposed to be doing her state job.

This time, Augustine's breaking the law, but there's a pattern of political skulduggery starting in 1992, when she won an Assembly seat after mailing out a racist political flier. It continued in 1994, when she won a Senate seat by flat-out lying about former Sen. Brown.

Racism and lies worked to help Augustine climb up the ladder, and the stupidity of having state employees work on her campaign will send her tumbling down, even if she opts to resign to avoid impeachment.

Augustine, when running for the Assembly in District 12 in 1992, did a side-by-side comparison mailer against her opponent Dora Harris, who is black. On one side was Augustine, a smiling, blond white woman. On the other, a dark, grainy picture of the black woman. Not so subtly, the message was aimed to make sure the white voters in this district knew Harris was black and she was the white candidate.

Two years afterward, Augustine ran against Democratic incumbent Brown in Senate District 7.

In television ads and a newspaper ad targeting Mormon voters, Augustine said Brown "refused to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance during legislative sessions."

It wasn't true.

The campaign material also said that Brown "actively opposed prayer."

Not so.

Brown sued for defamation, and ultimately Augustine admitted to the lies in a letter. No money changed hands.

The truth was that Brown, who is Jewish, had asked for a more nondenominational approach to the morning prayer in the Senate in 1993. When her request was ignored, for about two weeks at the end of the session, she began standing outside the Senate chambers in the back during the prayer, then stepping into the chambers to give the pledge.

Augustine gave credibility to the lie about the pledge, obtaining signatures from Republican Sens. Bill Raggio, Ray Rawson and Sue Lowden on a letter saying: "Each day that (Lipman Brown) waited outside the Senate chambers during the traditional prayer, we noted that she continued to remain outside during the pledge of allegiance to the flag."

The three senators, after being added to the defamation lawsuit, later admitted their statements were untrue.

I couldn't find Harris on Friday, but I did find Brown, now a candidate for the Nevada Supreme Court in District E.

She's the only woman in the four-way race, and because of her pledge to take no more than $100 from political contributors, she won't get anywhere near the money of her three well-funded opponents: Clark County District Judge Ron Parraguirre, Lake Tahoe entertainment attorney John Mason and Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Doug Smith.

Brown said about Augustine's fall from grace: "It's hard to wish anyone badly, once you yourself have moved on. But anytime anyone has done something wrong, you hope justice is done."

Brown, a teacher, said the average voter won't remember what Augustine did to her, even though it was well-publicized at the time and raised as an issue during her two races for controller.

Brown isn't gloating about Augustine's problems now. "Well, only with my husband," she laughed.

But for many of us who have watched Augustine advance politically with the aid of glossy fliers and the support of straight party-line Republican voters, this end to her political ascension is her long overdue comeuppance.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at jane@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0275.