Nevada Senate Will Try Official

Nevada Controller Kathy Augustine -- the first Nevada state official ever to be impeached -- goes on trial before the Senate here Monday, accused of using state employees to help with her political campaign.

Nevada’s 42 Assembly members voted unanimously Nov. 11 to impeach Augustine for alleged ethics violations, based on a yearlong investigation by the attorney general that found she had pressured staffers to do the work on public time and had stored campaign information on government computers.

The second-term Republican controller has been removed from office pending the outcome of the trial; she admitted this fall to the Nevada Ethics Commission that she “reasonably should have known” about the campaign work being done for her by staffers during office hours.

Augustine was fined $15,000 for three “willful” ethics violations.

That’s “a pretty big thing for us,” said Stacy Jennings, executive director of the Nevada Commission on Ethics, which deals with about 100 violations a year.

But, Augustine’s attorneys argue, those violations are not big enough to warrant her removal from office two years into her four-year term.

“You’re not removed from office for every ethics violation,” lawyer Dominic Gentile said.

During the investigation, a handful of Augustine’s employees painted her as a nasty boss who had pressured them into working on her reelection effort on taxpayer time.

One described the “wrath of Kath”: “She’s a screamer and a yeller and a pounder on the desk, and you just, you know, you tried to avoid an unpleasant situation with her,” former Assistant Controller Jeannine Coward told an attorney general investigator in March.

Coward, who said employees sent out campaign mailings and were required to attend political events, declined to comment further.

Ill will toward the embattled controller extends beyond the confines of her 45-person office, observers said. “An endangered species in Nevada are people who actually like Kathy Augustine,” said state political analyst John Ralston.

Gov. Kenny Guinn, Sen. John Ensign and Rep. Jim Gibbons -- all Republicans -- have asked Augustine to step down.

“Frankly ... it puts the state in a really negative light,” said Guinn spokesman Greg Bortolin. “I think everybody involved was just hoping that the controller would spare herself some embarrassment” and resign.

But personality clashes, said Augustine lawyer John Arrascada, should not bear on her Senate trial.

“Being disliked is not an impeachable offense. Being a tough boss is not an impeachable offense,” Arrascada said.

Arrascada and Gentile did not call defense witnesses during the impeachment proceedings this month. They said the fact that the attorney general’s office both investigated and prosecuted Augustine was a conflict of interest, and called the process “polluted.”

“It became very clear when the members of the Assembly were given 3-inch ring binders with thousands of documents within them that a close scrutiny was not going to occur and it was going to the Senate,” Arrascada said.

Gerald Gardner, the chief deputy attorney general who prosecuted Augustine in the Assembly, said the proceeding was “100% by the book.”

The trial, which will take place three months before the Legislature meets in its regular biennial session, is expected to last about two weeks and cost a total of $250,000.

The controller’s office manages the state’s finances and cuts government checks. Watchers of the Legislature have speculated that removing Augustine would give lawmakers an excuse to eliminate the position entirely, instead combining the duties with the state treasurer.

“This has been an idea that’s been around for a while,” said Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada in Reno.

Republican state Assemblyman Bob Seale has said he would sponsor such a bill.