Jim Santini Papers

James David Santini was born in Reno, Nevada on August 13, 1937. He graduated from Manogue High School in Reno in 1955 and received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Nevada, Reno in 1959. He went on to receive his J.D. from the Hastings College of Law, San Francisco, California in 1962. Santini was admitted to the Nevada bar in 1962 and began practicing law in Las Vegas. He served in the U. S. Army from 1963-1966. He was deputy district attorney in Clark County, Nevada, 1966-1968 and a public defender in Clark County from 1968-1970. Santini went on to serve as justice of the peace in Las Vegas (1970-1972) and a district court judge in Clark County (1972-1974).

Santini was elected to the U. S. Congress as Nevada’s sole representative in 1974. A Democrat, he went on to be re-elected three more times and served until January 3, 1983. While a member of the House of Representatives, Santini served on the Energy and Commerce Committee (subcommittees: Commerce, Transportation and Tourism, and Oversight and Investigations); Interior and Insular Affairs (subcommittees: Mines and Mining [Chairman] and Public Lands and National Parks); and Select Committee on Aging (subcommittee: Housing and Consumer Interests). He was co-founder and chair of the 287 member Democratic/Republican Congressional Travel and Tourism Caucus and he was a House leader in the 1981 passage of the Travel and Tourism Policy Act. Another significant piece of legislation sponsored by Santini was the Santini-Burton Act (PL 96-586) passed in 1980. Co-sponsored with California Representative Phillip Burton, the act authorized the U. S. Forest Service to acquire, by purchase and donation, sensitive lands in the Lake Tahoe Basin with receipts from the sale of surplus Federal land in the Las Vegas area.

In 1982, increased population in Nevada led to reapportionment that created an additional Congressional seat. Instead of running for a fifth term as Representative, Santini was an unsuccessful candidate for Senate in 1982. He ran for Senate again in 1986 as a Republican and lost to Democrat Harry Reid.

After his political career, Santini returned to private practice for a short time before returning to the Washington, D. C. area, where he created a firm, Santini Chartered, that represents the interests of the travel and tourism industry. Since 1988, Santini has served as a presidential appointed member of the Institute of American Indian Arts’ Board of Trustees.