Launching into the ’22 election year with an early announcement this week, Mayor of North Las Vegas, John Lee, is the first candidate to throw his hat in the ring for the office of Governor of Nevada.
In exploring his potential bid, Lee made a pass through Nevada last month, stopping in rural communities from Tonopah to Elko. He spoke to a group of 25 local voters at the Masons’ Hall here in Fallon on a Friday morning and explained his recent switch from the Democrat party to filing as a Republican.
“When I was 19-years old I married Marilyn and we went down to register to vote. The lady says, ‘Democrat or Republican’ and I said, ‘what’s the difference?’ Marilyn pats my hand and says, ‘We’re Republicans.’”
After high school, Lee went straight into the construction industry. “No one in North Las Vegas unless they were an athlete ever went to college, we were the working-class people of Southern Nevada.”
Over the years, Lee served on several boards and commissions, hearing repeatedly that certain issues over the years were the responsibility of the state legislature. “I could do that job,” he frequently told himself and finally decided he should go ahead and run to represent his community in Carson City.
He went to the Republican Party to discuss running for the Nevada Assembly. “I told them I wanted to run for this seat because the guy had received an F rating. After the interview they told me they didn’t want me — they had been grooming someone else.” Walking back into his shop, somewhat chastened, Lee said he passed through a group of his workers as they were leaving for the day. “I realized I liked these working guys a whole lot better than the party people, and maybe I was a Democrat after all, so I went and joined the Democrat party.”
Lee ran for that Assembly seat and won, serving for four years, and then served in the Nevada Senate for eight years. “I never felt like a Democrat or Republican, I just felt like a Nevadan. It is not Democrat or Republican, it’s right or wrong. I was never really brought into the fold.”
Lee was asked several times to serve in leadership positions and one specific time for pro tem of the Senate. When he asked what he was expected to do and was told he would be running to get votes from people, “I said that’s the stupidest job ever, people can make up their own minds how they’re going to vote.”
Upon his return to Southern Nevada, Lee realized the city he loved, North Las Vegas was in dire straits and needed new leadership. “The city was almost to the point they were going to have to give the charter back to the state, with $156 million in debt, they had just built a big, new City Hall and a regional park, along with a new water and sewer structure. And then the recession hit,” said Lee.
“We’ve got to get someone to run for Mayor,” he would tell friends, before realizing it might have to be him. “How can you let your hometown fail,” asked Lee about the decision to run for Mayor.
During his first year in office at North Las Vegas, his staff would ask if he really wanted to be known as the first person who fired all the department heads. “We run this like a business. We only fill positions if we need them.” He said the city had gone from an A bond rating to “junk, junk.” Within seven years the rating was back to A.
“We had bond people flying out from Chicago asking what we were doing different from Stockton, Vallejo, or San Bernardino. We showed them we run this like a business. This is the people’s money,” he said and now, according to Lee, North Las Vegas is the strongest city in the state. “We are the third-largest city in the state, and we are still investing in infrastructure, still diversifying our economy, and we still run on those principles.”
Recently Lee has publicly changed parties again, saying he was quitting the Democrats. After a bout with cancer and some deep soul-searching, he likens what is happening in the Democrat party to dealing with malignancy. A slowly increasing discomfort in his face which he originally thought an allergy, eventually led to his doctor diagnosing Lee had two months left to live. After chemo and radiation, his cancer went away. “But, when I see this socialist thing happening in the Democrat party, slowly taking over, I know this isn’t going away, they are going the wrong way,” he said, “and we have to fight it.”
Lee says his Republican credentials are strong, from the establishment of a successful 3,000-acre shooting range in North Las Vegas to his pro-life stance. “I was named Legislator of the Year by both the NRA and the National Shooting Foundation. My faith drives me, and I believe we all should be able to practice our faith without being embarrassed or ridiculed.”
As he toured throughout the rural parts of the state, he was excited to see the growth and expansion. “You are exploding up here and there are so many opportunities, but there are growing pains, I can see. I do not like the way this state is being operated, it feels like we're being run out of California,” said Lee.
As Mayor, he is big on goals and looking toward the future. He still believes in the basic principles he used to save North Las Vegas and wants to bring those along with his goal-oriented thinking to the state level. “I would ask myself and my staff, ‘where do we want to be in ten years,’ and now that’s what I want to be asking with the state.”
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