Shelley Berkley Campaign Ephemera

Shelley Berkley was born Rochelle Levine in New York City on January 20, 1951, to George and Estelle Levine. Her grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Europe. Berkley’s parents moved the family to Las Vegas, Nevada when she was 11, and after graduating from Valley High School in Las Vegas, she became the first member of her family to attend college, graduating from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 1972; she earned a law degree from the University of San Diego Law School in 1976. She married Fred Berkley and raised two sons: Max and Sam. The couple divorced in 1995. In March 1999, she married nephrologist Larry Lehrner, who had two children from a previous marriage. Before entering politics, Berkley held a variety of jobs in the Las Vegas area, everything from keno runner to vice president for government and legal affairs at the Sands Hotel Casino. She also chaired the board of the Nevada Hotel and Motel Association. Berkley also served in the Nevada State Assembly from 1982-1985. Five years later, she was appointed to the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents. She twice won re-election to the board and served until 1998.

In 1998, when John Ensign decided to run for the U.S. Senate for Nevada, Berkley entered the race to fill the seat and narrowly defeated Republican Don Chairez. In 2000 she was re-elected by an eight-point margin over Republican Jon C. Porter, 52 to 44 percent. Berkley’s district initially consisted of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, and the surrounding suburbs in Clark County. When Senator John Ensign resigned in May 2011, Berkley announced she would not run for re-election to the House but would instead run for Nevada’s Senate seat in 2012 when it came up for election to another full six-year term. Her Republican challenger in the 2012 Senate race was former House Member Dean Heller, who had been appointed to the Senate to fill the remainder of Ensign’s term. In a close race, Heller defeated Berkley by a razor-thin margin, 45.9 to 44.7 percent.

[Biographical note adapted from Shelley Berkley's biography on the U.S. House of Representative's webpage, accessed on June 14, 2021.]