Lynette Boggs was a Republican politician in Clark County, Nevada, and a former winner of the Miss Oregon scholarship pageant.[1] She went by the name of Lynette Boggs McDonald for most of her political career and dropped McDonald following a divorce.
Boggs was the sixth of eight children. In the seventh grade she was junior high president at her school in West Germany. In high school, she was president of her sophomore, junior and senior classes. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1985 with a degree in business. She worked as director of marketing and admissions at the now-defunct Merritt Davis Business College in Eugene, Oregon. In 1989, she was crowned Miss Oregon and began a two-year journalism career.[2]
At the Eugene Register-Guard newspaper, Boggs concentrated on police and the courts. One article she wrote for the Register-Guard was about a 1990 contestant for Miss Oregon, focusing on the fact that the contestant (Lisa Verch Fletcher, a future television news journalist) was an animal advocate.[3]
While at the Portland Associated Press bureau, she wrote about government and contributed as a back-up sports writer. She also covered government and the courts at the Times Record News in Wichita Falls, Texas. She moved to Las Vegas in 1991.[2]
Boggs was appointed to a fill a vacant seat on the Las Vegas City Council on June 28, 1999.[4] She was elected in the Ward 2 primary election, receiving 70 percent of the vote.[5] Under Nevada election law, a person can be elected to a position in a primary election, without the need to run in a general election if certain conditions are meet.
Boggs was a Republican candidate for the U.S. Congress in 2002, running against Shelley Berkley in Nevada's First Congressional District. She lost, had she won she would have been the only Republican African-American female in the House.
On April 20, 2004, Boggs joined the Clark County Commission. She was appointed to the position by Governor Kenny Guinn to fill the seat for District F previously held by Mark James.[4] She was elected to that position in November 2004, defeating Nevada Assemblyman David Goldwater.
Boggs was investigated by the Nevada Ethics Commission in 2005 for a complaint alleging that she tried to use her political influence to save her husband's government job.[6] The allegations proved false.
On June 5, 2007, Boggs was the subject of an arrest warrant over charges that she committed four felonies related to her reelection bid in 2006.[7] These warrants were quashed by the Chief Judge Kathy Hardcastle, of the Clark County District Court. The charges were "political payback" rooted in her opposition to a 40% pay raise for police officers in Las Vegas and because of her former service on the Board of Directors of Station Casinos, a non-union hotel corporation. She was originally sued in civil court by both the Police Protective Association and the Las Vegas Culinary Union. Both unions were key endorsers of the 2006 re-election effort of Clark County District Attorney David Roger.
In 2008, two of the felony charges were dismissed by Judge Donald Mosley. In 2009, she accepted an Alford plea to a single gross misdemeanor to resolve the case, maintaining her innocence throughout the ordeal.
Boggs has resided in the state of Texas since 2008 and is a law student at St. Mary's University in San Antonio. She is a Dean's Scholar and a member of the St. Mary's Law Journal.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by - |
Las Vegas City Council Ward 2 1999 - 2004 |
Succeeded by David Wolfson |
| Preceded by Mark James |
Clark County Commission District F 2004 - 2007 |
Succeeded by Susan Brager |