Analysis: Giunchigliani paid late husband's political firm more than $1M in campaign cash

Chris Giunchigliani, a top Democratic contender for Nevada governor, paid her late husband Gary Gray’s political consulting firm more than $1 million in campaign funds between 1996 and 2014, a Reno Gazette Journal review of public records reveals.

Giunchigliani cut more than 200 checks to Gray and his firm for everything from special events to office expenses, but mostly paid for advertising and consulting services.

Nearly half of the total paid to Gray, some $472,661, was doled out in 2006. Gray made more from Giunchigliani's campaign that year than other candidates paid him over the next seven years combined, according to the RGJ's records analysis.

Gray's 2006 haul was also enough to grab the attention of attorneys and political experts, who said the payments may raise questions about compliance with state election law.

"Yes, that does strike me as high, especially assuming a single election cycle," said Kevin Benson, a Carson City-based attorney who specializes in election law. "The question becomes one of the fair market value of those services."

More: One issue still divides the Democratic hopefuls for Nevada governor: The Raiders Stadium

Related: A political survey from the 90s has come back to haunt Sisolak — and his opponent knows it

Personal use?

Giunchigliani's most generous payments to Gray came the same year the couple bought a $435,000 home in downtown Las Vegas.

In an interview last year, Giunchigliani told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that she and Gray spent one year and an estimated $100,000 to fix up the property after buying it — adding an outdoor kitchen, powder room and a “large master suite with a semi-open shower and a sitting area” converted from two existing bedrooms.

Nevada law bars candidates from using campaign funds to overpay a family member or pay for a “personal use,” including household expenses such as mortgage or rent payments.

Giunchigliani, a longtime Clark County commissioner and former state lawmaker, did not answer questions from the Reno Gazette Journal about whether she had ever spent campaign funds for personal use.

Her campaign said Gray, who died in an April 2015 car crash on Mount Charleston, was paid the same as any other campaign vendor.

“Chris' late husband Gary, a widely-respected and talented Democratic campaign consultant, managed all of her political campaigns,” campaign manager Eric Hyers wrote in a statement. “Her campaign paid his company at the same rate other campaigns did.

“We'd respectfully ask Chris's political opponent to come after her all they like, but have the guts to do it in public and leave her late husband alone.”

A campaign spokeswoman for Steve Sisolak, Giunchigliani's top Democratic primary election opponent, declined to comment.

Giunchigliani and Sisolak count among the longest-serving members on the influential Clark County Commission — a panel many consider to be the most powerful elected body in Nevada, with an annual budget that routinely rivals sums spent by the state.

Questions raised

This isn’t the first time Giunchigliani has faced questions about Gray’s role in her campaigns.

Gray in 1998 told the Associated Press that then-Assemblywoman Giunchigliani "signs the same contract with me as every one of my Assembly clients.”

He repeated the claim to the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2007, shortly after Giunchigliani emerged from a hard-fought, and ultimately successful, bid to unseat longtime Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams.

But campaign finance reports obtained from the Secretary of State's website show Gray and his firm were paid more for that campaign than other candidates paid him over the next seven years, when he earned a combined total of $461,525 for his work on 18 separate races.

In fact, the amount Giunchigliani paid Gray in 2006 was more than 10 times the sum he was paid to help out with her 2014 re-election campaign.

It was also more than many state and local candidates spent on entire campaigns over the past several years.

Payments scrutinized

Between 2012 and 2017, only 33 state and local candidates in Nevada spent more on a whole campaign than Giunchigliani paid Gray alone in 2006, according to online campaign finance reports. Seven of those candidates were, like Giunchigliani, running for a Clark County commission seat.

On a single day in September 2006, Giunchigliani cut Gray three checks totaling more than $67,000. That was 11 days after handing him a $29,829 payment for advertising expenses. Roughly three-quarters of Giunchigliani's 2006 payments to Gray, some $360,476, reportedly went toward such ad buys.

Nevada regulators said there’s nothing illegal about keeping a spouse on the campaign payroll, so long as they’re not making more than the going rate for the services they provide.

“If they’re overpaying this person, and this person is their spouse, I’d say that’s where this potentially could be an issue,” said Wayne Thorley, Nevada’s deputy Secretary of State for elections. “If it’s two or three times the going rate, we might have a case there.”

Yvonne Nevarez-Goodson, executive director of the Nevada Commission on Ethics, agreed that it’s generally a good idea for candidates to draw a bright line between their personal and political affairs.

“An incumbent running for re-election has a responsibility to separate campaign interests from other interests,” Goodson said. “A campaign manager relationship is sufficient to trigger the (ethics) law. … Spousal relationships are sufficient to trigger the law.”

Giunchigliani, 63, faces fellow longtime Clark County Commissioner Sisolak in a Democratic primary election scheduled for June 12.

She has positioned herself as the progressive in that contest, frequently poking Sisolak over his moderate past positions on key issues to Democratic primary voters, such as gun control, Planned Parenthood and marijuana.

The winner of June's primary is expected to face either Attorney General Adam Laxalt or state Treasurer Dan Schwartz — the top two GOP contenders for the governor’s seat — in November’s general election.