PLAN says money decides who wins Nevada legislative seats

Big money decides who wins seats in the Nevada Legislature, according to an election finance report issued by the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada.

"The key to winning a legislative race is raising more special interest money than your opponent," according to the report released Monday.

Of the 52 legislative races in 2000, the Alliance reports 50 of the winners were those who spent the most money. The only two exceptions were Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, and Assemblywoman Kathy McClain, D-Las Vegas. And 75 percent of the money went to incumbents.

"Winning candidates and cash go together like caviar and champagne," said Alliance State Director Bob Fulkerson.

Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas, was the biggest money raiser, collecting a total of $390,941.

Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, led fund raising in the lower house with $230,832. While Perkins spread some of his funds among other Democratic candidates, Alliance officials said Rawson retained almost all his contributions.

The average raised to win a state Senate race was $212,202. For an Assembly seat, it was $92,188.

Speaker Emeritus Joe Dini, D-Yerington, raised $197,611 and Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, raised $133,925. By comparison, Bonnie Parnell, D-Carson City, raised $83,589.

The largest contributors, according to Alliance Southern Nevada Director Paul Brown, were the casinos and the state's two biggest teachers' unions.

He said contributions to the 2000 Legislative races totaled $7,627,385, up 4 percent from 1998.

The Nevada State Education Association and Clark County Education Association together account for nearly $531,000 of that.

The third biggest contributor was the Mandalay Bay Group of casinos at $134,750. But gaming altogether was the largest contributor of all with $885,228 in direct contributions plus, Brown said, about 25 percent of the PAC money and the more than $1.25 million funneled through political parties.

Brown said for those contributions, gaming and education -- with the exception of their proposed business tax -- pretty much got what they wanted from the 2001 Legislature.

Gaming got Internet gaming, the right to bail out of regulated utility markets, avoided any new tax increases, and won an assortment of other changes in Nevada law.

He said teachers won promises of pay raises based on any surplus money even though it wasn't in the budget, among other changes. Brown maintains the only reason they didn't get the substantial increases sought in the business tax was that "they backed the wrong horse in the governor's election (of 1998). They couldn't get what they wanted because they couldn't get it into the budget."

"What all this shows is that a handful of folks control the purse strings," said Brown.

He and Fulkerson argued that is why Nevada is weak in providing citizens with badly needed social programs.

"In Nevada, democracy has been replaced by plutocracy with legislators controlled by a rich class of organizations and corporations," according to the Alliance report on spending for the year.

Brown and Fulkerson said Alliance will continue to push for tougher campaign reforms, from disclosure and reporting to more limits on contributions and spending. Brown said they will back a law, for example, that would limit a corporation such as MGM-Mirage to the maximum $10,000 in contributions to any one candidate instead of allowing each of a corporate group's individual companies to contribute the maximum.

They said they believe they have a better change of getting through some campaign reforms this year in the wake of the "Enron debacle."