Michelle Laxalt, longtime political consultant, daughter of U.S. Sen. Paul Laxalt and mother of former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, died Saturday, Aug. 19. She was 69.
Laxalt died of pneumonia complications after a fall, Adam Laxalt told the RGJ. She had lived with multiple sclerosis for decades.
“I never could have asked for a mom that could have more unconditionally loved her son,” he said.
‘Drawn toward political activities’
Michelle Laxalt was born July 25, 1954, to Paul and Jackalyn Laxalt, the fourth of six siblings in the longtime Basque-Nevadan family. Politics was part of her life from the very beginning.
Laxalt was raised in Carson City where her father served as district attorney; her grandfather John Rolly Ross was a U.S. district judge for Nevada.
Former Nevada Gov. Bob List told the RGJ he remembered meeting Laxalt as a child at the family’s home on West King Street in Carson City.
“I met her when her father was running for lieutenant governor,” List said. “We used to have meetings at their home. There were six kids, of course, and Michelle was the one who was drawn toward political activities. She stood out to me as the one really interested in campaign activity.”
Laxalt spent part of her teen years living in the Governor’s Mansion while her father led the state from 1967 to 1971.
In 1974, when Paul Laxalt was elected to the U.S. Senate, 20-year-old Laxalt moved to Washington, D.C., and worked with the Republican Senate Campaign Committee and the re-election campaign for Sen. James Buckley, R-New York.
“When Paul went back to Washington when he was elected to the Senate, she was with him 100%,” former state treasurer and longtime family friend Patty Cafferata recalled. “She could hardly wait to go back. She was very close to Paul.”
Laxalt later joined the Reagan administration in the U.S. Agency for International Development and the office of the Undersecretary of State for Military Assistance and Economic Affairs. She also worked in the offices of Sens. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Jake Garn, R-Utah.
Establishing her own name
Laxalt formed her own political consultancy firm, the Laxalt Corp. Throughout her career, she lobbied for clients including the Motion Picture Association of America, Philip Morris USA and businessman T. Boone Pickens, and worked on presidential campaigns for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole.
Despite her famous political name ― her father was referred to as President Reagan’s “First Friend” ― Laxalt worked to establish her own credentials. As a political consultant, she required a clause for lobbying contracts stating that she wouldn’t lobby her father or any subcommittees on which her father served.
“I want to know up front whether clients are interested in me for a one-way ticket to Paul Laxalt, or for my skills,” she told the New York Times in 1984.
“She had a ability to to read people and to understand their motives and what their priorities were,” List recalled. “And that meant that she was able to communicate well with people from both sides of the aisle.
“Everyone respected her. She never went back on her word.”
Single mom, career woman in DC
In 1978, Laxalt gave birth to son Adam, whose father was then-Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico. She raised Adam as a single parent, ultimately acknowledging Domenici as the father in 2013 when they believed the information was about to come to light in an attempt to smear Domenici’s name.
“I must say that she had incredible courage and enormous faith to go against almost universal advice that she should not proceed to have a baby,” List said. “In that day, in Washington, it was a quite a thing for a woman to be a single mom with a rising career.”
Adam Laxalt spoke with admiration about his mother’s balancing act.
“She worked insane hours ― 60-, 80-hour weeks as a single mom all through those years,” he said.
“She chose to bring me into this world,” Adam Laxalt said, “and all those early years was just her as a single mom, trying to make her way and do what she could do to provide for me.”
Adam Laxalt credits his mother and grandmother for saving his life during his struggle with alcoholism in his teens and 20s.
“You know, my grandmother was a big part of helping my mom get over the very tough line as a parent, of forcing their kid into treatment,” Adam Laxalt said. “She saved my life, undoubtedly. I don’t know if I would have made it in my 20s, on the direction I was in.”
Above all, Adam Laxalt said, he’ll remember her unconditional love.
“Right to the end, you know, she always wanted to make sure she did enough to let (her children and grandchildren) ‘set sail,’ as she would say.”
