Divorce Turns Ugly for Nevada’s Governor

By Steve Friess
INSERT DESCRIPTIONGov. Jim Gibbons of Nevada and his wife Dawn at his inauguration in 2007. (Photo: Kevin Clifford/Nevada Appeal, via Associated Press)

LAS VEGAS — The governor of the state made famous in part for its quick, private divorces is now embroiled in a breakup so tawdry, so publicly spectacular and so potentially grueling that how it plays out could have implications from Carson City to the White House.

Gov. Jim Gibbons of Nevada, a first-term Republican, had hoped to minimize the publicity surrounding his divorce from Dawn, his wife of 22 years, by convincing a Reno judge to seal the records per a state law that allows either party to do so.

What he may not have expected was that Mrs. Gibbons, 54, would file her own 33-page motion to draw attention to longstanding rumors: that she believes the governor is having an extramarital relationship with the wife of a Reno podiatrist. [Full text available here as a pdf document.]

“Despite his disingenuous, shallow and transparent protestations that his relationship with another man’s wife is a mere friendship, his infatuation and involvement with the other woman is the real, concealed and undisclosed reason for his voluntary departure from the marriage and from the mansion where he occasionally resides,” read the filing, written by Mrs. Gibbons’ attorney, Calvin Dunlap.

The scandal is alarming Republican operatives in the state who believe disaffection with Mr. Gibbons is already dooming his own re-election chances in 2010 but also could impact how swing-state Nevada goes this fall in the presidential race.

“This absolutely could depress Republicans who are already depressed,” said Chuck Muth, a Republican political consultant and blogger. “This could hurt McCain’s ability to hold on to Nevada. It could also affect the chances of (Rep.) Jon Porter (R-Nev.) to get re-elected.”

Mr. Dunlap, in the motion filed on Wednesday, described Mrs. Gibbons as a “castaway wife” and asserted that the law allowing the sealing of divorce records is unconstitutional as it pertains to public officials.

Mr. Gibbons has repeatedly denied he is having an ongoing affair, although he has not discussed or commented on any possible extramarital relationships in the past. The Reno Gazette-Journal reported Thursday that the governor has been seen publicly on several occasions recently with the woman, including at dinner at a Reno casino on May 10 and high school play in which the woman’s daughter performed on May 1.

“We’ve been friends for 15 years,” he told the newspaper.

The Gibbonses have been married for 22 years and have a 20-year-old son. The governor’s divorce attorney, Gary Silverman, declined comment.

Until their marital strife became public this spring, the Gibbonses were seen as perhaps the state’s most politically ambitious couple. Mr. Gibbons served as a congressman for five terms, the last eight years of which Mrs. Gibbons served in the Nevada Assembly. She failed to capture the Republican nomination to take her husband’s seat in Congress in 2006, a campaign that drew criticism from those wondering why she wouldn’t prefer to stay in Nevada and serve as first lady.
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Now it seems Mrs. Gibbons is intent on remaining first lady despite the divorce, refusing to move out of the governor’s mansion in Carson City. Mr. Gibbons has been living since April in the couple’s Reno home despite state law that requires him to live in the residence provided him and in the state’s capital city.

“I believe that both parties have entered what could be considered to be mutually assured destruction,” Republican political consultant Steve Wark said. “It appears that they both want validity in their positions and Dawn’s unwillingness to leave the mansion is ironic since she ran for Congress based on the fact that she did not want to hang out being the first lady. It’s all very weird.”

Mr. Dunlap insisted the explosive filing this week was not intended to harm the governor’s political career but that “you’d have to be a dummy to realize that there aren’t implications beyond the divorce itself for her and for him.”

“She’s in political arena on her own as well as he is,” Mr. Dunlap said. “There are implications beyond the divorce in all of this but when you have everything out in the open, the truth is served, the public knows, democracy is served and all that. We’re not doing any of this for political purposes. I’m doing this for the best interest of my client.”

Yet the new filing also makes reference to several controversies involving the governor leading up to and since his 2006 election. Mr. Gibbons was accused in October 2006 of assaulting a cocktail waitress in a Las Vegas parking garage weeks before the election, a charge he denied. Mrs. Gibbons’ decision to stand by her husband was credited as critical to his winning the close election.

In Mrs. Gibbons’ filing, she states that the waitress bears a “striking resemblance” to the woman she believes is her husband’s mistress and noted that the waitress, “like his wife now, was trashed” by Mr. Gibbons’ operatives.

Dunlap hinted that more information about the couple’s shared political life may yet come to light.

“This is a divorce action and it has to do with matters considered in a divorce,” he said. “Some of the stuff that he’s become embroiled in would become irrelevant, but other matters might be relevant.”