Del Papa will not run for re-election

Monday, July 30, 2001 | 4:04 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa announced today she will not seek a fourth term next year.

In a message to her staff, she said her decision was a "personal one in that there are some other things I would like to do."

"I still love my job and will miss it as well the people who work here when I leave," she said.

Del Papa had said last week she had not made up her mind about her future political plans. But she said today she intended to stay "very active in politics and very involved with issues."

"I will work hard to help leave the office in good shape for my successor and I will work for your future in the next budget cycle," she said in her e-mail to her workers.

Del Papa, 51, said, "I'm not bailing. I'm just not re-electing." She said she does not have any plans now about whether to go into private law practice in Reno where she will continue to live.

"I'm not retiring and I will always be in public service," she said.

Del Papa has never lost an election. She was a member of the Board of Regents and was elected as Nevada's first female secretary of state before being elected as the first female attorney general.

She was the only statewide Democrat to win election in 1998.

There are still things to do during the next year and a half of her term, she said. She is installing a cash management system in the office, working on an organ donor program and designing a landscape master plan for the highway system.

Her biggest accomplishment, she said, was "consumer protection and fraud prevention."

She said there has been the legal fight to stop the nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain, the tobacco settlement in which the state will receive millions of dollars for the next 20 years and her battle to reduce frivolous suits by inmates.

But the thing that stands out the most, she said, is consumer protection. "The efforts put forth there will live on long after I'm gone"

She said she has thought about this for a long time and "It's tough to leave the relationships nationally and here. But there is a time and a season for everything."

Her announcement comes a week after Republican Brian Sandoval announced his resignation from the chairmanship of the Nevada Gaming Commission. Sandoval, of Reno, said he is considering running for attorney general.