Senator Bill Raggio

  

Senator Bill Raggio, Nevada State Senate Majority Leader 

                                       

Thirteen years ago, in November 2010, little-known, far-right Republican candidate Sharron Angle was on the verge of defeating U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in what was shaping up to be one of the greatest upsets in American political history. Though polls showed Democrat Reid to be widely unpopular with Nevada voters, over two hundred high-profile Nevadans, under the organizational title "Republicans for Reid," rallied to provide endorsements that proved instrumental in Angle's subsequent defeat.

 Longtime Republican State Senator Bill Raggio did not join that list; instead, he made a forceful, independent declaration he hoped would open the eyes of his party to the direction it was heading. He explained that he could not endorse Angle because of her "inability or unwillingness to work with others, even within her own party, and her extreme positions on issues such as Medicare, Social Security, education, veterans' affairs, and many others." 

Raggio qualified his decision by saying he did not agree with Senator Reid on much of his agenda. Still, as U.S. Senate Majority Leader, arguably the second most powerful person in the country, Reid would better represent the interests of Nevada than a novice "backbencher" like Angle. As such, Raggio concluded: "I will reluctantly vote for Senator Reid's reelection."

Ultraconservatives, who had been gaining ascendancy in the GOP, were furious. The State Senate Republican Caucus quickly drove Raggio from his longtime leadership role. He subsequently resigned his Senate seat. Disowned by many supporters and even lifelong friends, organizations that had once bragged of Raggio's membership now distanced themselves. 

Though disappointed, Raggio did not back down, publicly sounding the alarm that extremist factions within the state and national GOP would soon take control and that their refusal to negotiate, in a zealous crusade for ideological purity, would fracture, and consequently weaken, the party to a point where it would no longer be acceptable to a majority of American voters. After decades of right-wing pundits perpetuating the belief that government was an enemy of the American people, Raggio said, ultraconservatives were willing to shut it down unless others accepted their nonnegotiable social and fiscal agendas.  

Raggio had always considered himself a conservative champion of individual rights, limited government, and fiscal responsibility, but in a way that would, as he often said, deliver "lean government, but not a mean government." With this philosophy as his guide, he led the State Senate for decades with a willingness to listen and consider the opinions of others, gaining trust on both sides of the aisle. Partisanship was minimal, and legislators generally worked together for the common good. Raggio understood the axiom attributed to President Ronald Reagan: "The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally—not a 20 percent traitor."

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Bill Raggio with President George H.W. Bush

I came to know Senator Raggio in 2003 when I was assigned as a staff member to his Committee on Finance at the Nevada Legislature. My first book, A Patch of Ground: Khe Sanh Remembered, a memoir of my time as a young Marine during the 1968 siege of Khe Sanh in South Vietnam, was released the following year. Knowing Raggio had been a World War II-era Marine officer, I slipped him a copy in a hallway one Friday afternoon. He read the book that weekend and asked if I would write his biography.

I spent the next several years researching his personal life and career. During that time, we met frequently for interviews, supplemented by dozens of discussions with his legal and political colleagues—friend and foe. In addition, as a Finance Committee staff member, I observed Senator Raggio daily during biennial legislative sessions over eight years. The result was A Man of His Word: The Life & Times of Nevada's Senator William J. Raggio, published in 2011.

I learned that Raggio's reputation predated his time in the state senate. Upon his election as Washoe County District Attorney in 1958, Raggio had set about cleaning up widespread corruption in the Reno city government and police department, generating threats against him and concerns about his family's safety.

His contentious relationship with Nevada's flamboyant brothel owner, Joe Conforte, culminating in a bungled attempt by Conforte to blackmail Raggio, resulted in a conviction for extortion. The lewd content of the trial made it a sensation for its time, covered by national and international news services. As Raggio's fame for being a colorful and effective prosecutor grew, he received several prestigious awards and honors. In 1967, after being named District Attorney of the Year by the National District Attorneys Association, Raggio was elected its president—remarkable recognition for a prosecutor from a small western county. He was soon sought after by heads of state and other significant government and national political figures.  

In those days, Northern Nevada hosted topline entertainment, and Raggio's outgoing personality resulted in long friendships with some of the country's foremost performers. Most notable among them was Frank Sinatra. When Nevada gaming officials forced Sinatra to surrender his gaming license as a result of hosting a Chicago mobster at his Cal Neva Lodge at Lake Tahoe, Raggio remained loyal despite being the top cop in the county where that occurred, raising eyebrows and providing fodder for his political foes.

When Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped at Lake Tahoe, but outside Raggio's jurisdiction, Bill Raggio was one of the first people Sinatra called on for assistance. In later years, when Sinatra sought a new gaming license in Nevada, it was Raggio who, in private practice as one of the top gaming attorneys in the state, successfully pled the case before the Gaming Control Board despite evidence that Sinatra had continued to associate with members of organized crime.  

As his fame grew, Raggio always kept in mind the people he was elected to serve. Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jude Wanniski marveled at Raggio's wit and ability "to remember the name of nearly every person he ever met:

Bill Raggio representing Frank Sinatra
before the Gaming Control Board.

