DENNIS MYERS Against the Grain Advertisement

The state plane is a political issue again.

It's amazing the way this dinky little part of state government keeps coming back. It's probably a fraction of one percent of the total cost of the state budget, but there's something about it that makes it alluring for political use. It probably has something to do with the whole idea of a small state even owning its own plane for anything except the Air Guard. There's something about an executive jet that makes people think taxpayer dollars are being wasted.

In 1988, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Chic Hecht's campaign ran television ads that portrayed the state plane as proof that Democratic candidate Richard Bryan, who was governor, had been profligate with state moneys. The ad helped cut the lead that Bryan, (widely admired as competent) held over Hecht (widely viewed as incompetent). It was one of those style-over-substance PR feats that help political campaigns become such a joy to the public. (Of course, there's also Sarah Palin's mythical sale on Ebay of Alaska's state plane.)

This time, the issue is whether the Nevada state plane's operation has been mishandled. In August it was reported that the attorney general's office and state transportation officials were investigating whether chief pilot Gary Thomas flew Gov. Kenny Guinn without adequate fuel and that Thomas allowed his teen son to fly the plane, allegations made by another of the plane's pilots, James Richardson. (The Reno Gazette Journal and the Associated Press reported that this incident happened after Guinn left the governorship, but it happened on Oct. 29, 2006, so Guinn was still governor.)

This week it was learned that Thomas was demoted, presumably as a result of Richardson's claims, and that Richardson was fired. In other words, flying unsafely gets a demotion, and reporting that unsafe flying gets a firing.

There may be more to this case that would explain the disparity in penalties, but state officials -- hiding behind employee confidentiality rules -- have not explained what they are. In fact, what additional information has come out has been less helpful to Thomas, not more. For instance, there is something going around about Thomas being in an anger management course but failing to finish it.

There are details about any state employee discipline case that should not be made public, but when an angry pilot is accused of flying governors around with fuel running out, the public's interest is very much engaged.

Moreover, suppression of relevant information is the kind of thing that can blow a simple dispute into a major issue.

For instance, after this matter first broke into the news a few weeks ago, a reader posted a message on the capital newspaper, the Nevada Appeal, reviving the usual challenge about whether the state should own planes in the first place: "Has anyone calculated this thing out to see why NV even has a private jet? How much does it cost to run a [Cessna] Citation back and forth to LV every day just so the director and her cronies don't have to fly commercial? Cut out the perks and just charter a plane when the Gov needs to do 'official travel'. And now NDOT wants to divert highway funds to buy a new plane. Time for the legislative auditors to take a look at this operation."

See how easy it is to create the basis for political television advertising?

There is one encouraging aspect of this story that I can end it with, though I have to reach back half a century to find it. Not everyone tries to make political hay from the state plane, or at least that's the way it once was. In July 1960, Nevada Republican chair Emery Graunke accused Gov. Grant Sawyer, a Democrat, of making improper use of state Air Guard planes (this was before the state had an executive plane for the governor's use).

Lt. Governor Rex Bell, a Republican, came to Sawyer's defense, pointing out that former Republican governor Charles Russell and legislators of both parties had done the same thing.

It's hard to imagine that kind of civility and honesty today. Sometimes the good old days really were better.