Live updates: The final weekend of the Nevada legislative session
The final weekend of the Nevada legislative session is here.
Lawmakers will be working through the weekend as the session enters its home stretch. Some bills will meet their demise, legislators will reach compromises and others’ fates will hang in the balance until the Legislature adjourns sine die on Monday.
The Nevada Independent will be regularly updating this live blog on this weekend’s developments.
It comes on the heels of a busy Friday — The Indy reported that supporters of the Sony and Warner Bros.-backed film tax credit bill (which narrowly passed out of the Assembly late Friday evening) are not interested in merging with another proposal and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) is pitching new voter ID requirements as part of a potential deal with Gov. Joe Lombardo.
You can also check out The Indy’s look at the biggest questions left to be answered in the session, including what will happen with Lombardo’s crime and economic development bills and whether he will once again break the record for most vetoes in a single session.
To keep track of the status of each piece of legislation, check out The Indy’s public bill tracker and follow our legislative team’s posts on X. Their handles are: @tabitha_mueller, @eric_neugeboren and @bella_tweetss.
Click the links below to access a specific live blog entry:
- CIP bill
- Banking bill dies
- Crime bill amended
- Crime bill fiscal note
- Union benefits
- Youth social media
- Health care bill amendment
- Voter ID opposition
- Likely dead Assembly bills
- Assembly passages
- Boards and commissions
- Banking bill
- Voter ID
- Freestanding ERs
- Film tax credit
Capital improvement bill passes in key milestone for ending session on time — 11:01 p.m.
The capital improvement program bill (SB502) passed out of the Assembly late Sunday evening, the last of five constitutionally required budget bills to pass out of both chambers. The bill required a two-thirds vote.
Its passage suggests efforts to broker deals between the Republican governor and Democratic legislative leaders have been largely successful. Because Democrats lack supermajorities and need Republican votes to get the measure across the finish line, it has been used in the past as leverage for the minority party to secure their policy priorities.
Banking bill fails again despite amendment removing two-thirds requirement — 11:01 p.m.
The Assembly again failed to pass a bill to create a new type of payments bank in Nevada despite adopting an amendment that eliminated the requirement for two-thirds majority support.
AB500, proposed by Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas), originally would have required the new payment banks to pay a fee of .025 percent of every transaction to the state, which meant that the bill needed to receive a two-thirds majority vote because it raises revenue.
However, the proposal was amended on Sunday night to remove the fee, along with requirements that the banks pay certain rates that other financial institutions are subject to. This allowed the bill to pass on a simple majority vote.
On Friday, the bill received 25 votes in support and 17 votes against — three votes shy of the two-thirds threshold — but on Sunday, only 20 members voted in support, two votes less than the simple majority it needed to pass.
Four Republicans and two Democrats voted against the bill after previously supporting it on Friday.
“Bills live, bills die, it wasn’t meant to be,” Yeager told The Indy after the vote. “C’est la vie.”
The bill received support from groups such as the Retail Association of Nevada, which said it could reduce the costs of transactions, and the Nevada Firearms Coalition PAC. The Nevada Financial Institutions Division (FID) opposed the bill, saying it does not have sufficient capacity to monitor a complex payments bank and that it deviates from federal banking regulations, among other concerns.
— Eric Neugeboren
Lombardo crime bill significantly amended — 9:02 p.m.
The Senate Judiciary Committee passed a significantly amended version of Gov. Joe Lombardo’s crime bill during a behind the bar meeting on Sunday night.
Stay tuned for a full story on the changes and insight from Senate Judiciary Chair Melanie Scheible (D-Las Vegas), but in the meantime, see the language of the conceptual amendment below.
Clark County: Lombardo plan to lower theft threshold could create 2,000 more felony cases a year — 9:03 p.m.
It’s estimated that the Clark County’s Public Defender's Office would have to juggle an additional 2,000 felony cases annually if the threshold at which a theft is considered a felony is reduced from $1,200 to $750, as in Gov. Joe Lombardo’s crime bill.
