Boggs McDonald to consider run for Congress

Erin Neff

Tuesday, July 3, 2001 | 9:27 a.m.

Las Vegas City Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald's phone is ringing off the hook, and the callers on the other end don't even know about the current air quality agency controversy.

Boggs McDonald, who got overwhelming support in her Ward 2 council win, is being touted by national Republican leaders to run against Shelley Berkley for Congress next year.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert is calling. Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, chairman of the Republican National Committee, is calling.

"I've not had an eyeball to eyeball conversation with the Washington, D.C., folks yet," Boggs McDonald said. "I want to go back and look them in the eye to see how much emphasis they place on this race and what kind of help they can give me."

Boggs McDonald lived in the district of Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., until the Legislature redrew the maps to accommodate Nevada's 3rd Congressional District.

Now her Summerlin neighborhood belongs to Berkley, but it is not an area Berkley has previously represented.

"Most of my ward, including my own neighborhood, is in the district," Boggs McDonald said.

An ardent supporter of Gov. Kenny Guinn and a loyal Republican, Boggs McDonald understands how important each national race has become in the tenuously-close national political scene.

"I will give it some serious consideration," she said.

Boggs McDonald was first appointed to the City Council's Ward 2 seat in June 1999. She won her first election to the seat this past spring with an average of 70 percent support.

"It's been kind of an amazing thing," Boggs McDonald said. "I never had serious thoughts about it until recently.

"When I'm in the grocery store people will come up to me and say, 'I hope you're thinking about it'," she said.

Boggs McDonald said she plans to travel to Washington sometime in the next four weeks to meet firsthand with GOP leaders such as Hastert, R-Ill., and Gilmore. Then, she'll decide whether to run.

Many potential candidates opt out of races because of family concerns. But Boggs McDonald said that if she enters the race and wins her husband and young son will move with her to Washington, D.C., where she was born and where her mother's side of the family still lives.

"There's a lot of family support," she said.

If Boggs McDonald hears the right things from the national leaders, she will have to decide whether it's the right time to leave City Hall. She considers herself something of a peacemaker among the 10th floor's elected denizens.

"It may not be the right time to leave the troops," she said.