The power of video

There are images no amount of positive spin can erase — Michael Dukakis in a tank, George W. Bush in a flight suit.

Now we can add Lynette Boggs in a pink bathrobe.

Earlier this week, District Attorney David Roger charged the former Clark County commissioner with two counts each of perjury and filing false or forged documents. She’s accused of lying in election disclosures last year to cover up that she paid her children’s nanny more than $1,200 from campaign funds and that she resided outside the district she represented.

Those are ticky-tack crimes in the valley’s annals of political chicanery. But it was video that killed this political star.

As a political tool, the surveillance film of a bathrobed Boggs hauling trash to the curb of a home outside her district is deserving of a Best Director award for private investigator David Groover.

Reporters can, and did, write about Boggs’ apparent residency problem, spelling out that the commissioner didn’t live in District F — a violation of the law. Despite the power of incumbency and a huge fundraising advantage over challenger Susan Brager, last fall’s election was over as soon as that videotape emerged.

If Boggs only had the savvy to keep her enemies close, the Las Vegas Police Protective Association and Culinary union might not have hired Groover and his little camera. But the commissioner was often on the wrong side of each entity, pushing to remove a union-friendly colleague from the police Fiscal Affairs Committee and supporting Culinary nemesis Station Casinos, on whose board she once sat.

It’s rare for political organizers to put those kinds of resources behind a down-ticket race. But Boggs, a Republican, was always thinking about moving up the ballot. After losing an Assembly race as a Democrat, she switched parties. Boggs got her break by convincing Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman that she was the best candidate for appointment to the City Council.

Before you could blink, she was taking on Democrat Shelley Berkley for a seat in Congress. Dick Armey, Alan Keyes and Tom DeLay were big supporters. She lost, but was rewarded for her quixotic race against Berkley when Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn appointed her to a vacancy on the County Commission. When she had to face voters in 2004, she drew Democratic Assemblyman David Goldwater, whom she eviscerated over his recent drunken driving arrest.

In an ironic twist, voters will soon get to see Boggs’ mug shot.

When last year’s campaign began, Boggs had already had her share of ethical transgressions. She was struggling to explain what appeared to be a sweetheart land deal in Arizona. But few Democrats believed they could take back District F. And fewer believed Brager, a quiet School Board trustee, had the stamina to take on the commissioner.

Then the video appeared, first on TV news, then in an ad. Before you could say “Candid Camera,” Brager was moving into the Clark County Government Center.

Boggs may beat the residency rap by arguing that everybody else does it. It makes you wonder what might happen to other address-challenged candidates in the next election cycle. Bloggers could easily pull off, for fun, what Groover does for a living and what the mainstream press should be doing.

Imagine what a timely post on YouTube could do to a candidate commonly known to live outside his or her district.

It’s doubtful that Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas; Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno; or Democratic Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani could be done in by a similar “gotcha” video. All three have houses inside and outside their respective gerrymandered districts, and, more importantly, no organized political opposition.

But if prosecutors continue to pursue these cases, Boggs’ bathrobe could be the start of something big indeed.

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Last time, I was apologizing for an earlier prediction that lawmakers would finish their work on time. It appeared (at my early Monday deadline) that the Legislature had put itself in position to adjourn by 1 a.m. Tuesday. I never should have feared that actual competence could prevail.

For anyone counting at home, there have been five regular legislative sessions since a constitutional amendment began forcing lawmakers to adjourn within 120 days. For four straight sessions, they haven’t. In fact, there have been more special sessions in that period (seven) than regular ones (five).

Legislative overtime is as sure a bet as low municipal election turnout. But who knew that taking the under at 12 percent would hold up Tuesday? Just 11.6 percent of eligible voters cast ballots countywide in the general election. Even worse, just 4 percent came to the polls on Tuesday. No wonder all eight workers at my polling site struck up conversations with me when I arrived to vote.

It’s beyond time to move Clark County’s municipal elections to the even-numbered-year cycle. But state lawmakers were too concerned about to how to play for overtime to pass Senate Bill 149, which would have done just that.

Erin Neff’s column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at (702) 387-2906 or by e-mail at eneff@reviewjournal.com.