Gibbons got his law degree from Southwestern University School of Law in 1979 and completed post-graduate work at the University of Southern California.

Political Start

In 1988, Gibbons was elected to the first of three terms in the Nevada state legislature. He was called to active duty in the Gulf War in 1990 and flew unarmed reconnaissance missions in Kuwait. His wife Dawn took his place in the legislature while he was overseas.

Gibbons became the Republican whip in the Nevada Assembly in 1993, and in 1994 coauthored the Gibbons Tax Restraint Initiative, which requires a two-thirds super majority in the legislature to raise taxes or impose new ones. The ballot initiative passed with 70 percent of the vote.

Gibbons ran for governor in 1994, beating Secretary of State Cheryl Lau (R), 52 to 32 percent, in the GOP primary, but losing to incumbent Bob Miller (D) in the general election, 53 to 41 percent.

Bouncing back, Gibbons handily won the open 2nd district House seat vacated by retiring Rep. Barbara Vucanovich (R). In Congress, Gibbons was an opponent of big government and the nuclear site at Yucca Mountain and a proposed storage center at the Nevada Test Site. He characterized himself as a classic conservative and opposed what he saw as excessive government intervention.

Gibbons married his wife Dawn in 1986 and filed for divorce in 2008. They have one grown son and Gibbons has two grown children from a previous marriage. Dawn had a political career of her own, serving in the Nevada Assembly during Gibbons' time in the Persian Gulf in 1991 and as an elected official from 1999 to 2003.

2006 Governor's Race

After being elected to his fifth term in Congress, Gibbons announced in August 2005 that he would run for governor again, this time to replace term-limited Kenny Guinn (R).

Gibbons' wife Dawn ran to replace him in Congress.

Opponents argued that if Jim Gibbons won the governor's office, Dawn would not be able to fulfill her duties as first lady. That potential problem was eliminated when Dawn Gibbons lost the Republican primary.

In the gubernatorial primary, Gibbons, the frontrunner, faced state Senator Bob Beers, Lt. Governor Lorraine Hunt and porn star Melody Damayo. Gibbons ran as a fiscal conservative with an emphasis on improving education. His nearest opponent, Beers, ran as the anti-tax candidate. Gibbons got 48 percent of the vote to Beer's 29 percent, Hunt's 18 percent, and Damayo's 1 percent.

Democrats selected state Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, also a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Titus was born in Georgia, still had a southern twang, and represented the glitzy Las Vegas strip. Gibbons, meanwhile, prided himself on having represented the "cow counties" and much of the state's land, if not citizens, in Congress.

Titus tried to paint Gibbons as an "inconsequential" politician who hadn't really done anything in Congress. Gibbons tried to portray Titus as a tax-and-spend liberal and took to calling her "Dina Taxes."

Scandal

As Election Day neared, Gibbons' campaign got some bad press, and had the candidate to thank for it. In mid-October 2006 a cocktail waitress at a casino accused Gibbons of propositioning her and threatening to sexually assault her in a parking garage; Gibbons said she tripped and he caught her. In December 2006, the Las Vegas police and the Clark County district attorney both decided not to file charges or pursue the case. The waitress, Chrissy Mazzeo, has filed a civil lawsuit.

Late in October, press reports revealed that the Gibbons family had an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper and as a nanny in the 1980s (and that Dawn Gibbons had filed a police complaint in 1995 accusing the woman of extortion-but later declined to press charges). Less than a week before Election Day, the Wall Street Journal ran a story alleging that Gibbons had taken a Caribbean cruise in 2005 that was paid for by a friend that Gibbons had helped get a federal contract. The Justice Department cleared Gibbons of any wrongdoing in 2008.

The controversies damaged Gibbons but didn't ruin him. He outspent Titus $5.7 million to $3.6 million and won by 48 to 44 percent, becoming the first Nevada-born governor elected since 1966. The only area he lost, and that narrowly, was Las Vegas' Clark County. Titus, later reelected as Senate minority leader, said, "I wouldn't be surprised if he got indicted while in office."

Citing homeland security concerns surrounding ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's execution, Gibbons was sworn in 12 seconds after midnight on Jan. 1, 2007, a move some speculated was meant to prevent outgoing Gov. Kenny Guinn, not a friend to Gibbons, from making a key gambling board appointment.

Divorce

Gibbons got national attention, but not the kind any politician wants, when he filed for divorce from his wife of 22 years in 2008, citing "incompatibility." He had moved out of the governor's mansion, despite a state law requiring the state's chief executive to reside in the house provided for him.

His wife accused him in divorce papers of affairs with at least two women. State records showed that Gibbons had sent 867 text messages in six weeks to one of them, a Reno podiatrist's wife. "I don't know if anyone should tell you or me who your friends can or cannot be," Gibbons said when the text messaging came to light.

Dawn Gibbons told her story to Reno magazine in December 2009. A settlement was reached at the end of 2009.

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