LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Nevada Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony is being disciplined by the Nevada Commission on Ethics after commissioners found he violated several state ethics laws.
On Wednesday, commissioners and attorneys discussed the matter for over two hours. It all relates to a task force that Anthony supported, which looked at preventing transgender women and girls from participating in women's sports.
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Ross Armstrong, the executive director for the commission, said Anthony used his official email and social media accounts to promote the task force, which violated several state statutes.
"Mr. Anthony's government account reposted and amplified that private account. You can see that through documents in the record and on numerous occasions. This creates unwarranted benefit. Who wouldn't want a government account to repost and amplify and endorse your private comments," Armstrong said. "That use of the government equipment to promote his private interests violates NRS."
Armstrong also said that under ethics law, "there are four types of interest that you cannot use your government position to benefit from," and that includes "significant personal interest of the lieutenant governor."
"The question in this case is really, is this interest, the task force, an interest of the office of the lieutenant governor, or is it just the person holding the office?" Armstrong said. "No matter what you think of the content of the task force, the question is, is this something that the office is involved in?"
Armstrong then played a past meeting where Anthony spoke to lawmakers from the Joint Meeting of Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means committee.
"I wanted to make sure, especially when it came to the UNR volleyball team, who came out very courageously in their stand. I wanted to support them, and that's why I created this task force," Anthony said at the time.
However, attorney Gus Flangas, who represented Anthony at the commission meeting, said there is a difference between having a personal interest in something and being passionate about a certain subject.
"So from that verbiage right there, they want you to extrapolate that that is a significant personal interest on the part of Lt. Gov. Anthony, and that is a huge stretch," Flangas said.
"Let's say I'm a state public officer and I'm very passionate about health care. I'm very passionate about veterans' rights, which I am because I'm a veteran. And then, all of a sudden, I post on my official media that I want people to get behind the veterans or something like that. Am I now in violation of the ethics laws because I said I was passionate about something? They want you to have no passion, is the way they're putting this, because if you have passion, you've got a significant personal interest. That's not what the law says."
Flangas also said Anthony's posts were a form of free speech.
"I don't mean to say this to y'all, but y'all aren't here to really determine, you're not the gatekeepers on what somebody can and can not do in that office. Your job, I believe, is to determine whether there was a violation of ethics," Flangas said. "This is a legitimate public interest that Lt. Gov. Anthony was advocating for, and it gets, it somehow gets transmogrified using a fancy legal term from a significant personal interest and it's just not there. The facts don't support that."
Ultimately, the commission voted 3-2 to discipline Anthony. Commissioners stated he will receive a civil penalty of $3,000, be asked to complete ethics training, and his office will be directed to create a dedicated social media policy.