In 1988, a blue ribbon commission in Nevada recommended setting legislators’ pay for each 120-day session at $12,000, and called for a commission to suggest salary changes for other elected officials.

Nearly 40 years later, legislators’ pay stands at nearly the same amount as was recommended in 1988.

That could change in the coming years.

A Nevada legislative committee will hear testimony Thursday on a proposed constitutional amendment that would create and give a citizen-composed commission the power to determine the pay and benefits for state legislators and the state’s six statewide officers, including governor and attorney general.

AJR7, which would require passage this year and in the 2027 legislative session and gain support from a majority of voters in the 2028 election, would create a seven-member commission appointed by the governor to study and authorize salary changes for state elected officials. The panel would consist of one member with expertise in public compensation, another representing a nonprofit, one representing the general public, two on behalf of the business community and two union officials.

The commission members could not be related to any public employee, state officer or lobbyist, and the pay changes would be instituted no later than 2029.

“At the end of the day, we need to completely delegate that power out of the Legislature's hands,” Assm. Howard Watts (D-Las Vegas), the amendment’s lead sponsor, said in an interview.

The amendment will need to win the support of lawmakers who have historically been skittish to enact legislation regarding their pay, given political backlash against any effort to raise their own pay. Past efforts to reform officials’ pay structures have fallen short; the last significant salary changes were adopted in 2005.

However, Watts is confident that there is appetite for the legislation — other primary sponsors come from both parties and chambers — especially because it does not call for an increase in legislator pay.

“This does not give any direction that we have to increase pay,” Watts said. “It's saying we need a new system that's independent.”

How pay is determined

State officials’ pay is set by the Legislature, though lawmakers’ salaries are also constrained by the Nevada Constitution.

In 2005, the Legislature passed AB462, which allowed elected officials’ (including legislators) pay to increase at the same rates as other state classified employees, who typically hold management positions. The bill also raised the base pay for the state’s six constitutional officers: the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, controller and treasurer.

The constitutional officers’ annual pay ranges from about $170,000 (governor) to $65,000 (lieutenant governor), according to financial disclosure reports from January.

Legislators’ pay is a different story.

Under Nevada law passed in 1985, the base pay for state legislators is $130 for each day of the legislative session, though that rate increased alongside other state employees’ pay increases with the passage of AB462.

However, the Nevada Constitution only allows legislators to be paid for the first 60 days of the legislative session; that provision would be scrapped if the proposed constitutional amendment passes.

Legislators listed a salary of about $12,400 on their financial disclosure reports filed in January, meaning their pay comes out to about $206 daily. In 2005, legislators’ salary was $7,800.

Since 1945, pay for state lawmakers has only been changed legislatively seven times, Watts said.

Nevada legislators’ pay ranks near the bottom of nationwide lawmaker pay — including among other part-time legislators, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). In 2023, the average pay for state legislators was about $43,000.

Other efforts

This isn’t the first time a citizen-composed commission on elected official pay has been proposed in Nevada.

In 2015, when Republicans had complete control of the Legislature, lawmakers passed AJR10 — another proposed constitutional amendment which would have empowered a citizen commission to establish salaries for county officials and district and Supreme Court judges, in addition to pay and benefits for state elected officials.

However, the amendment stalled in the 2017 session, despite passing a legislative committee.

“There have been some conversations about this, and there have been attempts to have unbiased or outside perspectives on it, and it's not translating,” Watts said.

It would also not be the first time that a similar commission existed. In 1993, the Legislature established a panel to review the compensation of state and county officials, but the group was only active in the following two years, during which it recommended increasing legislators’ pay to more than $11,000. That proposal was never adopted.

The commission still exists, but it is essentially defunct and hasn’t met since 1995. It would have been abolished through a 2017 law, but that language was removed for unknown reasons. 

Lawmakers in recent legislative sessions have frequently introduced bills to increase legislators’ daily pay, as well as how many days legislators can receive pay, but those efforts have typically fallen short.

“No one wants to be accused when they run for re-election or run for another office that they voted to increase their own pay and benefits,” Watts said. 

Similar proposals have gained traction in other states.

As of 2024, citizen commissions on legislator pay exist in 22 states, according to data from the NCSL, though these groups differ in whether they directly set salaries or make pay recommendations.

In Colorado last year, legislators overwhelmingly approved the creation of a salary commission, but that body will only make recommendations to legislators, rather than determine salaries itself.

Maggie Gómez, the Colorado state director of State Innovation Exchange, which helped pass the legislation, said the wide support likely had to do with the high cost of living in Colorado. 

Similar to Nevada, Colorado's Legislature is part-time, meaning lawmakers hold other jobs.

“People understand what it costs to live in Colorado,” she said. “That is the number one thing they probably hear from their voters and their constituents, as a high cost of living, and there are people in our legislature that can actually relate to that.”