"In Reno, it's virtually impossible to sit and talk to him for ten minutes without interruption. In restaurants, the cook comes out of the kitchen to say hello to him. On the street, the truck drivers honk at him, cabbies slow down, yell and wave to him. A hotel porter is sifting cigarette butts out of a wall sandbox; Raggio, walking by, hails him: 'Freddie, you find any gold yet?' and the porter turns around and grins."  

 Just before leaving on an Australian vacation in late February 2012, Raggio called me to discuss an upcoming book signing we had scheduled in a few weeks at the Wynn Las Vegas. He assured me that he was happy to attend despite dealing with the pain of a torn Achilles tendon and some difficulty breathing. I was not surprised by his thoughtfulness. It would be the last time we spoke. He died three days later from respiratory failure in Sydney at age 85.

Until the end, despite all it cost him, he never regretted his outspoken resistance to those he felt had "hijacked" his GOP or doubted for a moment that he had acted in the best interest of all Nevadans.

I've recently completed a book manuscript, Nevada Senator Bill Raggio and the Politics of Divisiveness, which describes these momentous changes in the climate of Nevada and national politics over the last four decades. I hope to see it published next year. 

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 Last Monday, October 30, marked what would have been Senator Raggio's 97th birthday. His long and legendary career in public service to Nevada produced countless amusing stories. One of my favorites is the somewhat comical outcome of his first criminal trial.

During law school, Raggio excelled in real property law, owing to his innate mathematical skills, and thought he might concentrate his practice in that field. However, he soon learned that in the early 1950s, most attorneys in Nevada did not have the luxury of specializing in a single facet of the law. 

"In Reno," he later said, "you were always assured of getting nasty divorce cases to cover your overhead — although I never wanted to be a divorce lawyer. I had also decided that I was really not suited for criminal law."

He would revisit that self-analysis after a call from Nevada's finest trial attorney, Peter Echeverria. Echeverria would later serve as a National President of the American Board of Trial Advocates and precede Raggio in the Nevada State Senate, the first senator of Basque heritage, and later become head of the Nevada Gaming Commission. His reputation was impeccable.

In the early 1950s, Echeverria left the prestigious Woodburn firm in Reno, hoping to make a reputation by winning a high-profile case, and found one made to order, with elements of the Old West and a salaciousness the public had come to expect from a good Nevada story. Echeverria asked Raggio to assist. Though he would not be paid, the young attorney jumped at the opportunity to earn experience with the legendary Echeverria.  

On trial for his life was mineworker Ray Milland, who had been charged with murdering a prostitute at Taxine's brothel in Tonopah. The legalization of brothels was then, as it is today in Nevada, left to the discretion of local governments.

Although there were no eyewitnesses to the crime, Milland had been accused of being the killer by a local hoodlum, Bonny Ornelles. Even before the trial began, it was apparent to most of the townspeople, as well as both defense attorneys, that the more aggressive Ornelles had committed the murder. The meek Mr. Milland, self-admittedly a brothel customer that day, was a victim of circumstance.

Echeverria and Raggio spent several days interviewing witnesses in preparation for the case. Whether out of loyalty to Ornelles or fear of reprisal, it was soon evident that their stories were largely contrived.

Judge William Hatton presided over the trial in the old Nye County Courthouse, a rusticated stone structure with a slender silver dome at the southern edge of Tonopah. A mining boomtown earlier in the century that once held a saloon operated by legendary lawman and later "political fixer" Wyatt Earp, Tonapah was now a small nearly forgotten community in the high desert of central Nevada.  While Echeverria handled most of the courtroom work, he did allow his young assistant to cross-examine a few witnesses. The process enthralled Raggio, who would later describe the principals as "colorful local characters, most of whom had few aspirations in life other than hanging around a brothel."

One, in particular, Billy Gallagher, tried to hide the fact that the brothel employed him as an errand boy. Under repeated questioning, Gallagher insisted he did not work for Taxine's but rather did odd jobs around town. When Raggio asked what kind of "odd jobs" he performed, Gallagher replied, "I mow lawns." With that, the courtroom audience and jurors burst into uproarious laughter because, at that time, there was not a square inch of lawn in all of dusty Tonopah.

Milland would be acquitted, and, for years afterward, Raggio half-jokingly insisted that his coaxing of the lawn-mowing lie from a dimwitted Mr. Gallagher was instrumental in swaying the jury. Bonny Ornelles, the likely killer, was never charged with the crime. Raggio believed he died sometime later "of something other than natural causes."

Raggio now had an exciting criminal trial "under his belt" and a proper and popular verdict. Though stimulated by what he had experienced, he was still looking for his professional niche because the Milland murder trial awakened in him certain realities concerning a thorny facet of the legal profession:

"In criminal cases," he later said, "justice is not always served. A truly professional attorney will feel obligated to ensure proper procedures are followed — even if they believe or know their client committed the crime. The innocence or guilt of defendants in the few criminal cases I defended was so indisputable that I was never put in a position of moral ambivalence." In other words, he had never defended an individual he knew to be guilty.

Bill Raggio represented so few criminal defendants in his career, thus escaping that ethical dilemma, mainly because he would spend the next eighteen years trying cases from the opposing side as a prosecuting attorney. He would go on to become one of the most highly respected prosecutors in the nation—not a bad ending for someone who once felt he was "really not suited for criminal law."