Four longtime senators not returning to capital

Kirsten Searer

Monday, Feb. 7, 2005 | 11:05 a.m.

For the first time in two decades, the state Legislature convened without Ray Rawson.

In the past year, the valley resident lost both his state Senate seat and his tenure as a dental professor at the Community College of Southern Nevada.

Rawson announced in March he would resign his position at CCSN because of the pitched debate over legislators serving as public employees. He went on to lose his tough Republican primary.

He still teaches classes as a volunteer at CCSN, saying he loves the school and needs an outlet after a tough 2004.

Legislators from Southern Nevada often talk about how hard it is to serve. Every two years they head north, usually leaving behind families and jobs for at least four months.

But it's also an adjustment for veterans who suddenly find themselves out of office, no longer making the life-changing treks to Carson City. Four longtime senators won't return to the Legislature today.

They have 92 years of experience among them and a range of emotions.

Sen. Ray Shaffer, D-North Las Vegas, who lost a bitter election, said he's still "healing" and didn't want to talk much about losing his seat.

Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, who chose to leave his seat and run unsuccessfully for the county commission, said "it feels good to me."

"I don't want to be sticking around there and be like (former U.S. Sen.) Strom Thurmond, you know, people guiding me around," said the 69-year-old Neal, who was first elected in 1972.

Sen. Ann O'Connell, a fiscal conservative who lost a high-profile Republican primary, said her sudden amount of free time has been somewhat strange, though she is taking a position as a senior fellow at the Nevada Research Policy Institute.

"It seems like the days go by so quickly," the 70-year-old O'Connell said. "... I'm sure everybody else has kind of felt the same way. They're just trying to get control of their lives. At the Legislature, you don't have a lot of control of your life."

Rawson lost his primary in September, and his wife, Linda, had open heart surgery after Thanksgiving.

"It was a tough year, a hard year," the 64-year-old said. "A campaign year is always a hard year, whether you win or lose. But there's quite a rejection to losing. That's something you feel deeply, I think."

The Senate is typically more stable than the Assembly, making this year's losses more pronounced, said Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, the longest-serving state senator.

The departures are a preview to what will start happening in 2010 when term limits will start to kick in, Raggio said. Legislators will be limited to 12 years in office.

"You're going to lose some very effective people who have information going back on issues and programs," he said.

O'Connell, for example, was known as one of the few senators who religiously read state audits. It led to her philosophy that there was fat to trim in the state budget -- and that any tax, once implemented, was probably here to stay.

That's why it was ironic when groups supporting her opponent, Sen. Joe Heck, R-Henderson, called O'Connell a tax and spender. They pointed to a tax bill she briefly supported in the 2003 session that would have taxed services.

Heck won in the primary.

Coming off a tough election, O'Connell said she has no regrets. She calls the bill she supported " a protest bill" and said she and others meant to shape the tax debate.

"If you've got the bucks, than you can say anything you want about a person," she said. "If you say it enough, then the public is going to tend to believe it."

O'Connell owned Christian book stores, among other business dealings, and she retained a tight bond with the business community.

One of her first brushes with the press came on May 23, 1985, just after she took office. A Sun cartoon depicts her haphazardly changing the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority after she argued to privatize parts of the organization.

She said -- still giggling -- it was her first and favorite lesson in the media scrutiny public officials face.

Neal is now a fixture at his local Elks Lodge, where he said he shows up about four times a week to "visit with the fellows."

He was famous for making the drive from Las Vegas to Carson City in less than six hours, and soon after he was elected he began a crusade against radar guns.

"I presented evidence in the Senate that the radar gun was once trained on a tree and the tree was clocked at 85 miles per hour," he said.

He said he would hit 120 miles an hour sometimes on the drive to Carson City, though he said "I always drive with my lights on. It was always on open roads. I always respect the communities that I had to go through and (did) not speed through them."

Neal developed a reputation for fighting to protect civil rights, and he fought to tax the gaming community. He also was a keen master of legislative rules.

"It's a process, and you have to try to protect it," Neal said. "It's not a dictatorship. You do have individuals who tend to accumulate power within themselves and you have to challenge that. Once you get one individual who believes he's all powerful, then the public is not served by that."

Even though he sometimes was criticized for bucking the system, Neal said he has no regrets.

"I stood up and fought those things and hopefully somebody will come in and be of the same voice," he said. "You don't serve the people well when you're up there doing the bidding of gaming, the Chamber of Commerce, the labor unions or whatever."

His successor is Sen. Steven Horsford, D-North Las Vegas, who recently threw Neal a tribute dinner and said he believes he has big shoes to fill.

Another new Democrat to the Senate is Sen. John Lee, D-North Las Vegas, who beat Shaffer after a nasty race. During one televised debate, a flustered Shaffer called Lee a "piece of you-know-what."

Shaffer declined to talk about the race, saying "the only lesson I've learned is to forget about politics."

He did say he'll continue to lobby for bills that he introduced before he was voted out of office. Otherwise, though, he'll focus on his family, including his nine grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and 90-year-old mother.

"That probably will be the last move I'll make politically," the 72-year-old said. "I've got a lot of things to do and a short time to do it."

Rawson believes things happen for a reason, and that doors will soon open for him.

He knew the tug of serving in the state Legislature after his first session in 1985. His 10-year-old son, who helped him campaign for his state Senate post, reported he wasn't happy with Dad being gone for six months.

Through his committee chairmanships and a philosophy that "quiet is a better way to get things done," Rawson helped oversee 80 percent of the state budget. He forged a host of state programs, from a class-size reduction fund to the rainy-day pot. He also pioneered 80 acres that later became CCSN's Charleston campus.

"One of the first great lessons I learned was that there is more than one valid side to each issue so its not that it's an opposite side -- there's valid opposition," he said.

"It's hard, but there's almost always a middle ground and it's finding the middle ground that bears fruit. I mean, if you power something through and you hurt a significant part of the state, it's just a matter of time until they'll overcome that and put your interests down.

"It's always a constant back and forth. The better things that we've done you don't find a lot of fighting over them."

He lost his Senate seat to three-term Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, after a heated primary. Rawson laughed when asked if he was too nice for politics.

"That's my nature," he said. "I'll never be vindictive or hurtful. That's just not my style. There's certainly a lot of politicians who want to hurt you so bad you'll never go against them."

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