Paul Dominique Laxalt ( ; August 2, 1922 – August 6, 2018) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 22nd governor of Nevada from 1967 to 1971 and as a United States senator representing Nevada from 1974 until 1987. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of Ronald Reagan's closest friends in politics. After Reagan was elected president in 1980, many in the national press referred to Laxalt as "the first friend". He was the older brother of writer Robert Laxalt and maternal grandfather of Adam Laxalt, who served as the 33rd attorney general of Nevada from 2015 to 2019.
Early life, education, and early career Laxalt was born on August 2, 1922, in Reno, Nevada. He was the son of Basque parents, Therese (née Alpetche) and Dominique Laxalt, who emigrated to the United States in the early 1900s from their homeland in the French Pyrenees. A shepherd, Dominique became wealthy in the sheep industry. After losing everything in the early 1920s, he returned to shepherding for the rest of his career. Therese, who had been trained at Paris's Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, eventually opened a restaurant called The French Hotel in Carson City, Nevada.
Therese and Dominique had six children: Paul, Robert (born in 1923), Suzanne (1925), John (1926), Marie (1928) and Peter (1931). Robert became an author; Suzanne, a Roman Catholic nun; John, a lawyer and political consultant; Marie, a school teacher; and Peter (Mick), an attorney. The Laxalt children were raised largely by their mother, as Dominique spent long periods of time away from the household tending his sheep in the deserts and mountains of Nevada. The children all helped Therese at The French Hotel.
Paul played on the 1938 state basketball champion team at Carson High School before graduating and attending Santa Clara University. When World War II broke out, Paul joined the U.S. Army and served as a medic, seeing action in the Battle of Leyte in the Philippines. After the war, he graduated from the Sturm College of Law.
Early career After graduating from law school and after serving as a district attorney, Laxalt enjoyed a successful career as a lawyer. His clients included George Whittell, who owned a large portion of the Lake Tahoe frontage on the Nevada side of the lake, Harvey and Llewellyn Gross, who built and ran Harvey's Wagon Wheel on Lake Tahoe's south shore, and Dick Graves, founder of the Sparks Nugget. While representing Graves, Laxalt helped win the famous "Golden Rooster case" in which the federal government tried to confiscate a 15-pound solid gold rooster that Graves displayed near the entrance of his Golden Rooster restaurant.
Political career Paul Laxalt's first attempt for public office was in 1950 when he ran for District Attorney of Ormsby County, Nevada, turning out the incumbent D.A. He served from 1950 to 1954. Laxalt's first run for statewide office came in 1962 when he ran for Lieutenant Governor against former Rep. Berkeley L. Bunker. Using innovative television ads and personal television appearances, Laxalt was able to introduce himself to the electorate, particularly in Southern Nevada where he was virtually unknown. In the middle of the campaign, at a Fourth of July rally in Las Vegas, Republican gubernatorial candidate and then-Lt. Gov. Rex Bell, a former Hollywood actor who had persuaded Laxalt to run with him on the GOP "ticket", died of a heart attack. A great amount of pressure was applied to Laxalt to run in Bell's place, but the young attorney demurred, and he remained in the lieutenant governor's race. He ended up defeating Bunker by a comfortable margin. Laxalt served one term as lieutenant governor from 1963 to 1967.
1964 U.S. Senate campaign In 1964, while serving as lieutenant governor, Laxalt ran for the United States Senate against freshman Democratic incumbent Sen. Howard Cannon. Laxalt had wanted to remain lieutenant governor. However, he declared his candidacy in mid-1964 after no other serious Republican contenders expressed interest. He did not have to give up his lieutenant governor's post for this race, since he was not up for reelection until 1966.
Republican candidates, running concurrently with the 1964 federal election, were undermined by the unpopularity of Sen. Barry Goldwater from Arizona, the Republican nominee for President against incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson, and the leader of their political ticket. Not long before election day, Goldwater scheduled a visit to Las Vegas. Laxalt's advisors told him he should "duck" Goldwater, as they feared any association with Goldwater would spell trouble. Laxalt, who often described Goldwater as his "political Godfather", reportedly told his aides, "Listen, Barry Goldwater is my friend. If I snubbed him now, I could never look him in the face again. I would rather lose." The Laxalt-Goldwater meeting on the tarmac was splashed on the front pages of local newspapers. (Goldwater lost Nevada by 28,000 votes.) Still, the Laxalt-Cannon race remained far closer than expected. As he watched the returns come in from his home in Carson City, Laxalt was stunned when one of the television networks actually declared him the winner. The next morning he flew to Las Vegas where he was told that certain precincts reported late and that Cannon had won by 48 votes, among the narrowest margins in a popular election for the U.S. Senate. The race was the subject of intense controversy for years.
