A bold broadcaster and businessman, he served in the Nevada State Senate for eight years.

William H. Hernstadt is our guest this week on Nevada Week in person.

Support for Nevada Week in person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

Welcome to Nevada Week.

In person, I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

He owned and operated channel five in Las Vegas before selling the then independent television station to Johnny Carson.

In the late 70s, he entered Nevada politics, serving as a state senator, representing Clark County from 1976 to 1984.

A strong supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, he also helped pass legislation to crack down on drunk drivers and to implement some of the toughest fire safety regulations in the nation.

Now retired and living in Singapore, where he started and IT recruiting firm former Nevada State Senator William H. Hernstadt thank you for joining Nevada Week in person.

Thanks, Amber.

And you are back in Las Vegas because you still have ties here, especially here, Vegas PBS, which we're going to talk about your philanthropy here ahead.

But I want to start with how did you end up in Las Vegas in the first place?

You were born in New York.

Well, if you're born in New York, you know, that's where it's everything supposed to happen.

I grew up in Westchester County, and I was involved with business, and I ended up, moving to the, a little corner of Greenwich near the the White Plains airport.

And it turned out there was I had bought some property, along that, street that bordered at the Westchester County Airport.

And, I was offered, a lot of money from a company.

They wanted to get a re-zoned for business.

So I had cash in my pocket.

And as a financial analyst, I had, one of the things I looked at was Levin Townsend computer, which owned, channel five and other properties, the old Bonanza Hotel.

And they, they suddenly got desperate because a new generation of IBM computers came online and people didn't want the old ones.

and Levin Townsend got into a financial bind.

And so I was able to, make an offer which was accepted.

And I didn't know anything about the TV business, but I had to learn it the hard way.

And it takes a lot of people to run a TV business.

I happened to speak with a former employee of yours at channel five, Tom Letizia, who went on to run a very successful ad agency here in Las Vegas.

He told me about you, that at one time you got everyone into a room and you said, if we don't hit 50 K in this billing month, I may have to close down the station.

He said everyone was shocked, but they got into gear and from then on everyone was successful there.

What do you make of that?

Well, you know, you have to tell people what's going on.

I mean, you know, it isn't just that, you know, the threat of closure.

I mean, the station was ready to go off the air when I bought it.

Film contracts hadn't been paid, camera contracts hadn't been paid.

So, you know, then I had to when things started to lose money, I had to hustle and figure out something that worked.

And, you know, it was it was a learning process for me and for everyone else.

One more story from Tom Letizia.

He said that, you used to run your own editorials.

You would tape them, I believe, ahead of time, and then you would run them on the station.

You were mostly airing movies, I think, at the time.

Also, I love Lucy, right?

And then you would come on and you would give your take on something going on in the community.

And you happened to take issue with was it Senator Lamb at the time?

Well, I took issue with, with several people.

Senator Lamb was, a character.

He, you know, he he got very physical with people in those days, he got mad at me one day, and he gave me a good swift kick in the butt in the coffee room for the Senate, literally.

And my butt was bruised for about two days, and the butt was this was this when you were serving with him in the Senate?

Yes.

Okay.

Back to back to the other story with Tom Letizia though.

He said after that editorial ran, he called up one of his clients that he had sold advertising to, who ended up being the sister of Senator Lamb.

And she said, I'm pulling my advertising.

And he said he was heartbroken.

He he was crying.

But it also taught him a big lesson.

Do you remember that?

I don't remember that.

No.

You know, that was another thing that I learned about the business was we we always ran our own promos, at least two minutes every, every hour looking for our own shows.

And the salesmen, you know, during peak periods, just wanted to not have any promos.

I said, we need to promo ourself.

And, you know, they didn't like that either, but, you know, that was that.

Okay.

So coming to Vegas, not knowing anything about TV at some point you said, you know what, I need to get on there and and show that we're here.

Well, basically I started doing editorials after, when I closed on the purchase of the station in 71.

I didn't run for office until 76, five years later, because I was unhappy, what with some of the politicians were doing.

I was unhappy about what was going on, I kept telling people they should, run for office.

And then I believe my own propaganda office and and actually, I, you know, I won Let's talk about some of the crucial legislation you were a part of.

I mentioned cracking down on intoxicated drivers.

So this was 1981, Senate Bill 83 which you helped pass.

And as a result it provided that a third or subsequent offense of DUI not involving death or bodily harm constituted a felony punishable by a prison term of not less than one year nor more than six years.

And then for a DUI offense resulting in death or bodily harm.

The penalty was increased to 1 to 6 years imprisonment.

Previously, a fine alone might be enough.

That wasn't what, that was before me.

