Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [65]
Nor did the demands from Hughes for a return on his investments. From his penthouse lair across the street, he ordered Bell to “advise him on every single bill introduced in the Nevada legislature … to encourage members of the legislature to adopt his views … to defeat bills authorizing dog racing … to stop the sales tax, the gasoline tax and the cigarette tax … to stop the Clark County school integration plan … to prohibit governmental agencies from realigning any streets without his personal views being first given … to do whatever was necessary to shield him from having to appear personally in any courts … to advise him on all ordinances or laws regarding obscenity and pornography … to take whatever action necessary to prohibit rock festivals in Clark County … to prevent any change of the rules of various gambling games, and in particular, roulette … to discourage state officials from permitting communist bloc entertainers from appearing in Las Vegas hotels.”
In short, to control the life and laws of the entire state. The list was endless. Nothing escaped his attention. And although he almost always got his way, he was never satisfied.
“I feel we must go to work at once or the legislature will pass bills resulting in a Nevada I will not want to live in,” wrote Hughes, eager to exercise his veto power. “Send me at once a very brief summary of all legislation of any consequence that is likely to pass. I would like to know if under any circumstances there is any chance at all of overturning them.”
Hughes harbored a deep suspicion of all new laws. But he was especially opposed to new taxes.
“Please tell Gov. Laxalt that if he will follow my urgent appeal for avoidance of the increased sales tax, and if he will cut back a little bit in the unfair demands of the teachers, he may rely on me to assist in any fiscal emergency.
“With further reference to the tax bill, I think Laxalt knows I would not permit the State of Nevada to be in any really serious position of insolvency or poverty.
“However, I would very much rather make some contribution or take some simple action, such as bringing additional industry to Nevada, or to bring the Hughes Medical Institute to Nevada, which would at least bring me a little personal recognition. I would rather do something of this kind voluntarily, than to have the sales tax passed and then have some tax collector take it out of my pocket from now on, no matter what the circumstances may be. Day in and day out.”
Given the free-spending ways of the local lawmakers, they would soon pick his pockets clean. Hughes had to watch them every minute.
“I just heard the most absurd thing on the news I ever heard—a $5,000,000 zoo!
“Bob, this is all we need—a zoo bigger than the one in San Diego! Please, please kill this one some way.
“It seems to me that these people in local government just dont have anything to do under the sun except dream up new ways to spend money.”
In fact, Hughes didn’t want the Nevada legislature to meet at all.
“There is a lot of pressure on Laxalt to call a special session,” he noted with alarm. “Bob, for many important reasons I am violently opposed to this.
“Can’t you get some of the other important political figures to come to his assistance and announce their strong support of his decision to keep this state out of financial chaos by resisting all the efforts to lay open the treasury of the state to the mass of blood thirsty vultures who are trying to remove all restraint and simply turn the sack upside down?
“Bob, if they have a special session in the present political climate, I assure you the state will emerge with the shirt stripped from its back and without five cents to buy a cup of coffee.”
These vultures who were out to bankrupt his kingdom were, of course, the very same public servants who had sold their