Government is More About Who You Know Than What You Do …
The noise we think Devon Reese must make when he hears the words Nevada Commission on Ethics.
Deals, deferrals, and the appearance of justice is what Devon Reese’s ethics files cause us to ponder, after reading the opinion penned in the Reno Gazette Journal by Reese’s attorney and a failed judicial candidate who both used to serve in different capacities with the Nevada Commission on Ethics.
Devon Reese is many things—an attorney, a longtime figure in Reno politics, and a vocal presence on the dais. Lately he’s also been at the center of a swirl of ethics complaints that have ended, repeatedly and awkwardly, with deferrals, dismissals and negotiated agreements instead of firm, public findings. That sequence is not just legal paperwork: it is a story about power, process and perception—and it deserves a hard, clear-eyed look.
Here are the basic, verifiable facts you should know: the Nevada Commission on Ethics has recently considered and then dismissed or deferred multiple complaints against Reese; Commission records show earlier deferral agreements dating to 2023 and related panel determinations have been entered and revisited. Those official documents are on the Commission’s docket.
There are two practical problems these documents surface almost immediately. First: when a public official can resolve an ethics matter through a deferral or negotiated settlement—rather than a full public ruling—the public’s sense of accountability is weakened. Second: when the official is an attorney who can hire top-flight counsel with intimate knowledge of the system (and, in one instance, counsel who once sat on the very Commission reviewing the case), those negotiated pathways look less like neutral enforcement and more like advantage bought with expertise. Reese’s filings list counsel Rick R. Hsu—who previously served on the Nevada Commission on Ethics—as having acted on his behalf.
Mr. Hsu is the co-author of the RGJ opinion along with Caren Jenkins who used to be the Executive Director of the commission but resigned in 2014 after the RGJ reported a former senior investigator for the ethics commission, filed a complaint against her in June that alleged she used her office at the ethics commission to further her campaign.
There’s more: at various points the Reno City Attorney’s office has appeared in the room advocating for Reese’s positions before the Commission—which raises the obvious eyebrow-raiser that a city official is sometimes being defended in state ethics proceedings by city lawyers. That fact, not a theory, was reported in local coverage of the Commission hearings.
Taken together these items create a plausible appearance problem: an elected lawyer who knows the rules, who has access to lawyers who know how the rules get applied, who can navigate deferrals and settlements—while critics, complainants and ordinary citizens must slog through a public process that can feel opaque and politicized. Local watchdogs and commentators have been blunt: the system looks like a “backroom deal factory” when high-profile cases are wrapped in confidentiality or quietly reset with deferrals.
It’s worth pausing on the statute itself. Nevada’s ethics regime (NRS Chapter 281A) and the Commission’s own process documents leave room for negotiation, deferrals and procedural complexity—steps that can be sensible in some cases, but which also open the door to delay, back-and-forth and outcomes that look inconsistent or that arrive only after political seasons pass. Critics point to vagueness and inconsistent application as the central problem; supporters of the current process argue it allows for proportional remedies. The tension is real and documented in Commission guidance and state law.
So what should we, as citizens and voters, be asking right now?
If ethics enforcement is negotiated behind closed doors, do we still have a functioning accountability process—or a politics-aware settlement machine?
When a public officer is also a private attorney who represents clients with interests that touch city government, does the public interest demand stricter firewalls and clearer disclosure rules? Local reporting has flagged precisely this concern in Reese’s case.
Should former insiders (attorneys who once served on the very Commission) be disqualified from representing respondents in Commission proceedings, or at least be subject to tougher disclosure requirements, to avoid even the appearance of a revolving-door advantage?
If the law’s vagueness is the culprit, will state lawmakers act to tighten the statute—so citizens see answers, not delays? Local voices are already calling for legislative fixes; that conversation is happening in opinion pages and at community meetings.
This is not pure cynicism; it’s a basic democratic test. Ethical enforcement systems are meant to reassure the public that public servants are playing by rules that apply equally to everyone. When the rules can be deferred, refiled, negotiated and then dismissed—especially in cases involving highly connected people—the system risks becoming a two-tiered justice: one lane for the well-represented and another for everyone else.
If you want to ponder a final uncomfortable thought: a system that can be navigated by money, access and insider knowledge will not only fail to deter questionable conduct—it will entrench the sense, accurate or not, that government is more about who you know than what you do. That is the real threat here, and it’s a threat worth fixing before the next high-profile complaint becomes yet another exercise in procedural chess.