In Las Vegas, a political dynasty nears its end. Who will replace it?

For the first time since 1995, a member of the flamboyant Goodman family won’t be on the ballot in Las Vegas. Mayor Carolyn Goodman is term-limited. But the race to succeed her is roiled by issues about the city’s future, not its past.

Former Nevada Rep. Shelley Berkley and current Las Vegas City Councilwoman Victoria Seaman are competing for the ostensibly nonpartisan position, although the former candidate is a Democrat and the latter is a Republican.

Berkley and Seaman could not be further from the larger-than-life public personas weaved by the Goodmans, who are known for their showmanship.

Carolyn Goodman, the founder, president and trustee emerita of The Meadows School, the city’s first private prep school, succeeded her husband Oscar Goodman, a mob attorney who played himself in the 1995 Martin Scorsese movie “Casino.” Simply known as Oscar in Sin City, he was known during his time in office to show up to events with showgirls on each arm, and to keep a souvenir from “The Godfather” movie mounted in his office—the severed horse’s head the Corleone family put into the bed of a Hollywood producer.

When term limits forced him to step down in 2011, Carolyn ran. She had never served in office before, but won handily. While she has been less flashy than Oscar, she has her own flair. One of her holiday traditions is being escorted to the city’s Christmas tree lighting by Chippendales—men dressed pretty much only in a tuxedo bow.

But the showmanship aside, the Goodmans wanted to see Las Vegas grow from a mere gambling town to a thriving city. They wanted to revive the city’s neglected downtown, which had been eclipsed by the Strip. And indeed, they did. Both presided over explosive growth in the city in the last few decades, as Vegas has welcomed several professional sports teams, businesses and grown dramatically in population. 

But all that growth has also had its downsides, notably more expensive housing and more homeless people. Those issues are at the forefront of the mayoral race to succeed the Goodman Dynasty. The candidates aren’t focused on the power couple, but rather on the city’s future trajectory, and in particular, on the fate of a former golf course. 

Located west of downtown, the old Badlands golf course is one of the biggest points of contention between Berkley and Seaman. It was bought in 2015 by the developer EHB, which wanted to turn its 250 acres into housing. The city essentially blocked the development, however, after opposition from nearby wealthy homeowners.

EHB sued and accused the city of depriving them of use of the land without just compensation.. Of the four lawsuits—one filed per parcel of land on the property—three have found in the developer’s favor, even after costly, repeated appeals to the Nevada Supreme Court.

The legal wranglings have already impacted the city budget, with the financial impact to city coffers expected to be more than $400 million, according to a memo to city staff from City Manager Mike Janssen. Las Vegas plans to keep some vacant jobs empty to help pay those costs, but more painful budgetary decisions are ahead.

At a recent televised debate, Berkley pledged on “day one” to start “working on a solution” to the issue, alongside council members, the city attorney and the developer. Seaman, who voted several times to keep fighting the litigation against the city but changed her position in 2022 when it became clear no deal would be possible, said she would also look to find a settlement.

“It is going to be a hit to city services, but we have to do everything we can to protect the people that call the city of Las Vegas home and not compromise public safety and the essential services that people expect from their local government,” Berkley said during the debate. Seaman said the city could sell land to help pay its legal fees and cut spending on some capital projects.

The Badlands brouhaha comes as the city wrestles with housing affordability amid spiraling rents and purchasing costs. Clark County, Nevada, where Las Vegas is located, needs another 90,000 affordable homes for people who live below the area’s median income, according to the county housing administrator.

Seaman said she would use various tax incentives to encourage developers to build mixed-use projects. Berkley suggested having land owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management transferred to city control could help, too. She also blamed “institutional investors” for buying apartment buildings and houses and “jacking up” prices.

“They've got no involvement, they don't belong here, they don't live here and they're taking terrible advantage of our citizens,” Berkley said.

All the while, city services are under strain as new residents move in and tourism returns to pre-pandemic levels. Growth has happened so fast, said Michael Green, an associate professor of history at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, that it means city leaders may feel as though they’re always behind.

“At one point when there were reports that our population would double again in the county by 2040, I said, ‘Okay, if I were to run for the county commission, I would be advocating a quadrillion dollar bond issue to double everything we have, knowing that even doubling, we're still behind,’” he said. “How do you maintain that? It is much harder for a place like Las Vegas than for many other big cities that have grown not so quickly and recently.”

Berkley won the June primary with around 35% of the vote among a field of 14 candidates, forcing her into a runoff with Seaman, who came in second with about 5,000 votes less. Because the office is nonpartisan, all registered voters are allowed to vote in the primary and the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, unless one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote.

Green warned not to underestimate the role of partisanship in this year’s race. Traditionally, elections for mayor were held in odd-numbered years, but leaders changed the dates to coincide with federal elections in a bid to boost turnout. 

With both candidates having staked out distinctive positions on either end of the political spectrum, and Nevada set to be a presidential battleground once again, that could politicize how to deal with city issues. 

Seaman has repeatedly said that property crime is “out of control” in Las Vegas, even though city police reported a 10% drop in it during the first three months of the year, according to a Nevada crime database. And at an election night party in June, she reportedly said she would be a “law and order mayor,” and does not want to see Vegas “end up like our neighboring cities because of far-left liberal policies.”

“Does that affect how they're going to think about municipal problems? The answer is, municipal problems tend to be municipal problems, but that can still have an impact,” Green said. “Also, the mayor is only one of seven [on the city council], and the mayor tries to be on the winning side [in votes], but it isn't always easy there.”