Opinion:

C&E Reports Are Available

At Secretary Of State's Web Site

And One Reader Wants To Know

Why We Say They Are Unreadable

by Johnny Gunn

This editorial is in response to a question from a reader in Ely dealing with Contributions and Expenses reports that are to be filed with the Secretary of State and why in our reporting we often say that the reports are all but unreadable, thus worthless to the general public.  Nevada election law, probably among the very worst in the nation, does not have specific rules on how the forms are to be filled out.  For instance, the list of contributors is not in alphabetical order meaning that one must peruse every single page if one is looking for something specific.  It also means that when a contributor makes more than one contribution they aren't listed together and again one must work one's way through every page just to find out what the final tally might be for a specific donor.  By law, any one donor can contribute $5,000 total for a Primary Election cycle and $5,000 total for the General Election cycle.

By not demanding the contributions report be filed in alphabetical order, our own investigations have turned up donors exceeding the $10,000 limit by large amounts of money.  The listings are not in any known database form making tabulation very difficult if not out of the question for most of us looking at the forms.  The forms can be filled out in pencil, pen, for that matter etched in stone if the candidate wishes, once again making the forms all but impossible to read.

These problems are there for a purpose, to keep you from being able to understand the financial dealings of the candidate.  Following the election of Brian Sandoval to the office of Attorney General four years ago, The Nevada Observer did a complete breakdown of his reports and discovered several major discrepancies, and when we brought them to Sandoval's attention, you have to know it was the fault of the accountant that filled out the forms.  Of course it was. 

Another major problem with the Silver State Election Law is how corporations are viewed Vis a Vis C&E reports.  A corporation is treated the same as an individual in that a maximum of $10,000 can be donated.  What is left out is who owns and manages the corporation.  In January, 2006 we ran an article that has been reprinted nationally that points out exactly how elections can be purchased or stolen, and how you are deceived regularly.  Go to http://www.nevadaobserver.com/Archive/060101/News%20Story%20Top.htm for a look at how we described these potential problems.

To get a complete look at why we continue to say that the C&E reports as filed are not just unreadable but virtually worthless, take a look at this report filed by State Senator Mark Amodei.

After you have paged through it can you truthfully say you have a better understanding of his most recent campaign?  Are we picking on Senator Amodei?  No, his name starts with A, and we just grabbed it from the Secretary of State's web site.  There are few that look better than this one.

The reason that we are demanding changes is simplicity in itself.  The general public (That's You) has every right to know who is paying big money to candidates that are supposed to be representing them.  We are suffocating under hidden information so the big money boys aren't known, so candidates can take in big bucks and not be spotlighted for malfeasance.  When one person controls enough corporations and LLCs to literally purchase a candidate, we are left out of the equation, and the equation wasn't written that way by our founding fathers.

We strongly suggest you demand that your legislator, city council representative, county commission member, the governor and anybody else you can think of read this article.  Those are your tax dollars they are messing with and the problem leads to criminal fraud at the highest levels.

•••

_________________________

Cartoon by Thomas Nast, April 12, 1874