I passed, I got on in 83, that if you had a first offense, for intoxicated driving, that you had to serve 48 hours, and I was two days either in jail or, like, picking up papers in the park with a DUI.

Offender on the back of your shirt or something.

And they took off the stuff about the DUI offender, but they they actually, you know, it it meant that the first time out, you knew you were going to get punished.

You didn't wait till it got to be the second or third offense.

I mean, these other things were also part of you were a co-sponsor on that bill.

Well, I was co-sponsor, but but the one that I had started was to make sure that all of these things got done.

That was based on the Mothers Against Drunk Driving laws, the Madd group in 82, in California, and we copied it from that.

And people were very annoyed with with me on that.

Let's talk about Senator Joe Neal.

He was the first African-American state senator in Nevada.

And you helped him get through some really important legislation.

We talked about the fire safety regulations that came after the big fire at the MGM.

More than 80 people were killed.

And in an oral history he gave, he said that you were the only person he could get to sign on to that bill.

Why?

That was correct, because obviously I knew it was important, my daughter, Stephanie went to a play school in that building before then, you know, and I had been in the casino and I and there were, there were flaws and and everything, but Joe Neal introduced the bill, and he, he, he turned around in the room and said, this is probably the most important thing of this session.

Who wants to join with me?

And I was the only one that stood up and said, I join you.

And, you know, no one wanted to get involved.

I mean, no one.

Why?

Because you were using buildings that were already code approved but the problem was, as I pointed out in the discussion on the floor, that everyone thought that the bills in Las Vegas were all made of papier maché, and that the building inspectors were being bribed.

And that was not correct.

But I said, you know, retrofitting old buildings, including the apartment complex that I live in, was necessary and it was expensive, and the hotels didn't want it, but it was necessary.

And after Nevada put that into effect, other states started to implement it.

And now it's nationwide and many countries have implemented it to all the factors.

It wasn't only fire sprinklers, it was a lot of other stuff, too.

There were a lot of factors that went into that.

But simply put, it was that hotels or any building over 50ft had to be retrofitted with sprinklers except churches.

Senator Neal said that he found out that MGM would not have had this fire if they had retrofit the hotel with sprinkler systems.

He was also a big proponent of the Equal Rights Amendment, as were you, which all the states had to ratify and accept in order for it to become part of the Constitution, took Nevada a long time, but you helped Senator Neal at least get it through the Senate.

What do you remember about that?

Well, I remember that, you know, they didn't want to do it.

It had come up a couple of times before.

And, you know, I was this was my freshman year and this was like an early beginning of the session.

And I didn't know all the rules and regulations and stuff.

But it looked like it was close, but it was going to go down.

And one can ask for reconsideration of a bill if they voted in the majority, which I.

So I voted no the first time.

And then I asked for reconsideration the next day.

And apparently some of the senators got angry calls from their families or their wives or saying, you better vote for that.

And it went through the second time.

So that was a tactic to vote against something that you really wanted to get passed.

That was, yeah, that was, something that that happened a couple of times each session where it's a controversial bill that you can't get it reconsidered.

I guess at the end of the session, a lot of people have to reconsider old bills because they're running out of time and they can't start the drafting process over again.

Okay.

The Equal Rights Amendment guarantees equal rights to everyone, regardless of gender.

So take me back to this time period and why people would not want that in the Constitution.

Why Nevadans wouldn't.

Well, if you look at the history of the US, I mean, women didn't get the right to vote until, the, a lot later than the country was founded.

and women couldn't, in there, have a will to do their property.

All their property was taken care of by their husband.

And so, you know, I find that women are as smart as men, if not smarter, because, you know, they see what's going on.

And men, you know, they start thinking that they're in charge of everything.

And I'm not in charge of everything.

I'm not in charge of the world.

I'm certainly not in charge of what my wife thinks.

And sometimes, most of the time, she's right.

I have to remember that.

So that sentiment still was alive and well in the early 80s, when that was considered?

Definitely.

Is there a woman in Nevada who you've worked with, who you've always respected and and think deserves recognition?

Well, I think you deserve for being a really good interviewer.

You know, a lot better than I was.

Hey, you did do interviews yourself as well.

Yeah.

Of course.

Yes.

Why, have you supported especially Nevada Week for so many years now?

Well, basically, because you try to be fair about the issues.

You don't take a position.

And so, you know, because I love to interview shows, I tried to be helpful and, you know, and keep your show going and shows like them.

And this is a different kind of show.

The personal interview show.

Former state Senator William H. Hernstadt Just call me Bill Hernstadt.

I was always on my card.

It said Senator Bill Hernstadt.

I'm just an ordinary Bill.

Bill Hernstadt thank you for your support and thank you for joining Nevada Week in person.

Thanks for asking me.