Ensign wants to spare family ugliness of re-election bid

In a surprise move, scandal-plagued U.S. Sen. John Ensign abruptly announced on Monday that he would not seek re-election in 2012, setting off a chain reaction among potential candidates for higher office.

Ensign said he didn't want to put his family through an ugly campaign. His opponent, he said, would run TV ads focusing on his downfall, from a Christian conservative and rising GOP star with White House hopes to a ruined man who cheated on his wife with the couple's friend. His mistress worked for the senator in Washington, D.C., alongside her cuckolded husband.

"As I have learned through my mistake, there are consequences to sin," Ensign, 52, said at a Las Vegas news conference, standing beside his wife, Darlene, along with a dozen supporters. "I know that God has forgiven me, and so has my wife."

His fear was that voters would not.

Although contrite about his affair, he was defiant in the face of a related Senate ethics probe, saying he neither broke the law nor violated Senate ethics rules.

"If I was concerned about that I would have resigned because that would make the most sense because then it goes away," he said, insisting the investigation had "zero to do" with his decision to retire. "I did not do the things they're saying."

POLITICAL 'DOMINO EFFECT' CITED

In the wake of Ensign's decision, Republican Rep. Dean Heller was expected quickly to launch a bid to fill the Senate seat. His decision, which could come within days or next week, would set off a scramble among Republicans to announce their own campaigns for his congressional seat, which covers GOP territory across Northern and rural Nevada.

On the Democratic side, pressure increased on Rep. Shelley Berkley to decide whether to quit her safe seat to take on a costly and difficult Senate race in a year both parties see Nevada as a top battleground. Democrats will be fighting to retain Senate control. Picking up a seat in Nevada could make up for expected losses to the GOP elsewhere.

"This is going to have a domino effect," said former Gov. Robert List, a GOP national committeeman. "I think you'll see Heller get in within a week to 10 days. And the next step will be folks lining up to jump into the congressional race. What happens on that level is not necessarily clear. Anything can happen in that race."

Heller declined Monday to talk about his future. Instead he issued a statement saying, "This must have been a very difficult decision for John to make. He and his family have been through a lot. Lynne and I wish them the very best."

Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, a Republican, said he will weigh his political opportunities "in the coming days." He has had his eye on the Senate, but bowed out of the 2010 race for Sen. Harry Reid's seat because of what he called a politically motivated investigation. It focused on his management of a college savings program while he was state treasurer. He was cleared.

Heller and Krolicki are friends. If Heller announces he is running for Ensign's job, the lieutenant governor is expected to make a congressional run for Heller's open seat. Insiders see Krolicki as the strongest potential GOP House contender because he has won a statewide election four times, twice as state treasurer and two times for his current job. His term expires in 2014.

Former state Sen. Mark Amodei, now chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, also is seriously considering running for Heller's seat, two years after his failed bid to win the GOP Senate nomination to take on Reid.

"All eyes are now on Dean," Amodei said, adding he will "act quickly" after Heller makes an announcement.

Amodei might be persuaded to stand down in order to avoid a divisive primary, especially if there's a chance GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval might appoint him to complete Krolicki's four-year term if he wins Congress, one Republican insider said.

Another wild card is Republican Sharron Angle. The Tea Party favorite who won the GOP Senate nomination in 2010 after a highly competitive and nasty primary, yet failed to defeat Reid despite his unpopularity. Angle has her eye on both the Ensign seat and Heller's job. She nearly beat Heller in the GOP primary in 2006 and has a strong Northern and rural Nevada base.

Republicans want to avoid a bloody primary fight for Ensign's seat. As the anointed one, Heller probably would have the playing field to himself, unless Angle jumps into the race and others without party backing make a run.

On the Democratic side, despite the pressure, Berkley said Ensign's announcement will not affect her timetable and she expects to decide by the summer whether she will be a candidate. She said she has not started polling on the race.

"I don't think Senator Ensign's announcement changes anything that I am planning to do," Berkley said. "I have stated from the beginning that who is running on the other side of any election that I run, it does not matter."

Still, Ensign's decision could make it tougher for Berkley or any Democrat to win the GOP seat. If Ensign had stayed in, the GOP primary -- with or without Heller -- may have wounded the winner, leaving the victor vulnerable in the general election.

Now, Berkley probably would face Heller, who early polls show would beat her by double digits if the election were now. Despite those surveys, analysts from both political parties believe it would be a close race. Berkley is popular in Southern Nevada, which has 72 percent of the population and leans Democrat. Heller is less known in Clark County, which is key to winning.

