Will Reid cry all the way home if pork spending is cut?

While the First Lady has made fighting obesity one of her top priorities, perhaps her husband is considering fighting a slice of government obesity as well.


In Tuesday's State of the Union address, President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to veto earmarks, aka "pork barrel" spending. However, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) wasn't too thrilled that the President would be cutting pork out of his political diet. Quoted in the Las Vegas Sun, Reid stated:

"It only gives the president more power," Reid said. "He's got enough power already."

Reid's democratic colleague in the House, Shelley Berkley, also criticized the earmark ban, claiming Nevada wouldn't get its share, whereas House freshman Joe Heck (R) "applauded the president's commitment to demonstrating fiscal restraint."


If eliminating earmarks reduces the overall amount of government pork in the budget, Obama's pledge will be a good thing otherwise it's basically an empty promise. Given Reid's status as Senate Majority Leader and his importance to Obama's agenda, it will be interesting to see who blinks first in the earmark debate: Obama or Reid.

Public officials easing into top-flight lobbying jobs following departures

Politico has an in-depth look at former Obama administration officials leaving their posts and landing lucrative positions at the top lobbying, public relations and corporate firms in America:

But with his administration at its midpoint, a traditional time for personnel turnover, it’s clear that despite Obama’s avowals, a longtime truism of Washington life — that a prestigious-sounding administration post can be a lucrative career enhancer — remains unchanged.

In recent months, officials have quietly left the White House, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Highway Administration and the Departments of the Treasury, Commerce and Homeland Security for high-paying gigs on K Street and Wall Street, for top PR firms including the Glover Park Group and VOX Global and to work or lobby for powerful media and telecom companies including Facebook, Comcast, Bloomberg L.P., DirecTV, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile.

This "revolving door" between government and lobbying firms is inevitable — as long as government is heavily involved in regulating or running large sections of the economy.

While ethics pledges may forbid these individuals from lobbying their former employer and only allow them to lobby third-parties like Congress, the only realistic way to stop or at least slow down this cycle is to scale back the government to its original and limited functions.

Open (not shut) cases

The Reno Gazette-Journal reports that Nevada's Supreme Court will make all case-related documents available to the public.

"The move made Nevada one of the few appellate courts in the counrty to offer
the public access to records at no cost, said Chief Justice Michael Douglas."

Public documents at no cost? Sounds like a winner. Check out the Court's new transparency site at http://www.nevadajudiciary.us/

Welcome Kyle Gillis to the TransparentNevada Blog

Just a quick note to our faithful readers:

Starting today, the TransparentNevada Blog welcomes NPRI investigative reporter Kyle Gillis as a co-blogger.

Kyle has been writing for NPRI's Nevada Journal for a few months, and I'm happy to have him join this blog as well.

With some great work already under his belt dealing with state gerrymandering, ethics and government agencies run amok, Kyle will help ensure this blog continues its mission to deliver the very best on issues of transparency and accountability at both the state and federal level.

Welcome aboard, Kyle!

The revolving door stays greased

The New York Times reports:

That didn’t take long.

Senators Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Bob Bennett of Utah both ended their long government service in the Congress on January 4.

On Tuesday — exactly one week later — they became Washington’s newest bipartisan pair of lobbyists, joining the firm of Arent Fox, LLC, as “senior policy advisers” in the firm’s government relations practice.

When exactly did the United States Senate become a farm team for K-Street?

Gov. Sandoval releases office's salary information

The Nevada News Bureau reports:

In an apparent move to increase the transparency of his administration, Gov. Brian Sandoval released today the annual salaries of his staff. His 17 staff positions, one of which is vacant, consume about $1 million of the governor’s executive budget.

His highest paid employee, Chief of Staff Heidi Gansert, will earn $124,988 this year. The lowest paid, Celia Magana, is an administrative assistant in Las Vegas earning $29,984.

This action is an encouraging early step by the Sandoval administration. Let's hope it's the first of many that he and other lawmakers take to help bring more transparency and accountability to Nevada's government.

Nevada ethics case heads to Supreme Court

In 2006, Sparks City Councilman Michael Carrigan voted to approve a land-use deal for a hotel-casino development in Sparks. Prior to the vote, he disclosed that his former campaign manager, Carlos Vasquez, was a consultant for a business with ties to the hotel-casino.

Following the vote, the Nevada Commission on Ethics found Carrigan violated Nevada's ethics rules by not recusing himself entirely. Carrigan appealed the decision to the Nevada Supreme Court.

The Nevada Supreme Court ruled in favor of Carrigan. The Court ruled that when a politician casts a vote, they are exercising their First Amendment right of free speech and any attempt by the government to regulate free speech must be narrowly tailored to meet a compelling governmental interest in the least restrictive means possible. The Court found that the provision used by the Ethics Commission against Carrigan was not strictly enough defined and therefore ruled it unconstitutional.

The Ethics Commission appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court of the United States. The US Supreme Court accepted their petition last Friday and arguments for the case will be heard later this year.

The question the Supreme Court will consider is: "What level of scrutiny is appropriate when judging restrictions placed upon a politician's right to cast votes?"

Should it be "strict scrutiny" -- as the Nevada Supreme Court found -- where the state government must show how their recusal law is "narrowly tailored" to meet a "compelling" governmental interest? Or should it be "rational basis," where the recusal law only needs to be "rationally related" to a "legitimate" governmental interest? Or should it be another standard of review, such as Pickering's "balancing test" for government employees?

We'll be sure to let you know what happens.

(H/T Nevada News Bureau)

Officers refuse to participate under new inquest system

When County Commissioner Steve Sisolak began an effort to reform the coroner's inquest process, Chris Collins, president of the police officer's union, was one of the most vocal opponents of the proposed changes. He repeatedly warned that the changes would make the process too adversarial and threatened that he would tell his officers not to participate.

He wasn't bluffing:

In the first test of the county’s new rules for reviewing police-involved deaths, officers connected with the Dec. 11 death of a suspect who was shot with a Taser are refusing to cooperate with investigators.

Their refusal to make voluntary statements to Metro’s Force Investigation Team is on the advice of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, said Chris Collins, president of the officers union. From Collins’ standpoint, not only is the officers’ refusal to cooperate the right thing to do, it marks the beginning of the end of the coroner’s inquest system.

With the changes now in place, Collins' has expressed a desire to "nail the coffin shut" on the whole inquest process. His stated goal is to avoid a situation where his officers are questioned four separate times about the incident -- once during an internal investigation, once during the inquest process, and then if the case goes to civil trial, once during a deposition and then once during the trial.

Instead, Collins wants his officers to skip the internal investigation and inquest process and only have his officers participate -- if it occurs at all -- in the deposition and civil trial.

Collins may not like -- he may even loathe -- the changes to the inquest process, but should acknowledge that any death involves many individuals. What about the family and friends of those shot and killed by police? What about the public at large in which the officers are sworn to "protect and serve?" Don't they also deserve some measure of accountability when officers use deadly force?

Police officers are given an awesome power in the community -- a monopoly on the legal use of force. But with that power comes great responsibility and scrutiny.

I understand Collins' position as a union boss, but he should consider the full ramifications of his directives and the effect they have on the trust between the police and the public.