Candidates, mostly challengers, back legislative transparency

CARSON CITY - Good news for Nevadans: About 90 percent of the 60 candidates who responded to a survey say they support or even plan to introduce bills in 2013 to make the Legislature always operate in the open.

But here's the bad news: Only 12 incumbent legislators, just two of them Democrats, responded to the survey.

That means a majority of state lawmakers haven't publicly gone on record about reforms such as requiring the Legislature, like every other public body, to follow the state's open meeting law.

"Most of the response we got was from challengers," said Geoff Lawrence, deputy director of policy for the Nevada Policy Research Institute. "Those ingrained in the system like the way it works. It works to their advantage."

NPRI and the Nevada Press Association sent surveys to all 161 legislative candidates and carryover state senators, asking their views on six questions about open government. Of 77 Democratic candidates, just 14 responded. Of 77 Republicans, 41 did. Five of seven Independent American candidates responded .

The few candidates who did not support survey questions calling for changes to open government generally said they wanted more information before answering or that changes requiring the Legislature to follow the open meeting law would need constitutional amendments.

A Democratic Party source said his candidates boycotted the survey because of NPRI's involvement. He called the Las Vegas think tank a "right-wing organization" that sued state Senate Democratic leader Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, last year in a challenge of public employees serving in the Legislature.

The source emphasized that his party supports more transparency for state government but doesn't want to be associated with anything NPRI does.

There were a few surprises in the survey results. Former state Sen. Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, responded in detail to the survey, while her general election opponent, state Sen. Greg Brower, R-Reno, did not participate. Neither did the incoming Republican state Senate leader, Michael Roberson, R-Las Vegas, or state Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, R-Reno. Kieckhefer is an ex-member of the press who covered the Legislature in 2003 for The Associated Press.

Barry Smith, executive director of the Nevada Press Association, said open government is important for the media.

"The press basically represents the people," he said. "We don't expect any more access than anyone else has. We expect everyone has access to language in bills, to government meetings, to what goes on beyond the decisions on how to spend the public's money."

For the public to evaluate the performance of their representatives, their representatives must work in the open, not behind closed doors, he said.

Traditionally, decisions balancing the state budget and adjourning the Legislature are made during closed-door negotiations. In 2011, Gov. Brian Sandoval and legislative leaders met in private before emerging to announce a deal in public. The press and most legislators did not learn details until everything was complete.

One of the questions NPRI and the Press Association asked candidates was whether they would support a bill requiring lobbyists to report all of their spending on legislators, not just what they spend during the 120-day sessions every other year.

Leslie proposed that bill during the 2011 session. It unanimously passed the state Senate but died without a vote in the Assembly Legislative Operations and Election Committee. Chairman Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, said members "felt we had done so much reform already" that Leslie's bill could wait until the 2013 session.

In her response to the survey, Leslie said she will introduce the bill again. She first will need to beat Brower, in a race that could be very close.

Leslie was one of the few candidates who answered no to any of the six questions. She does not support requiring local government negotiations with unions to be conducted under rules of the open meeting law. Inviting "TV cameras into negotiations" would not be in the best interest of government, Leslie said.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.