1966 Gubernatorial campaign
Laxalt then decided to challenge two-term Governor Grant Sawyer. Although the election would not take place until November of 1966, Laxalt launched his campaign in the middle of 1965. One of the most hotly debated issues during the campaign was the federal government's involvement in Nevada gaming operations. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Justice Department had deep suspicions about organized crime's involvement in the gambling industry. Sawyer took the position that the federal government should stay out of Nevada's affairs. Laxalt took the position that Nevada had to cooperate with "the Feds" in order to be in a position to regulate gambling credibly. (In fact, one of Laxalt's first moves after his election was to meet with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to express Nevada's desire to establish a cooperative relationship.) During the gubernatorial campaign, Laxalt also led a movement to purge members of the John Birch Society from the state Republican Party. Laxalt defeated Sawyer by 5,937 votes. and served one term as governor, from January 1967 to January 1971.
Governor of Nevada Laxalt's tenure as governor was noteworthy for coinciding with the purchase of several hotel-casinos by reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. Laxalt allowed Hughes to secure his gaming license without appearing before the state's gaming regulatory authorities because he thought having an internationally acclaimed businessman involved in Nevada gaming would send a positive signal about the legitimacy of the industry. Laxalt also supported corporate ownership of gaming operations in Nevada, which helped pave the way for modern-day gambling. With the financial support of Hughes, Laxalt helped establish the state's first community colleges and Nevada's first medical school.
Along with Gov. Ronald Reagan of neighboring California, Laxalt helped create the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, to protect scenic Lake Tahoe. He also expanded the park system and promoted prison reform in Nevada. On one occasion, Laxalt, against the advice of his staff, went to the Nevada State Penitentiary during a prisoner uprising. He met personally with several prisoners who described to the governor the deplorable conditions under which they were living. Laxalt sympathized with their concerns and ordered the prison staff to address the problems. When he was later asked by the media if he had qualms about entering the prison yard, Laxalt, a former trial lawyer, said, "No, not really. Many of them were my former clients!"
In 1970, Laxalt lobbied President Richard Nixon to reduce the prison sentence of notorious Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa after Hoffa was convicted of attempting to bribe Sen. Howard Cannon, whom Laxalt had unsuccessfully challenged in 1964. While governor, Laxalt worked with Teamster officials on gambling investments in Nevada.
Laxalt governed Nevada as a fiscal conservative, but felt compelled to raise taxes at the outset of his administration because of the budget situation. Laxalt did not seek a second term. He bequeathed a budget surplus to his successor, Gov. Mike O'Callaghan. He left office saying that he had "a gut-full" of politics.
United States Senator Elections After leaving the governor's mansion, Laxalt and his family opened a hotel/casino in Carson City. In 1974, when twenty-year Democratic incumbent Sen. Alan Bible announced his retirement, Republican political insiders pressed Laxalt to re-enter politics and seek the open U.S. Senate seat. He eventually agreed and wound up running against the Democratic nominee, then-Lt. Gov. Harry Reid. At that time the Watergate scandal was a burden for all Republicans running for national office in 1974. Nonetheless, early in the campaign, Laxalt enjoyed a consistent but tight lead over Reid in most polls. However, after President Gerald Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon, Laxalt's prospects, like Republican prospects everywhere, suddenly took a dramatic turn for the worse. Laxalt compared it to having "a hundred pound weight around my neck." Still, he managed a victory by 624 votes. To give Laxalt a leg-up in seniority, Sen. Bible resigned three weeks early on December 18, 1974. Gov. Mike O'Callaghan (Laxalt's successor as governor) appointed Laxalt to finish out Bible's term.
In 1980, Laxalt won re-election over former state Sen. Mary Gojack by 52,095 votes.
Tenure
In his first term in the United States Senate, Laxalt was active in many legislative battles. In 1977, he led the fight against President Jimmy Carter's proposal to transfer the Panama Canal to the Panamanian government. Despite being in the minority in the Senate, Laxalt helped build a coalition opposed to the Panama Canal Treaties. Opponents successfully built a grassroots campaign designed to put pressure on the Senate. On the day of the vote, Laxalt was confident that he would be able to secure the 34 votes needed to defeat the treaties. However, his colleague, Sen. Howard Cannon (also from Nevada), decided to support the treaties. Even in defeat, Laxalt had won plaudits from both sides of the aisle for the manner in which he led the opposition. Indeed, throughout his Senate tenure, Laxalt remained popular among his colleagues, principally because he was viewed as a "straight shooter" and someone who never allowed political differences to turn personal. He was good friends with conservative Sen. Jesse Helms from North Carolina and liberal Sen. Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts. (At the request of Sen. Kennedy, Laxalt arranged to have President Ronald Reagan present Ethel Kennedy with the original copy of the medal honoring her late husband Robert F. Kennedy.)