DAY 22 79 That Has Been Rectified

78 JOURNAL OF THE SENATE THE TWENTY-SECOND DAY CARSON CITY (Wednesday), December 1, 2004 Senate called to order at 8:14 a.m. President Hunt presiding. Roll called. All present. Prayer by the Chaplain, Pastor Albert Tilstra. O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home! In this the day that You have made, help us to appreciate its beauty and to use its opportunities rightly. Deliver us, we pray, from the tyranny of trifles. May we give our best thought and attention to what is important, that we may accomplish something worthwhile. Teach us how to listen to Your promptings, and save us from floundering in indecision that wastes time, subtracts from our peace, divides our efficiency and multiplies our troubles. These things we ask from Him who delights to answer prayers. AMEN. Pledge of allegiance to the Flag. Senator Raggio moved that further reading of the Journal be dispensed with, and the President and Secretary be authorized to make the necessary corrections and additions. Motion carried. MOTIONS, RESOLUTIONS AND NOTICES Senator Raggio moved that the following persons be accepted as accredited press representatives, and that they be assigned space at the press table and allowed the use of the appropriate media facilities: NEW YORK TIMES: John M. Broder; RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL: Lisa Tolda. Motion carried. Senator Raggio moved that the Senate resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole for the purpose of hearing the Articles of Impeachment against Nevada State Controller Kathy Augustine, with Senator Amodei as Chair of the Committee of the Whole. Motion carried. IN COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE At 9:01 a.m. Senator Amodei presiding. The Articles of Impeachment against State Controller Kathy Augustine considered. SENATOR AMODEI (Chair): The December 1, 2004, meeting of the Committee of the Whole of the Nevada State Senate of the Twenty-first Special Session of the Nevada Legislature will come to order. Madam Secretary, please show the members present. Senator Coffin mentioned that some of the exhibits in the binders may be farther along than the anticipated presentation or may not be in some of your binders. We have talked to staff and DECEMBER 1, 2004 — DAY 22 79 that has been rectified. There have been inquiries about the use of laptops in the Committee meeting. The rule was adopted while sitting as the Senate. If any members would like to discuss modification of that rule, please feel free to bring that up when we reconvene on the Senate floor. Until it is changed, I ask that you respect the rule we voted for regarding these devices. We will begin with opening statements. The rules indicate a 45-minute opening statement for each side. Mr. Greco, you have the floor. DANIEL J. GRECO (Special Prosecutor): It is an honor and a privilege to address you in this unique and historic constitutional exercise. On Monday, you heard the words "de minimis" and "incidental." Now, you are going to hear evidence in which you will see that the words "de minimis" and "incidental" have nothing to do with this case. The evidence presented in the State's case will show that four employees were directed to do campaign work during normal office hours on the taxpayers' dime. They did as they were told because they were afraid of losing their jobs, afraid of retaliation, afraid of the Controller of the State of Nevada, Kathy Augustine's famous temper, which, as you will see, could explode instantly for no good reason. You will learn that one of those four employees, Jennifer Normington, was directed to do an amount of work that evidence will clearly show can best be described as overwhelming. In its simplest terms, the State's evidence will show you that the Controller's Office was, in fact, campaign central for Controller Augustine for 2002. She had no traditional campaign headquarters. You are going to learn the address on the required paperwork to be filed with the Secretary of State's Office listed her house as her campaign headquarters. You are going to find that, at a minimum, her office was an auxiliary campaign headquarters, or at best, it was her entire campaign headquarters. You are going to learn from the evidence there was not enough separation between office employees and campaign volunteers, and there was not enough separation between office equipment and campaign equipment. The evidence will show you that a substantial portion of Controller Augustine's campaign was paid for, not by traditional campaign donations, but rather by the taxpayers of the State of Nevada. The employees were the ones who were paid their regular daytime salaries while doing work at Controller Augustine's behest. You are going to hear that in the case of one of the four employees, and I am not talking about Ms. Normington, the employee was actually required to work after hours for Controller Augustine and was paid overtime for that after-hours work. You are going to hear from her in detail about that work and why she put overtime on her card for the work Controller Augustine made her do. Let me lay out for you the nine or ten types, or categories, of tasks Controller Augustine directed the employees to do on state time. She had employees write campaign speeches, draft requests for contribution letters and maintain donor or contributor lists on state computers. She had employees solicit campaign contributions on state telephones, call donors including donors whom she had learned had contributed to her opponent. When she learned those donors had given more to the opponent, she had her employees call those donors back and ask for more money. She directed her employees to question those donors as to why they were giving the opponent more money than they were giving Controller Augustine. She had employees draft fund-raising invitations, and stuff, label and place stamps on campaign envelopes. She had employees draft campaign-related reports that, by law, were required to be filed with the Secretary of State's Office. Again, I do not want to go over every single transaction, but if you break them down into individual tasks she assigned and add them up, we are talking about literally hundreds of individual transactions. They fall into those nine or ten general categories that I described a few moments ago. You are going to hear there were other employees involved in addition to the four who actually did work for Controller Augustine. There were one or more employees who were asked to do campaign work on state time, but these employees stood up to Controller Augustine and said, "no." You will learn Controller Augustine does not like hearing the word "no" from anyone but, especially, not from one of her employees. You will hear what happened to one or more of 80 JOURNAL OF THE SENATE the employees who had the audacity to say "no" to Controller Augustine, and I should probably use the word "ex-employees" rather than employees. I want to thank you in advance for your time and consideration. Please remember throughout the proceeding the statements of the lawyers, including opening statements and closing arguments, are not evidence. The only evidence you can properly consider is the testimony of the witnesses on the stand and any documentary exhibits submitted during the course of the proceeding. Since this is a bifurcated proceeding, we cover guilt first. You will hear an extended amount of evidence that goes to guilt. The Defense will be allowed to offer defense they think is relevant or germane to guilt, and you will deliberate guilt. Before you do that, I will address you in closing argument, and at that point, I will ask that you find Controller Augustine guilty of all three of the Articles of Impeachment. Penalty will come later. The lawyers will not talk about penalty during this phase of the proceeding. By law, we cannot do that, but if you sustain one or more of the Articles of Impeachment, we will address you in brief penalty arguments after the guilt phase of the proceeding is over. JOHN L. ARRASCADA (Counsel for Controller Augustine): Senator Amodei, with your permission, I would advise the members of the Senate we do have PowerPoint on the screen to your left that will be ongoing during my opening statements. Let us answer the question, "Why are we here?" That question has been asked throughout this Legislative Building from the beginning. Why are we here? None of you wants to be here; Controller Augustine never envisioned she would be here, nor does she want to be here. Nobody truly wants to be here for these proceedings. However, we must be here, and why must we be here? We must be here because the charges alleged do not rise to the level of an impeachable offense, and the unwarranted remedy of removal must be avoided. Removal is what is being sought, as was said on Monday. MR. GRECO: I am going to interpose an objection at this point. The law is clear on a bifurcated proceeding. You have to get through the guilt phase first. Penalty cannot be discussed, brought up or considered during the guilt phase of any bifurcated trial. Of course, if the Senate does not sustain any of the Articles, there is not going to be a penalty hearing. However, in any bifurcated case, you go through guilt first, then penalty, and in fact, the jury cannot consider penalty during the guilt phase of the trial.

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