Adam Laxalt

Adam Paul Laxalt (born August 31, 1978 ) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 33rd Nevada Attorney General from 2015 to 2019.

After attending Tulane for two years, he transferred to Georgetown University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and government.

He worked as a lawyer in private practice and was a member of the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps from 2005 to 2010.

He graduated from Georgetown University Law Center with a Juris Doctor degree in 2005.

Laxalt first worked for then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John R. Bolton, before joining the office of Virginia U.S. Senator John Warner.

During the campaign, Laxalt said that he opposed same-sex marriage; in 2010, he said that he opposed LGBT individuals openly serving in the military.

Laxalt's parents did not publicly acknowledge his paternity until 2013.

At that time, Domenici acknowledged that Laxalt was his son and was born as a result of an extramarital affair.

After graduating from St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School, a college preparatory school in Alexandria, Virginia, Laxalt enrolled at Tulane University.

Elected in 2014, Laxalt served one term as the attorney general of Nevada from 2015 to 2019.

In that role, he filed legal briefs in support of laws restricting abortion, challenged federal environmental protection regulations, opposed some gun regulations, and opposed a multi-state investigation into ExxonMobil's role in climate change.

After leaving Washington, Laxalt worked for the law firm Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie at its Reno office until 2014, when he left the firm to concentrate on his bid for attorney general.

Laxalt spent five years in the United States Navy's Judge Advocate General's Corps.

He had postings at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Italy and in Iraq, and a stint at the U.S. Naval Academy as an assistant law professor.

After practicing with Lewis Roca Rothgerber, Laxalt considered a campaign for Nevada Attorney General.

In January 2014, he announced his candidacy.

Laxalt was the Republican nominee in the general election.

After a bitter and costly general election campaign, Laxalt defeated Democratic nominee Ross Miller.

Laxalt was sworn in as attorney general of Nevada on January 5, 2015.

As AG, he created the "Federalism Unit" within the AG's office and challenged federal environmental protection regulations, including the Environmental Protection Agency's Waters of the United States Rule and the Bureau of Land Management's Sage Grouse Plan.

Laxalt also joined lawsuits against the Obama administration over a U.S. Department of Labor regulation to protect certain employees' right to overtime pay, and over Obama's executive action creating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) programs.

In a 2017 speech at the National Rifle Association of America's general convention, Laxalt criticized a red flag bill that the Nevada Senate had passed.

A member of the Republican Party, he was the party's unsuccessful nominee for governor of Nevada in 2018 and for the U.S. Senate in 2022.

Laxalt is the son of former U.S. Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico and grandson of former Nevada governor and U.S. senator Paul Laxalt.

He graduated from Georgetown University and its law school before working as an aide to then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John R. Bolton and Virginia U.S. Senator John Warner.

He unsuccessfully ran for governor of Nevada in 2018, losing to Democrat Steve Sisolak.

Months afterwards in 2018, the NRA called for greater adoption of these laws, he recommended that the legislature consider such a law.

As attorney general, Laxalt signed Nevada onto at least four known lawsuits supporting abortion restrictions in other states.

He signed onto two lawsuits supporting bans on the most commonly used second-trimester abortion procedure.

Pro-choice Republican governor Brian Sandoval's office said it was not consulted before Laxalt signed Nevada onto the Texas abortion ban brief.

In the Supreme Court case Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, Laxalt signed an amicus brief in support of Texas's TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) law.

Laxalt signed onto a California lawsuit to support keeping secret the identities of political donors, including one of his biggest political donors, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, backed by Charles and David Koch.

He opposed a multi-state investigation into ExxonMobil's alleged role in downplaying climate change, condemning it as an attempt to stifle an "ongoing public policy debate" over human-caused global warming.

Laxalt co-chaired Donald Trump's 2020 unsuccessful reelection campaign in Nevada.

An election denier, Laxalt is a proponent of the disproven conspiracy theory that large-scale fraud occurred in Nevada's election and sought to overturn the election results after Trump lost the 2020 election and refused to concede.

Laxalt later ran for the United States Senate in 2022, and was chosen as the Republican nominee.

By a narrow (0.77%) margin, he lost the general election to the incumbent, Catherine Cortez Masto.

Laxalt was born in Reno, Nevada, the son of Pete Domenici, a Republican U.S. Senator from New Mexico, and Michelle Laxalt.

He is the grandson of former Republican Nevada Governor and U.S. Senator Paul Laxalt.

Laxalt's mother raised him as a single parent.