We’ve been buried under a huge mountain of paperwork, readers, and we’ve only reached a plateau, but we’ve gathered enough for a couple helpings of Quick Hits.

• We like Dina Titus. Really, we do. (Just ask around. We’ve been accused of being her press secretary!) But the fact that she returned $10,000 to her Bristlecone PAC after conservative activist Chuck Muth filed a complaint that Titus had made a donation to her Friends of Dina Titus campaign account when she was legally barred from doing so surprised us. And it has the potential to hurt Titus. Here’s why:

1.) There’s nobody else to blame. Titus is the founder, president and resident agent for her PAC. She wrote the check, signed the check, and deposited the check, just three days after the 2005 Legislature’s unfortunate special session had ended. (The law says no contributions may be accepted or received within 30 days of the end of the Legislature.) This was not a staffer’s mistake.

2.) Titus isn’t stupid. Unlike, say, Assemblyman Chad Christensen, Titus can’t make an ignorance claim work. She teaches political science, for God’s sake. She’s a longtime senator, leader of her party in the upper house and someone well versed in legislative rules and procedures, especially this one. How do we know?

3.) Because Titus has campaigned on the 30-day no contribution bans, when she accused her primary rival, Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson of “pay to play,” or accepting contributions in close proximity to votes. Titus specifically said she didn’t do that, since the Legislature had rules that she wanted to see local governments adopt.

(And let’s dispense with this spin about how Titus simply gave the money to herself, and thus couldn’t have been trying to influence herself. In fact, she gave contributions from her PAC — which had in turn been given by contributors no doubt seeking favorable consideration — to her campaign account, Friends of Dina Titus. It was a violation of both the letter and the spirit of the law.)

4.) Giving the money back doesn’t fix it. The donation was still made, and received, in violation of the law. If we at Various Things & Stuff robbed a bank, but gave the money back, do you think the FBI would just send us on our way with a stern warning? We think J. Edgar’s boys (and girls) would still want to escort us to a nice cell while they filled out the paperwork. Titus may still face a fine for the violation.

Now, having said all that, do we think this is a fatal error? No. Do we think this is even a major error? No. Do we think this is evidence Titus shouldn’t be governor? No. Do we think she’s worse than Jim Gibbons, who accepted $11,000 more than was legally allowed from two donors? No.

But do we think it will be used against her in ads, both on the merits and to suggest hypocrisy? Yes, we do. And in a campaign where your opponent is shooting at you with a fully automatic weapon, you’ve no time to inflict wounds on yourself. Titus knows better.

Now that we’ve said that, let’s move back to the substance of the campaign. …

• Stop, thief! Republican Party Chairman Paul Adams, like his candidate for governor, Gibbons, is apparently a plagiarist! When Gibbons started his ads deliberately mispronouncing Titus’ name as “Dina Taxes,” our friend and colleague Hugh Jackson penned this on the Las Vegas Gleaner website:

Democratic activist (and former Clinton White House official) Paul Begala became the latest political celebrity to drop by the Tessa Hafen headquarters today, helping her in a bid to unseat U.S. Rep. Jon Porter. We talked to him by phone, and here are a few highlights:

1.) The Mark Foley scandal is disaster for Republicans. “Nothing could depress their base [of religious conservatives] more than the revelation that these so-called family values conservatives were covering up for a sexual predator, a child sexual predator,” Begala said.

To which we’d add: They weren’t just covering up. They left the guy as co-chair of the House Missing and Exploited Children caucus! They ignored reports of his would-be pederasty! They were helping him get re-elected!

So what says Porter, who kicked off his campaign with an ad describing a bill to keep child sexual predators out of schools? To the Las Vegas Sun, he said this:

“Porter said through an aide Tuesday that he, too, knew nothing of Foley’s inappropriate communications with young pages until news of it broke late last week.

“(Porter refused to directly answer questions from the Sun about the case. His staff said that the congressman would respond only to written questions and would answer in writing. The Sun declined, on the grounds that it wished to speak directly to Porter.)”

Good for the Sun, by the way, for not letting Porter hide behind aides or written statements.

Before his vow of silence, however, Porter said this, quoted by the Review-Journal:

“I am supporting an immediate suspension of the page program until we have the opportunity to make sure the students are safe. This is changing by the minute. We want to make sure these kids are safe and protected.”

Wait. A congressman decides he wants to exploit some teenagers, and so to fix it, we should … get rid of the teenagers? Wow, this pederasty thing must be more widespread than we thought! All those hot young pages wandering about on Capitol Hill must be just too much for the pervy lawmakers to stand! There are only so many cold showers you can take, right?!

What a bunch of horseshit. What Porter should have been calling for is AN END TO ATTEMPTED PEDERASTY ON THE PART OF HIS COLLEAGUES!!!!! And the fact that this need be pointed out to him proves Begala’s point.

Oh, one more thing: What about calling for the resignations of anybody who knew about the scandal and did nothing? You know, folks like U.S. Rep. John Boehner, the majority leader, or Speaker Dennis Hastert? How about that?

“However, Porter said he would reserve judgment on Hastert until the Justice Department completes an investigation that the House speaker requested over the weekend,” the R-J reported.

“‘I believe the attorney general will do a very thorough and very fair investigation,’ Porter said. ‘The speaker did the right thing.’”

No, congressman, he didn’t. And that’s the point.

We wonder why Porter wouldn’t take the step of calling out people who protected a would-be child molester, a relatively non-controversial statement for a Republican. Begala has an answer: “I think it’s the Lord Acton rule. I think they’ve been in power so long, they’ll do anything to stay in power.”

It’s looking more and more every day like they’re going to fail.

2. The allegations that Hafen, who was born and raised and went to high school in Nevada, is a carpetbagger won’t work, although Porter’s trying hard to sell it. “You meet her, you talk to her, she is Henderson, Nevada,” Begala said.

3. Hafen should stress something in the final month of the campaign: One, she’s for change, and Porter represents the status quo. (And given that the status quo isn’t too pretty, that’s a more hard-charging attack than it appears.

UPDATE: We came across a quote from Porter inserted into a wire story in Tuesday’s Review-Journal. Porter said Foley’s actions “are inexcusable and if anyone, whether that be a member or a staffer, had prior knowledge of the gravity of this situation and did nothing to rectify it, they [sic] should be removed from their positions.”

Very well, congressman. It now appears that, under the Porter Doctrine, both Hastert and Boehner, as well as U.S. Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., the chairman of your party’s House campaign committee, as well as U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., all had “prior knowledge of the gravity of this situation and did nothin gto rectify it.” Will Porter call on them, by name, “be removed from their positions”?

Well, congressman? (We’d ask ourselves, but we’ve been waiting for three days now for return calls from Porter’s campaign on an unrelated scheduling matter.)