A new fiscal note from Clark County predicts additional impacts of Lombardo’s far-reaching proposal, which does everything from expanding the definition of domestic violence to lowering the threshold to banning diversion courts for certain offenses.
Already, it's estimated that the original version of the bill could eventually cost the state more than $40 million per bienniuma. This latest estimate from Clark County would add an additional $4 million in costs per future two-year budget cycle, with most of those derived from additional staffing expenses for the public defender’s office.
Notably, the note says it doesn’t account for costs associated with detention, other new crimes created in the bill, or bail hearing changes.
— Isabella Aldrete
State union pay bill amended with COLA, existing benefits — 6:50 p.m.
Thousands of unionized state workers would receive a 1 percent cost of living increase and a $1,000 retention bonus, while maintaining existing benefits, during each of the next two years under an amendment to a collective bargaining bill presented Sunday evening.
It’s welcome news for the state worker unions, which initially worried that they were at risk of losing their previously negotiated benefits, such as annual raises and personal days, under a proposal that passed unanimously out of the Assembly on Friday.
AB596, a committee bill, originally would have allocated more than $320 million across the next two years to fund agreements that several unions brokered with the state earlier this year. Much of this funding resulted from 3 percent annual raises that were included in collective bargaining agreements negotiated by the American Federation of State, Council and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Nevada Police Union.
However, the state’s precarious financial situation led to an amendment that gutted the bill in favor of a $500 quarterly bonus across the next two years, which was already included in some of the agreements. It prompted immediate backlash from the unions, which criticized the state for being willing to cut state employee benefits.
“The [first] amendment was catastrophic for a lot of our members,” said Paul Lunkwitz, the president of a Nevada branch of the Fraternal Order of Police.
But the latest amendment will ensure that the union employees receive a cost of living increase, quarterly bonuses (albeit smaller than ones that some unions had negotiated) and existing benefits. The amendment also clarified that benefits such as personal and union leave do not require legislative approval.
The amended bill would cost about $95 million from the state general fund and $17 million from the highway fund — an increase of about $80 million from the version that would have only provided the quarterly bonuses.
“Unfortunately, we, of course, cannot do everything this session with the bargaining agreements that were just recently ratified,” Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) said while presenting the amendment. “However, it is my conviction that the Legislature should prioritize the funding of collective bargaining agreements to the extent possible.”
The amended bill received support from several unions, including AFSCME, Fraternal Order of Police and Professional Firefighters of Nevada.
“I could not be more grateful for what you are putting back into this to help support our state employees,” Cassie Charles, a lobbyist for AFSCME, said during Sunday’s hearing.
AFSCME member Nalani Page added in a statement that the “members have made our voices heard.”
— Eric Neugeboren
A gutted version of Attorney General Aaron Ford’s Youth Online Safety Act passed out of Assembly Commerce and Labor on Sunday afternoon.
The latest version further strips down the already heavily amended bill, which originally required online platforms to verify users’ ages until that was removed. The latest version axes provisions that would have required social media platforms to disable features, such as infinite scrolling, at the request of a legal guardian.
The version advanced Sunday also eliminated a section that would have barred social media companies from sending minors notifications during school hours or late at night.
But there were some additions, too. Large chunks of the Virginia 2024 Consumer Protection Act were inserted into the bill, providing additional protections on children’s data.
The bill, which was originally set to take effect this October, would now do so at the beginning of 2026.
— Isabella Aldrete
Amendment in the works for Gov. Joe Lombardo’s health care bill? — 6:32 p.m.
Senate Health and Human Services Committee Chair Fabian Doñate (D-Las Vegas) is working on a compromise to portions of Gov. Joe Lombardo’s health care bill that drew strong opposition during its first hearing.
Sources familiar with the proposal, who were granted anonymity to share details that are still under negotiation, said it would amend sections of the bill that change prior authorization requirements and establish an alternative pathway for dental hygienist licensing.
