Last time we were talking about the 1974 election and its significance. Let’s continue.
In the United States Senate race, Republican Paul Laxalt faced Democrat Harry Reid. It was a tough year for Republicans—Richard Nixon had resigned as president over Watergate and his successor, Gerald Ford, had pardoned him. But Reid made some mistakes, including attacking Laxalt’s family. Laxalt had a lot of good will built up. Laxalt ended up winning by 624 votes after a recount. He had lost by only 84 votes the previous time he ran for the Senate. Eventually, when Laxalt retired from the Senate, Reid won the election to succeed him.
In that 1986 Senate election, Reid defeated Jim Santini, who had switched to the Republican Party. But in the election we’re focusing on, in 1974, Santini won the race for Nevada’s only House seat. He defeated David Towell, the Republican incumbent, who had served one term. Towell had benefited previously from Nixon’s coattails and, more importantly, divisions in the Democratic Party. Not this time. Santini went on to serve four terms in the House. In 1982, he challenged incumbent U.S. Senator Howard Cannon in a primary and lost.
The lieutenant governor’s race wasn’t too close. Democrat Bob Rose defeated Republican Bill Raggio for lieutenant governor. Rose later went
on to lose a bid for governor, then became a Clark County district court judge and Nevada Supreme Court justice. Raggio remained in the legislature for a record 38 years, the longtime Republican leader, and a dominant figure in that body.
As for governor … Mike O’Callaghan won big. He defeated his nearest rival, Republican Shirley Crumpler, by more than 85,000 votes—and there were only about 169,000 votes cast for governor. But the election was more interesting than that. There was a third-party candidate running as an Independent American. His name was James Ray Houston. The best way to describe him would be as a con man. He ran promising to change the monetary system and make everybody rich with his silver holdings.
In that way, he brought to mind the politics of an earlier time, when Nevada leaders were always fighting to remonetize silver. After all, we are the Silver State. But Houston claimed to have a bunch of silver in his vault, and a Las Vegas Sun reporter, Harold Hyman, broke the story that there was no silver in it. Worse, Houston owed millions to others he had hustled. This came out right before the election. Houston had been doing pretty well in the polls, but that took care of him. He went on to be indicted for his scam in Nevada and acquitted, but later went to prison for another con.
Speaking of that, in 1974, the state attorney general’s race was a tight one, with 701 votes being the margin for the Republican incumbent, Robert List, to keep that job. He defeated a Democratic state senator who later came back to beat him for governor. List went on to a long career as a lawyer. As for what became of that other guy, he’ll be back next time with another edition of Nevada Yesterdays.
