The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously upheld a Nevada ethics law that governs when lawmakers should refrain from voting on official business because they might have a conflict of interest.
The court reversed a Nevada Supreme Court decision that said elected officials have a constitutional right to vote on official business that the state law violated.
The decision came in the case of Michael Carrigan, a Sparks council member who voted on a casino project even though his campaign manager served as a project consultant.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said an elected official's vote "is not his own speech but a mechanical function of government -- the commitment of his apportioned share of the legislature's power to the passage or defeat of a particular proposal."
Almost everywhere else, this is a no-brainer. But here in Nevada, our Supreme Court thought it was simply too much to ask lawmaker to abstain from obvious conflicts of interest.
And we wonder why "outsiders" always call Nevada government corrupt?
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