Longtime Nevada lobbyist Michelle Laxalt dies at 69

Michelle Laxalt, a longtime lobbyist who paved the way for women in Washington D.C. politics, died Saturday in Reno after a long-fought battle with multiple sclerosis and recent complications with pneumonia. She was 69.

The daughter of the late U.S. Sen. and Nevada Gov. Paul Laxalt, Michelle fiercely supported her father’s political career, while also forging her own lobbying firm in the 1980s, working in government and raising a child as a single mother.

Despite her famous parentage, she “stood on her own feet” and was a “force in Washington,” former Nevada Gov. Bob List, who knew Michelle Laxalt for years since she was a child and had hired her when he was attorney general, remembered of her.

“She was raised at the foot of Paul Laxalt, and he was a lion, so there were no situations in which she didn’t feel comfortable,” Dan Tuntland, the principle of a Las Vegas real estate company who knew Michelle since she worked for her father, said.

‘Feminine and strong’

Michelle grew up in Carson City and lived in the governor’s mansion during her father’s gubernatorial term. When he was elected to the Senate, she moved with him to Washington D.C., where she had a front row seat to the political happenings and helped her father make the “Reagan Revolution” a reality.

She spent about a decade on Capitol Hill working for the late Republican Sen. Ted Stevens. She was a strategic thinker and adviser, and she helped other senators including Jake Garn and James Buckley.

Back in the 1980s, Laxalt was part of a small posse of women working in Republican politics. Women had to endure harassment back then and often helped each other, said Mari Maseng Will, a Republican adviser who worked for President Ronald Reagan.

“You had to be both feminine and strong,” Maseng Will said. “And I know that Michelle was.”

Laxalt helped push for the passage of the Adam Walsh Child Protection Safety and Act of 2006, a comprehensive child crimes and protection bill that created the National Sex Offender Registry and included a lifetime registration requirement for serious offenders.

“She was just one of those people that, if there was a problem, she wanted to help fix it,” her son and former Attorney General Adam Laxalt said.

After she formed the lobbying firm Laxalt Corporation in 1984, Michelle Laxalt was named one of the top 50 lobbyists in Washington D.C. by the Washingtonian magazine. She represented the Motion Picture Association, oil and gas interests in Texas, rail labor employees and textile magnate Roger Milliken, a strong opponent of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

She also worked in both the executive and legislative branches, including as the director of legislation for the Agency for International Development in the Reagan Administration, and appeared on television as a pundit, speaking about issues ranging from Senate term limits to the O.J. Simpson trial.

Her friends and family remembered her as a confident and honest person who was able to affect people and “fill a room.” She had an irreverent sense of humor, but was also compassionate. Despite developing multiple sclerosis in her 50s, she continued to work until 2012 when she moved back to Nevada and support her family.

Michelle Laxalt is survived by her three children Adam, Tori and Tessa, her four grandchildren and a large extended family.

“She was the most loving mother that I could ever hope for,” Adam Laxalt said.

Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on X.