Senator wrote HOA bills while working for HOA - Sunday, April 3, 2011 | 2:01 a.m. - Las Vegas Sun: "Carson City — Sen. Allison Copening has introduced seven bills to regulate homeowners associations this session, the product of nearly 18 months working with industry experts. During hours of hearings on her bills over six weeks, Copening, D-Las Vegas, did not disclose that she is also employed by an HOA. On Friday, after the Las Vegas Sun contacted her with questions about the bills, she disclosed that she works for a homeowners association for Del Webb, a subsidiary of one of the country’s largest builders, which has taken an active role in shaping the legislation she introduced. "
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Thanks to Fred Pilot and others who sent me this. Having a conflict of interest is bad enough without adding to that the failure to disclose the conflict.
2 comments:
These kinds of conflicts are inevitable and will rise with local government privatized on a large scale in states like Nevada. Local government officials and sometimes their staff members have historically been candidates for state legislative offices. Now they're coming out of Privatopia like Sen. Copening.
Not unlike filing meritorious bar complaints against select members of the “association bar,” Friedrich (and/or other Nevada citizens) should file complaints with both the Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections and the Nevada Commission on Ethics.
Senator wrote HOA bills while working for HOA, Las Vegas Sun
Copening’s bills “are anti-homeowner and homeowner-unfriendly,” said Jonathan Friedrich, a Las Vegas resident and homeowners association activist. Friedrich said he has filed a complaint against Copening with the state Ethics Commission.
(It’s unclear if the commission would have jurisdiction; a state Supreme Court ruling found the commission can’t judge legislators performing a primary function. The Senate has a rule governing ethics, and a committee that could hear complaints against a senator. No such complaint has been filed.)
SENATE COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATIVE OPERATIONS AND ELECTIONS
Senator David R. Parks, Chair
Nevada Commission on Ethics
Caren Jenkins, Executive Director
NEVADA ETHICS IN GOVERNMENT MANUAL for public officers and public employees
http://ethics.nv.gov/COE_website_files/coe_training_and_presentations/Ethics%20manual.%202010%20.CJ.pdf
Chapter 2, Conflicts of Interest
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