Hang Tough! Grant Sawyer: An Activist in the Governor's Mansion

314 Pages·1993·346.2 MB·English

by  University of Nevada Oral History Program

Hang Tough!

Grant Sawyer:

An Activist in the Governor’s Mansion

Interviewee: Grant Sawyer

Interviewed: 1991, 1993

Published: 1993

Interviewer: Gary E. Elliott

UNOHP Catalog #163

Description

The impression most people have of Nevada is limited to Las Vegas’s Strip and Glitter Gulch (Fremont Street in
downtown Las Vegas). Nevada’s image is persistently and overwhelmingly negative because of the perception that
the state is controlled by mobsters and associated with easy divorce, prostitution, and a scandal-ridden college
basketball program. Its tarnished reputation has persisted despite its more enlightened public policy positions, and
Governor Grant Sawyer played a large role in those.
Sawyer began his administration in 1959 with a reorganization program designed to streamline services and increase
government efficiency. Nevada was among the leaders in government reform to keep pace with the public’s demand
for increased services. However, such policies usually go unnoticed outside the narrow confines of elite discussion
groups and political scientists interested in the process of governance. Likewise, gaming control was largely ignored
outside of Nevada.
Governor Sawyer was acutely aware that after the Kefauver crime hearings in 1950, Nevada would be judged by
how it controlled casino gaming and the people involved in Nevada’s “peculiar institution.” Consequently, he moved
early in his administration to claim the high ground in gaming control through the creation of a new Gaming
Control Board.

Similarly, between 1959 and 1965, Governor Sawyer used his power and influence to push the cause of civil rights.
It was the most salient issue of his administration. He banned discrimination in all phases of state employment
and required state contractors to do the same. When it came to the gaming industry, he tried moral persuasion,
and, when that failed, he tried to use his power over licensing to force equal access to public accommodations. But
two attorneys general concluded that the governor had no authority to deny a gaming license based on segregation
practices. Afterward, he supported civil rights groups that kept the pressure on casino owners to desegregate their
facilities.
Despite Nevada’s image and reputation, Sawyer presided over an activist government, and nowhere was that more
evident than in the area of civil rights. Sawyer was leading a frontal assault against the most entrenched social
and economic interests in Nevada. His dedication to the cause of civil rights and equal justice is the single largest
contribution of his administration and his forgotten legacy to post-World War II Nevada.
The most striking personal characteristic about Gov. Sawyer is his sense of humor, which is shown throughout this
work. While he can speak long and passionately on issues, when it comes to himself, he can laugh at himself, some
of his past political positions, and most of all at the political game of getting elected to office. He speaks candidly
about himself, his family, and other prominent politicians, past and present.

Life in the public eye: Gov. Grant Sawyer dances the “twist” with Evelyn Roen at a
benefit in 1962. This photograph was widely reproduced, and it appeared in the Soviet
newspaper, Izvestia, as an illustration of American “moral decay”.