Note: This is part 1 of 2.
We are in the midst of an important election. Actually, that’s true almost all the time. We thought we would take you back to 1974. Fifty years ago, Nevada had one of its most significant election years.
Two races became tied together: United States Senate and governor. By that time, Alan Bible was finishing two decades in the Senate. In 1973, he decided to retire. He alerted two fellow Democrats: former Governor Grant Sawyer, and the current governor, Mike O’Callaghan. Sawyer was doing well financially with his law firm and enjoying being a sort of party gray eminence. Also, the story was that his wife Bette had said, if he files, I file—and she meant for divorce. Funny, but not true. He just didn’t want to run.
What about O’Callaghan? He hadn’t easily won his first election in 1970, but he had become a popular governor. He had accomplished a lot on a limited budget. No one worked harder. Republicans weren’t showing signs of putting up much of a fight against his reelection. But a lot of people expected Iron Mike to go for the Senate.
Other prominent names were in play. O’Callaghan’s predecessor as governor had been Paul Laxalt. He had decided to give up the job after one term. He had been lieutenant governor and nearly won a U.S. Senate seat in 1964. He decided to run for the Senate.
Then there was Harry Reid. He was O’Callaghan’s lieutenant governor, as well as his former student in government and in boxing. He might run for whichever position O’Callaghan did NOT run for.
In turn, that caused divisions within the Democratic Party. Some of the older hands didn’t think Reid was ready for that much power. He still wasn’t even thirty-five years old. And if he moved up with O’Callaghan, that might give both of them more influence than some other Democrats wanted them to have.
A lot of political experts were convinced that O’Callaghan would run for the Senate. Instead, he decided to run for reelection and Reid filed for the Senate. So did another Democrat, Maya Miller. If there was a major cause, she was likely to be involved … the League of Women Voters, environmental issues, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and welfare rights, just to name a few. She and her family ran an environmental summer camp for youth.
Reid won the primary with more than sixty percent of the vote. Some of the other primaries were a bit exciting. For lieutenant governor, Washoe County District Attorney Bob Rose defeated future congressman Jim Bilbray in the Democratic race. Former Washoe DA and current state senator Bill Raggio won the lieutenant governor primary for Republicans, beating Rex Bell, then a Clark County justice of the peace and later the DA. In the Democratic primary for the House,
Jim Santini, another JP, beat Myron Leavitt, then a Clark County commissioner. A lot of those names should sound familiar.
As for how all of those races came out … join us next time for Nevada Yesterdays.