Christina R. Giunchigliani, commonly known as Chris G., is an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as a Clark County Commissioner from 2007 until 2019. Giunchigliani has been active in Nevada politics since 1991, previously serving in the Nevada Assembly, 1991-2006.
Biography
Giunchigliani was born to American parents in Lucca, Italy. The oldest of six children, Giunchigliani grew up in Chicago. Giunchigliani attended Avila College in Kansas City, Missouri. She worked in retail, bartended and waitressed to pay her way through college, graduating in 1976 with a bachelor's degree in special education. After teaching special education in Shawnee Mission, Kansas for two years, she moved to Las Vegas, and worked her way to another degree, this time at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, earning a master's degree in education with special emphasis on the emotionally disturbed. Giunchigliani married Gary Gray in 1987. They had no children. Gray died of complications from injuries sustained after a car accident caused by drifting across the center line and crashing his red Ford pickup truck head-on at a white Jeep on State Route 157 eastbound, just northwest of Las Vegas on April 9, 2015, at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas, aged 69. Gray was a longtime political operative in Nevada, called "one of the great political minds in Nevada history" by then-Senate Majority LeaderHarry Reid.
Political career
She served as president of the Clark County Education Association from 1983 through 1987 and as president of the Nevada State Education Association from 1987 through 1991. From 1991 to 2006 she served in the Nevada Assembly, serving eight regular and six special sessions. While serving in the assembly, Giunchigliani authored and passed legislation implementing mandatory kindergarten in public schools and requiring insurance companies to cover oral contraceptives. Giunchigliani was succeeded by Tick Segerblom in the Nevada Assembly. In 2006, she was elected to the Clark County Commission. In 2017, Giunchigliani was the only Commissioner to vote "no" on the use of public funds to build a stadium for the Oakland Raiders. In 2011, she ran for Mayor of Las Vegas and was defeated by Independent candidateCarolyn Goodman, the wife of former Mayor Oscar Goodman.
Runs for higher office
2018
Giunchigliani was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Nevada in 2018, but lost the primary to Steve Sisolak.
