The New York Post runs a column I wrote this weekend covering the Harry Reid land deal that has exposed his murky connections to Nevada developers and the legislation that he sponsors to benefit them. Titled "Reid's Smelly Windfall: Back-$cratching With Developers", it brings a wider audience to the controversy:

Reid has now told the Senate Ethics Committee that he'll amend his past disclosure statements to for the first time cover the business relationships that AP has exposed. But he calls the amendment "technical" - which suggests it won't explain why his original "disclosures" misled the public on the nature of a partnership that made him a $700,000 windfall. ...

What Reid failed to disclose was his 2001 transfer of ownership of two parcels of land to Patrick Lane LLC - an entity in which he was partnered with one Jay Brown.

AP notes that Brown is a lobbyist, with reported links to organized crime. And he figures prominently in a federal criminal case - which concerns the bribery of members of the Clark County (Nev.) Zoning Commission by developers seeking changes to permit retail development on land they owned, vastly increasing its value.

As it happens, in 2001, the Clark County (Nev.) Zoning Commission approved a zoning change that allowed commercial/retail development on the land that Reid owned with Brown.

Then, the next year, Reid introduced and pushed into law the Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002. The senator heralded this as vital in protecting the environment near Las Vegas. In fact, however, the law forced the Department of the Interior to sell off 18,000 acres of land around Las Vegas, spurring development and boosting the value of real-estate investments in the region. (Not what anyone normally associates with "protecting the environment.")

We need to keep pressing this forward until the Ethics Committee opens a full investigation -- and not just in this deal, but encompassing Reid's legislative activity that kept providing federal land to developers who hired his sons has lobbyists. The Reid family, one of whom now serves as a Clark County commissioner in charge of zoning decisions, has made quite a living off of Senator Reid's land swaps. In this case, Reid appears to have benefitted from the developments that he helped make possible.

If nothing else, it appears that Harry Reid's business in the Senate has a lot more to do with enriching the Reid family than representing the needs of the American people. More people need to know that, and each column inch helps to inform more of us.

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