Friday, February 17, 2012

Nevada Democrats: Rules Are For Suckers

From the Las Vegas Sun:
Many Democrats in the Assembly have not publicly reported the expenditure of thousands of dollars in campaign funds, including money for rent and living expenses during legislative sessions, the Sun has learned.
According to multiple lawmakers familiar with internal caucus discussions, the lawyer for Assembly Democrats instructed them that they do not have to report spending on expenses related to their public office — for example, rent in Carson City during the legislative session or travel to professional conferences.
It’s an apparent violation of campaign finance laws, according to Secretary of State Ross Miller, a Democrat in charge of enforcing those laws. At least three Assembly members did not disclose expenditures to support themselves during the 2012 Legislature
“I haven’t had an opportunity to fully review their side of what happened, but it appears to be a very simple matter,” Miller said. “The law is clear: Anytime you raise money into a campaign account and you spend that money, it is an expenditure that must be reported.”
Miller said his office would contact the lawmakers for clarification and “possibly to issue notices of violation.”
The three lawmakers said they were following the advice of their private attorney, Bradley Schrager, when they elected not to disclose the expenses....
Assemblywoman Lucy Flores, D-Las Vegas, who also admitted to skipping disclosure on her Carson City expenses, said she had no problem letting people examine her bank accounts and how she spends her campaign money.
She said, however, that the requirements for reporting how campaign funds are spent are becoming onerous.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to have every single penny reported just because of the level of burden it really takes on a person,” Flores said. “Maybe if I had a staffer that the state paid for to record every single one of my receipts and ensure they were being kept up full-time, and I didn’t have to leave my day job so I could spend an additional couple of hours working on that.”
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/feb/17/uses-thousands-dollars-campaign-funds-going-undisc/
So, some of the Democrats feel that some laws are just not worth following because they feel the law is too much of a pain to follow?  Well, gee, now they know how the average small business man and woman feels with regulations the different government agencies put on them.  And if they don't feel like following the law, they will be fined and possibly put out of business.
I hope that Scott Miller comes down hard on these Democrats, otherwise, he is just playing politics.  Miller doesn't seem to be like that kind of person, but then Democrats, lately, have shown that laws and rules only apply to Republicans and conservatives, not Democrats and liberals.
BTW, I am sure the Las Vegas Sun was greatly pained to run this article and the fact that the article was hardly on the main page of their web site shows that they want to hide the story as much as possible.  I also suspect we won't be seeing an editorial on the subject, but if the GOP were doing the same thing, they already would have had the editorials written and it would be front page news with blaring headlines.

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