Raggio says O’Donnell’s quitting won’t hurt Nevada’s Republicans

Monday, Aug. 13, 2001 | 11:01 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio is confident the GOP will hold the seat of Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, and retain the majority in a newly reapportioned Senate.

Raggio made his comments after O'Donnell, unhappy with Raggio's leadership, announced Friday he would not run for re-election, ending an 18-year run in the Legislature.

Raggio called O'Donnell's newly shaped District 9 in Clark County a "Republican district." The number of registered Republicans outnumbers Democrats 21,269 to 18,982 in the area.

The Senate majority leader said he had talked to O'Donnell about the retirement, but the Las Vegas senator never voiced any complaints. Raggio said he would not comment on O'Donnell's allegations.

Both Raggio and O'Donnell said possible GOP candidates to succeed him include Assembly members Barbara Cegavske and Dennis Nolan and former Assemblyman Bill Brady, who served three sessions, in 1979, 1981 and 1983.

Former FBI agent George Togliatti, a Democrat, is reported to be interested in the seat.

O'Donnell, 50, a Las Vegas businessman, served one term in the Assembly and will have served 16 years in the Senate when he completes his term in November next year. His rift with his own party leaders from Northern Nevada widened this year.

He complained Raggio, R-Reno, and lobbyist Harvey Whittemore ran things, and he said, "I don't want to be part of that anymore. I have integrity, and I do not want it damaged."

Outspoken and a lone wolf on some issues, O'Donnell drew the wrath of Republican leadership during the 2001 Legislature on such things as reapportionment and creating a legislative oversight committee for the state Transportation Department, a move opposed by GOP Gov. Kenny Guinn.

At one point in the session, O'Donnell blocked a Republican reapportionment bill from moving out of the Senate Government Affairs Committee and to the floor of the Senate. He refused to vote on it, leaving a 3-3 deadlock in the committee.

"I got skewered because of that, but I would do it again," he said. The Republican plan, he said, was put together in a secret meeting and that was the wrong way to do things.

But he later voted to allow the bill out of committee.

He conducted a mini-filibuster in the closing minutes of the session in order to kill a bill involving the Transportation Department. But he failed. He wanted a legislative committee be created to oversee the transportation agency to "give people a voice." The governor opposed it and won.

"I had a difficult session," O'Donnell said. "I wanted to cure the long lines at the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles). I went against the governor and that was blocked by Bill Raggio. I wanted to change the Millennium Scholarships so all students could participate and not just those who go to Nevada universities and I was blocked on that."

After the Legislature, he tried to overthrow Raggio and bring the Senate leadership to Clark County. But that failed in a GOP caucus in Las Vegas. He said lawmakers "fear" Raggio because he controls a large purse strings of campaign funds.

"I wanted to bring the leadership down south and clean up some of the abuses in the system," he said. He was unhappy that lobbyists played so prominent a role in the final hours of the Legislature "Things were manipulated and coerced in the back doors," he said.

His plan to regulate the limousine industry in Clark County was voted down in the Republican controlled Senate. It was revived but never made it through the Legislature.

He was in the minority in his belief that Yucca Mountain would be selected as a site for a nuclear dump and that the state should start working with the federal government to prepare for it to avoid any disasters.

He wanted to tap some money going to counties and the school districts to hire more people to staff the windows at the Department of Motor Vehicles, but that bill was buried.

"I need to step aside so somebody else can take my seat," he said. O'Donnell said he believes whoever replaces him will eventually become majority leader in the Senate. He said term limits will kick in in the next few years and his successor will gain seniority and ascend to become the leader.

Some of his biggest accomplishments, he said, was getting the interchange at Spring Mountain and Interstate 15, as well as funding the Desert Inn Arterial. "That was my baby." In the 1985 session, he said, he led a drive for retention pay for teachers.

Considered one of the computer gurus in the Legislature, O'Donnell said he was "very proud" of the technology advances that allowed the public to see bills amendments and listen to hearings over the Internet. And he was one of only a handful of legislators who opposed the 300 percent pension increase for legislators that was eventually repealed.

For the past six years, O'Donnell has been involved in real estate development. He said he recently purchased the Bowmer and Berry's Show Case on Maryland Parkway and is converting it for medical offices.

"I'm a lucky guy, but it's time to move on to do other things," he said. "I have two children in medical school and I have got to help them as much as I can.

"On their deathbed nobody said, 'I wanted to spend more time in the Legislature,' " he said.