Catherine Cortez Masto

Politician and US senator

• Born: March 29, 1964
• Place of Birth: Las Vegas, Nevada

Education: University of Nevada; Gonzaga University School of Law

Significance: Catherine Cortez Masto served as the attorney general of Nevada from 2007 to 2015. In January 2017, she was sworn in as a Democratic senator representing Nevada in the US Senate. The first Latina senator, she was also the first female senator to represent Nevada.

Background

Catherine Cortez Masto (née Catherine Marie Cortez) was born on March 29, 1964, in Las Vegas, Nevada, to Joanna Cortez and Manny Cortez. Her paternal grandfather was a Mexican immigrant to the United States. She grew up in Las Vegas with one sister, Cynthia. Her father served four terms as a Clark County commissioner, and his work as a politician and community leader instilled in her a strong sense of public service and the desire to give back to her community.

Masto earned a finance degree from the University of Nevada in 1986 and a law degree from Gonzaga University in 1990. She was admitted to the Nevada bar in 1990.

Political Career

Masto began her career working for Nevada governor Bob Miller. She was promoted to his chief of staff in 1995, a position she held until 1999. She then moved to Washington, DC, and worked as a federal criminal prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s Office until 2001. From 2002 to 2005, she was the assistant county manager of Clark County, Nevada.

In 2006, Masto ran for office as the state’s attorney general and won the election by a wide margin. Taking office in January 2007, Masto immediately took action to combat Nevada’s growing methamphetamine problem. She supported Governor Jim Gibbons’s creation of a Methamphetamine Working Group and legislation to restrict the sale of items used to manufacture methamphetamine and advocated for stricter penalties for drug offenses.

One of Masto’s most significant achievements during her first term as attorney general was her investigation and successful prosecution of banks that had engaged in fraudulent foreclosure and loan modification practices. She created a strike force to investigate mortgage fraud in 2008 and was the nation’s first attorney general to prosecute violators of loan regulations. She helped effect an estimated $1.8 billion settlement for Nevada residents under the National Mortgage Settlement. Five years later, she used additional settlement funds for the establishment of a hotline to assist homeowners and borrowers who had been defrauded by banks and mortgage companies.

Elected for a second term in 2010, Masto continued to work to protect the most vulnerable residents of Nevada and to improve the lives of all residents. She especially advocated for families, women, children, and the elderly and created consumer education and assistance programs. She established programs to reduce domestic violence and to educate children about sexual predators, online safety, and cyberbullying. She worked to protect elderly people from abuse and created the state’s first Senior Protection Unit in Nevada’s Office of the Attorney General. Its purpose was to educate and protect seniors about Medicare issues, identity theft, and consumer and Medicaid fraud.

Another of Masto’s major targets as Nevada’s attorney general was sex trafficking. She used a multipronged approach to combat such crime and protect its victims through legislation, awareness and education, and partnerships with law enforcement, truck drivers, and others. She introduced and advocated Assembly Bill No. 67, which was passed by the Nevada legislature in 2013. The bill established sex trafficking as a crime in Nevada and allowed for civil actions to be taken against persons involved in sex trafficking, trafficking of persons, and involuntary servitude. As part of her community outreach, Masto hosted a summit about sex trafficking for law enforcement groups, legislators, judges, and service providers and hosted a forum for truckers on human trafficking. In January 2013, Masto was one of two state attorney generals in the US delegation to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, where she briefly addressed the committee on Nevada’s efforts to fight human trafficking and educate children about online predators. In a joint 2013 initiative with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Polaris Project, and Clear Channel Outdoor, Masto launched a fifteen-week billboard campaign promoting the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline.

In 2015, Harry Reid, a Democratic senator for Nevada and the majority leader in the US Senate, announced his plan to retire when his fifth term as a US senator ended. Encouraged to run for his seat, Masto entered the race. For most of the campaign, Masto lagged in the polls behind Republican Joe Heck. Masto campaigned on a platform of tax breaks, immigration reform, higher minimum wage, and protection of Medicare and Social Security. After opposing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s proposed wall along the Mexican border and anti-immigration reforms, she gained supporters and narrowly defeated Heck in the election, receiving 47 percent of the vote to Heck’s 45 percent. She was reelected to a second term in the Senate in 2022, where she voted in agreement with President Joe Biden's political positions the majority of the time.

As a US Senator, Masto became a member of six committees: Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; Energy and Natural Resources; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Rules and Administration; Indian Affairs; and the Special Committee on Aging. From 2019 to 2021, Cortez Masto served as the Chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

After the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, many states implemented bans or severe limitations on access to abortion care. Some major pharmacy chains initially would not commit to continuing to dispense a drug used for medical abortions. Masto urged the chains to ensure customers had continued access to the drug mifepristone.

Impact

Masto’s service as Nevada’s attorney general had significant impacts on social and political issues in the state. Additionally, her election to the US Senate was historic due to her status as the nation’s first Latina senator and Nevada’s first female senator. Her victory came amid increasing national attention to the growing US Hispanic population, yet relative scarcity of Hispanic legislators at the federal level.

Vowing in her victory speech to be a check and balance on the newly elected President Trump, Masto was immediately vocal in demanding federal transparency and opposing many actions of the Trump administration. During her first three months, she quizzed secretary of energy nominee Rick Perry about his stance on a proposed nuclear waste repository in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain and asked probing questions of Securities Exchange Commission nominee Jay Clayton. She opposed Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch and several of Trump’s executive orders. She also spoke out as a prominent voice against Trump’s inflammatory comments about Mexicans, condemned the 2021 attack on the capitol, and voted to impeach Trump. In 2019, along with several fellow senators, she proposed the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act to limit the force US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents may use at the border, and she opposed the 2022 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.

Personal Life

Masto married Paul Masto, whom she met while he was serving as a US Secret Service agent. They live in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Bibliography

“Biography of Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto.” State of Nevada Office of the Attorney General, ag.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/agnvgov/Content/About/LongBio‗CatherineCortezMasto.pdf. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.

Birenbaum, Gabby. "Urged by Cortez Masto, CVS and Walgreens Begin Dispensing Abortion Pill in Nevada." The Nevada Independent, 22 Apr. 2024, thenevadaindependent.com/article/urged-by-cortez-masto-cvs-and-walgreens-begin-dispensing-abortion-pill-in-nevada. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.

"Catherine Cortez Masto." Ballotpedia, 2022, ballotpedia.org/Catherine‗Cortez‗Masto. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.

Hiruo, Elaine. “Perry Says He Does Not Have ‘Definitive Answer’ on Yucca.” S&P Global Platts, 19 Jan. 2017, www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/washington/perry-says-he-does-not-have-definitive-answer-21653887" www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/washington/perry-says-he-does-not-have-definitive-answer-21653887. Accessed 31 Mar. 2017.

Masto, Catherine Cortez. “New Faces in Congress: Catherine Cortez Masto, First Latina Senator.” Interview by Emmarie Huetteman. The New York Times, 23 Jan. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/us/politics/catherine-cortez-masto.html. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.

“Meet Catherine.” Catherine Cortez Masto for Senate, catherinecortezmasto.com/meet-catherine/catherinecortezmasto.com. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.

Norkin, Laura. “The First-Ever Latino U.S. Senator Is Ready for a Fight.” Refinery29, 20 Jan. 2017, www.refinery29.com/en-us/2017/01/136980/catherine-cortez-masto-first-latina-senator-inauguration. Accessed 31 Mar. 2017.