With scandals rocking government at every level, from Washington to Carson City to Clark County, the topic of public ethics generated considerable heat at a panel discussion Saturday.

Three state lawmakers addressed the issue, saying they hope to see stricter ethics legislation passed in the legislative session that starts next month. But they also emphasized that the issues involved are thorny and the decisions officials have to make are often unclear.

Members of the public who spoke at the town hall-style event appeared unsatisfied with this nuanced perspective, however, accusing the officials of making excuses. One man muttered as he filed out of the auditorium, "I had no idea Assemblyman (Joe) Hardy was such a whiner."

Hardy, R-Boulder City; Assemblyman Marcus Conklin, D-Las Vegas; and Sen. Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, were the guests on the panel sponsored by the Nevada Center for Public Ethics. The center's president, Craig Walton, also sat on the panel, moderated by television host Mitch Fox, whose pointed questions got some of the best audience response.

"Do state lawmakers have the intestinal fortitude to make these kinds of wholesale changes?" Fox asked at one point. "Do all these people have to go to prison for that to happen?" The crowd of about 50 people applauded wildly.

Conklin, the assistant majority leader of the Assembly, said legislators hope to reintroduce some ethics measures that passed the Assembly but died in the Senate in 2005, including a "three strikes, you're out" proposal that would make people ineligible for public office if found guilty of three ethics violations.

Lawmakers also will reintroduce a bill to crack down on the use of public resources for political campaigns and another to increase penalties for ethics violations.

Also needed, Conklin said, are laws requiring disclosure of members of limited-liability corporations that contribute to political campaigns and statutes to restrict lobbying of the executive branch.

"There's no doubt that the public has an interest to see the circumstances of ethics change," Conklin said. "It's not a simple subject, though. You cannot legislate common sense."

Hardy presented what he said was a classic lawmaker's dilemma. He had for years been attending the convention of the state mining association to learn more about one of the state's biggest industries. But doing so meant accepting room and board for a weekend at Lake Tahoe on a lobbyist's dime, presenting a possible appearance of impropriety.

Hardy said he decided to stop going to the mining convention last year, as have many other legislators, out of ethics concerns. But he wondered whether that was the ideal solution.

"You're putting people in a situation where you don't want them influenced by knowledge," he said.

Hardy also said sweeping reform sounds nice, but incremental change might be better.

"I would like to do something little that works, something that's practical," he said.

The lawmakers also emphasized that while ethics should be a priority, it is one of many issues competing for attention and funding in the Legislature.

But the audience of angry citizens seemed more sympathetic to the views of Bill Flangas, a member of the state Ethics Commission known for his staunch and uncompromising views, who gave a speech to open the discussion.

"The public's hunger for change remains unfulfilled," he said, saying the commission is seen as toothless and doesn't have enough resources.

"There is nothing complicated about ethics," Flangas said. It is simply the concept, he said, of "the spirit of public service as a public trust."