Former Nevada Speaker dies after long career in public service

Former Nevada Speaker John Hambrick, a Republican assemblyman who championed the fight against human trafficking and took up the torch for juvenile offenders, has died. He was 79.

Hambrick was diagnosed with throat cancer in October and died Wednesday night in Ohio.

Friends and former colleagues remember the longtime legislator as someone who wanted to help children and never had a “negative bone in his body.” He was a civil servant from day one, his longtime consultant Nathan Emens said.

From White Bear Lake, Minnesota, Hambrick attended the University of Minnesota before attending multiple law enforcement institutes. He started his career in the Secret Service, where he was on a counter-sniper team posted at the White House, before working as an investigator for the federal inspector general office and an agent for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Hambrick moved to Nevada in 1999 and first ran for office in the Las Vegas City Council, though he lost that race. He next ran for the Assembly in 2008 and won, serving 12 years in the Legislature before reaching his term limit.

During his tenure in the Legislature serving in the Summerlin Assembly District 2, Hambrick had his fingerprints on many bills, some that he carried himself and others he helped work on behind the scenes.

His passion was fighting against human trafficking, putting forward a bill on the topic every session. He crafted Assembly Bill 380 in 2009 that allowed the state to freeze the assets of people who commit crimes involving child sex trafficking, the money from which would go to victims, and he pushed Assembly Bill 338 that required the state to post signs at locations suspected as hot spots for trafficking.

Hambrick also carried bills on criminal justice reform that focused on minors, such as one bill that called to expunge the records of former sex workers who started a children so that they could get jobs, Emens said.

In 2015, Hambrick also was the lead sponsor of a bill relating to juvenile justice that called to eliminate life sentences without the possibility of parole for people under 18, according to Nevada Speaker Steve Yeager, who worked with Hambrick when Yeager was a lobbyist for the public defender’s office.

“It was important to him that people had second chances,” the now-Democratic speaker said. “He really believed in the idea of redemption.”

Though Hambrick was a Republican, he wasn’t afraid to cross party lines if it was something he felt was right, Emens said.

“If it helped a kid, he didn’t care about party,” Emens said.

The former speaker was instrumental in pushing forward former Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval’s agenda out of the Legislature, according to former Assemblyman Stephen Silberkraus, who worked with Hambrick in the Legislature.

In 2015, Hambrick sided with Sandoval in raising taxes for education, a move that was met with ire from anti-tax conservatives who led an unsuccessful effort to recall him from office. That session saw the passage of multiple education reforms, which Sandoval had called the “education session.”

He worked closely with then-Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson to pass the “Breakfast After the Bell Program” legislation that ensured no student would go hungry, Emens said.

Hambrick always took time to sit down with other legislators and wanted to hear their thoughts. He also wasn’t so ardent in his viewpoints that he wouldn’t hear what someone had to say, Silberkraus said.

“He was a politician that could disagree with you but would never be disagreeable,” Silberkraus said.

Hambrick was the right person to serve as speaker during that session when there was infighting among the Republican Party. Hambrick did as good of a job as he could to unify them, Yeager said.

As speaker, Hambrick was thoughtful, Yeager said. He wouldn’t react in the moment, but instead would step back and think about something. Yeager tries to emulate that as speaker.

“Decisions are better when you have time to think about it,” he said. “I never saw him get rattled and react negatively.”

Hambrick will be remembered for his kindness, as well as his love for children, his friends and former colleagues said. He and his late wife Nancy decorated their home for Christmas like nobody else, Silberkraus said, and “it was like walking into a winter wonderland.”

Nevada Assemblyman Philip “PK” O’Neill, a close friend, said Hambrick’s face would light up every time he recounted how he played Santa Clause in the White House during his time in the Secret Service. He will be remembered for the 50-plus years of service he gave to the state, his district and the country, he said.

“He had such a big heart and cared about that youthful spirit,” Silberkraus said.

Hambrick was the “epitome” of a distinguished gentleman “who put others before himself, service before self and never let the hardships of the world take away the joy that was in him and that he shared with everyone else,” Silberkraus said.

His funeral will be held in Grove City, Ohio, on Nov. 16.