His own man
Story and photoS by DeNNiS MyerS
Nevada Legislature learned to work with a black senator
J
oe Neal arrived in Nevada in 1954, about 10 months before Colliers Magazine ran a story, “The Sorry State of Nevada,” about substandard life in the Silver State that Neal would one day help to improve. The state, then and later, was often used as a bad example, as when Pennsylvania’s Somerset American editorialized that Nevada was “no place for the poor and needy, or for any on whom the wheel of fortune might turn adversely.” Born in 1935, Neal was raised in a very small Louisiana town, where a federal malaria research program in the 1920s had provided some jobs and a New Deal program in the 1930s helped farmers, so Neal had no fear of using government for social progress. Both Louisiana and Nevada had been helped by the New Deal (“How the New Deal built Nevada,” RN&R, May 15, 2008), and the reactionary leadership of both states resented it. After arrival in Nevada, Neal did a stint in the Air Force, then became a community leader and civil rights activist. He was elected to the Nevada Senate in 1972. It is appropriate that in this year’s Black History Month, there is a new biography available of Neal by veteran Nevada reporter John L. Smith—The Westside Slugger. Smith’s book is a substantial contribution to the state’s political history. From his first day in the Senate, it became clear Neal was going to go his own way. When a ceremonial
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Joe Neal in the Nevada Senate early in his tenure.
resolution congratulating Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew on their reelections came up, he voted against it. Neal: “I think this particular resolution was conceived in haste, and I think it would be more appropriate if it would come up near the end of the session when we would have a better understanding of what this peace in Vietnam represents to the people of the United States.” Jeff Menicucci, then an aide to Republican Sen. William Raggio and a conservative newspaper columnist, wrote of Neal: “It takes no special courage to cast an antiNixon vote in the Foreign Relations Commission of the U.S. Senate. It requires considerably more courage to do so in the Nevada Legislature.” During his tenure, a fellow senator said to a group of visiting Nigerian dignitaries that few blacks lived in Northern Nevada because of the cold weather. The climate of the Nevada Legislature was not conducive to a first African American senator, either. On one occasion, Assemblymember Bob Robinson, after a dispute with a black colleague, told members of the Ways and Means Committee, “Sickle cell anemia is the new great white hope.” In 1997, Neal read a sample of his mail to the senate: “I always thought you were a typical of what we get with aff, action and other programs that promote the unqualified. ... Did you know that your species accounts for 14% of the population and 70% of the crime? Whats the goals of your species in America, turn it into one of those great black run countries like somilia, hatie, or rawanda. FUCK YOU.” But his life experiences also gave him a view of reality that his colleagues did not have, and he brought it to bear on the drafting of state laws, should there be legislators willing to learn. Smith describes the late 1970s and early ’80s, when hiking the penalties on drunken driving
offenses was all the rage in state legislatures. Hiking penalties is an expensive habit that seems to have no critics. One measure imposed jail time and “distinctive garb” on drunken driving first offenses. Smith quotes Neal: “In a mostly black district, knowing that those jail cells weren’t full of white folks, I was very much concerned about the people it would impact. Getting arrested and being forced to go to jail had a greater impact on the lives and livelihoods of the poor. They would often lose their jobs as a result of a mistake.” Note that Neal did not solely challenge the impact on blacks, but on all low income people. Neal often got along better with conservatives, such as Senate Democratic leader James Gibson, a right winger and Mormon, and even with Republicans, because his fellow Democrats were sometimes less than reliable allies. Besides, both sides learned from the other over time. Republican leader William Raggio said in 1995, “I kidded him the other day when we were talking. I said, ‘You know, we’ve been here the same length of time. And I find you and me voting the same on issues. We’ve really done a dramatic change. Issues that we wouldn’t talk about, now we’re together on.’” Moreover, he and Gibson were skilled players who knew the rules better than the average senators. Most legislators learn house rules, but not the secondary or backup rules—Mason’s Manual. Neal did. Over time, Neal gained influence both because he survived longer than most senators and because of his mastery of the rules. It was Neal who came up with the strategy that got the Equal Rights Amendment through the Senate. Some legislators began to credit him more. He won over GOP Sen. Ray Rawson on an issue close to Neal’s heart—a King birthday holiday. Rawson, a