OTHER DEMOCRATS CONSIDERED

While Berkley takes her time, several Democrats are being vetted as alternates by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee: Secretary of State Ross Miller, Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and State Treasurer Kate Marshall. All have suggested they're willing to wait for the seven-term congresswoman to make up her mind.

Erin Bilbray-Kohn, the political director for Cortez Masto, said the attorney general isn't in any hurry and believes the necessary money and Democratic Party backing will be there for any Berkley alternates if she doesn't run.

"Catherine is behind Shelley 100 percent," Bilbray-Kohn said. "If Shelly doesn't run, then Catherine would seriously take a look at it. But nobody's going to press Shelley to make a decision before she's ready."

Billy Vassiliadis, a longtime Democratic adviser who helped Reid win in 2010, said although things will start to shape up on the Republican side in the Ensign and Heller's races, Democrats are content to bide their time.

"Shelley is a very mature political player," Vassiliadis said. "She has a timeline to get all the information she needs to decide. I don't think there's anybody that would make her move any faster than she wants to."

Behind the scenes, there was a big sigh of relief among the GOP crowd, which worried that Ensign's seeming determination to stay in the race until the end would ruin Republican chances of retaining his seat in 2012.

In private meetings with GOP leaders, Ensign was warned that unless his polling numbers and fundraising abilities improved, the party might abandon him. He told one Republican that he didn't want to end up like GOP Gov. Jim Gibbons, who lost the primary to Sandoval after a scandal-plagued, four-year term that cost him support from nearly all quarters.

Ensign, like Gibbons, maintained strong conservative backing, but even there Ensign had worn out his welcome.

"I think he made a good decision for the party and for his family," said Frank Ricotta, head of the Clark County Republican Party and a leader of a conservative movement. "I think Heller is our best chance to hold the Senate seat."

SENATE INVESTIGATION CONTINUES

Announcing his retirement might not turn down the heat on the Senate Ethics Committee probe related to the affair he had with Cindy Hampton during 2007 and 2008 and the subsequent efforts to cover it up. The panel continues to have jurisdiction as long as he remains a senator. There was no indication Monday that investigators were preparing to back off.

Quelling speculation that Ensign's decision might have been affected by new information in the probe that has been ongoing for more than a year, sources confirmed that investigators had yet to meet with him.

The ethics panel is looking into allegations that, after Ensign staffer Doug Hampton discovered the affair, the senator set him up as a lobbyist by calling contacts and making his office available to them in alleged violation of a federal cooling-off law. Also being investigated is $96,000 that Ensign's parents gave to the Hamptons when they left his employ in the spring of 2008.

The Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission declined late last year to pursue charges. But the Senate Ethics Committee last month hired an outside counsel, former special prosecutor Carol Bruce Elder, to manage its investigation.

Ensign's announcement "does not absolve the Ethics Committee of its responsibility to hold him accountable," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of a watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

WELCOMES HAD BEEN LUKEWARM

Ensign, a former casino executive and veterinarian, was elected to Congress as part of the landmark 1994 class that helped Republicans capture control of the House after 40 years in the minority.

Ensign compiled a conservative record with an emphasis on tax and economic issues.

Articulate and with a distinctive shock of silvering hair, Ensign was advancing in the Senate leadership and was testing his ambitions by visiting the early presidential caucus state of Iowa just weeks before his extramarital affair came to light in June 2009.

Then Ensign's reputation cratered amid subsequent revelations that Cindy Hampton and her husband, Doug, were good friends of the Ensigns from Las Vegas, and that Doug Hampton had been brought to Washington to serve as a top Ensign aide.

During the past couple of months, Ensign had been holding town halls and attending Lincoln Day dinners across the state as he tested the waters for his announced re-election bid. At one recent town hall in Sun City, he was confronted by a question about whether he had repented for his affair. At public dinners, he often received lukewarm welcomes, a sign of eroding support.

Saturday night's Clark County Lincoln Day Dinner was another example of persistent GOP snubbing, as Heller and GOP Rep. Joe Heck won raves from the audience, while Ensign got the cold shoulder and polite applause.

This past week, Ensign said he finally decided it wasn't worth the personal sacrifice for him, his wife and three kids.

"Darlene and I, we spent a lot of time praying," said Ensign, whose wife reached out to rub his back to comfort him as he answered several questions following a statement. "I just came to the conclusion I couldn't put my family through it."

In June 2009, when Ensign stunned his Senate colleagues and friends by admitting the affair, he had stood alone at the podium inside the same room at the Lloyd George U.S. Courthouse in Las Vegas.

Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault contributed to this story. Contact Review-Journal reporter Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.