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Sen. Joe Neal (D-North Las Vegas), has lived in Nevada
since 1954. He lost his wife to breast cancer in 1997 after
32 years of marriage. He is the father of five and grandfather
of seven.
A Louisiana native, he graduated from
Southern University in 1963 with a degree in political science
and history. He did postgraduate work in law. He is also a
graduate of the Institute of Applied Science in Chicago, Illinois,
where he studied civil identification and criminal investigation.
After 25 years in personnel administration,
he retired as assistant to the general legal counsel of Reynolds
Electrical & Engineering Company, Inc. After retiring,
he taught constitutional democracy at Community College of
Southern Nevada. A Las Vegas elementary school bears his name.
In 1992, he received the prestigious
Elijah Lovejoy Award from the Elks Grand Lodge. The
award was named for the pre-Civil War newspaper editor who
opposed slavery. Because of his views, Lovejoy was murdered
by a midnight mob and his printing press thrown into a nearby
river. ( Lovejoy's son, Edward, is buried in Dayton,
Nev.)
Previous recipients of the Lovejoy Award
include the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., United Nations
Ambassador Ralph Bunche (like Dr. King, a Nobel Peace
Prize winner), renowned soprano Marian Anderson and
United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Born in Mounds, La., on July 28, 1935,
Sen. Neal served four years in the United States Air Force
and has been a member of the Nevada State Senate since 1972.
He ran for governor in 1998 and was re-elected
to a record-tying eighth senate term in the 2000 primary.
During his 30 years in the upper house,
he has served on every senate committee and has chaired both
the Human Resources and the Natural Resources committees.
In the 2001 session, he was again the ranking Democrat on
the powerful Finance Committee and also sat on the Taxation
and Government Affairs committees.
In 1991, he was elected by the full Nevada
State Senate (both Democrats and Republicans) as Senate President
Pro-Tem. In that Constitutional position, he served as acting
governor of Nevada twice in that year..
During the 1980 special legislative session,
he presided over a joint session of the Nevada State Senate
and Nevada State Assembly to ratify the California-Nevada
Lake Tahoe Regional Planning Compact.
Government Service
- Nevada Senate since 1972, three special
and 15 regular sessions. His current term expires in 2004.
- Presided over special legislative session
on Lake Tahoe bi-state compact, 1980
- Member, Interim Finance Committee,
1985-86, 1997-present.
- Assistant Majority Floor Leader, 1985
- Assistant Minority Floor Leader, 1987
- Minority Floor Leader, regular session,
1989
- State Senate President Pro Tempore,
1991
- Acting Governor of Nevada, 1991
- 1997-1999 interim committee assignments
- Legislative Commission and its
Audit Subcommittee
- Committee to Review Regulations
- Legislative Commission Utility
Oversight Committee
- 1999-2001 Interim Assignments:
- Interim Committees
- Interim Finance Committee
- Legislative Commission Security
Committee
- Statutory Committees
- Audit Subcommittee
- Committee to Review Regulations
- Committee on Distribution among
Local Governments of Revenue from State and Local
Taxes
- Subcommittee on (DMV) Project
Genesis/Department of Information Technology (DoIT).
- Study Committees
- System of Juvenile Justice
in Nevada
- Pension Plan for Certain Justices
and Judges
- Council of State Governments
- Committee on Border States
Issues
- Download
2001-2003 Interim Committee Assignments
Affiliations
- Order of Elks Lodge No. 1508
- Clark County Democratic Central Committee;
- Nevada State Democratic Central Committee
- Phi Beta Sigma
- Member and former chair, Clark County
Economic Opportunity Board
Personal and Professional
Achievements
- Past Chairman, Greater Las Vegas Plan
- Civil Liberty Award, American Civil
Liberties Union-Nevada
- Elijah Lovejoy Award, Order of Elks
Grand Lodge IBPOEW
- Lifetime Commitment Award, Nevada AFL-CIO
- Lifetime Achievement Award for Public
Service, NAACP Reno-Sparks Branch #1112
- NAACP Tri-State
Conference Medgar Evers Award
For more information, go
to Sen.
Neal's Legislative Page
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