The proposal would align timelines with other prior authorization bills currently making their way through the Legislature and add a quality control requirement on providers to Lombardo’s proposed gold card program, which aims to fast-track insurance authorizations for providers with strong track records.
The changes to the alternative licensing pathway would allow dental hygienist students to train in a formal setting under a dentist's supervision with a limited scope.
Under the proposal, dental hygienists pursuing the alternative pathway would be required to meet the same clinical hours and educational prerequisites, and pass the same exams as current dental hygienists to receive a dental hygienist's license. The limited license would not allow for the dispensing or use of drugs.
Asked about the amendment, Paul Klein, who represents the Nevada Dental Association that has been in favor of the alternative pathway, said Doñate verbally walked him through it. He described Doñate’s amendment as a thoughtful compromise that maintains the bill's original intent.
“I think that it answers the sum of the criticisms of the opponents of the bill,” he said. “I also think it isn’t necessarily an amendment that everybody’s going to be excited about, but also not angry about.”
Klein said he doesn’t know where the governor’s office stands on the proposal, and when he last checked with them, they said they hadn’t had time to review it yet.
— Tabitha Mueller
Last-minute voter ID proposal spurs frenzy — 3:27 p.m.
Organizations opposing voter ID are incensed about the potential last-minute deal between Gov. Joe Lombardo and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) to attach new voter ID requirements to another election bill.
In more than 45 minutes of testimony during a bill hearing Saturday, opponents criticized legislative Democrats (who have historically been against voter ID) for pursuing the amendment at the last minute — timing that they said prevented a coordinated campaign to kill the effort.
At the center of the campaign is the NAACP, which had multiple leaders testify at a Saturday hearing.
Quentin Savwoir, the president of the NAACP Las Vegas, said in an interview Sunday that the group is in the process of mobilizing its members, but he emphasized that it’s difficult to make headway with so little time left in the session.
He added that the organization has not heard anything else about the bill’s status and criticized Democrats for excluding opponents from the process.
“Nobody even thought to talk to us. I mean, it's almost as if you don't want us engaged in the process,” Savwoir said. “That's not democracy. And I don't care if you have an R or a D by your name. Democracy means the stakeholders and the people get to have a voice.”
He also disputed Yeager’s notion that voter ID would be a sure thing to pass again on the 2026 ballot (a 2024 ballot question received support from more than 70 percent of voters) because there was not a significant opposition campaign in place.
“We lean on this notion that, ‘Well, we're just responding to what Nevadans wanted,’” Savwoir said. “Well, you know what else Nevadans support? They support this damn rent not going through the roof. Nevadans want affordable child care.”
Sen. Dina Neal (D-North Las Vegas), who spoke out against the proposal during Saturday’s hearing, also cast doubt on the assumption that the proposal will pass again but added that she doesn’t know if the bill has enough votes to pass out of the Legislature.
“I'm not sure that the political temperament is exactly the same as it was in November,” Neal said. “I just think that politically and philosophically folks might be in a different place.”
The Nevada Independent could not reach Yeager, who was in a committee meeting, early Sunday afternoon, but he addressed the opposition during Saturday’s hearing.
"This obviously generates very strong feelings and I acknowledge that,” he said. “The attempt here is, in fact, to implement this in a way that respects the fact that we're going to have to do this at some point and we ought to be as responsible as we can."
A’Esha Goins, a lobbyist and the first vice president of the NAACP, also gave emotional remarks Saturday. Watch the video of her testimony below.
— Eric Neugeboren, Tabitha Mueller
Nearly 90 Assembly bills likely dead on eve of sine die — 12 p.m
There are 86 Assembly bills that have yet to pass out of the chamber and are not on the chief clerk’s desk or brought by the governor, meaning they are very likely dead with about 36 hours left in the session, legislative sources said.
These include bills to transfer $350 million from the rainy day fund to the state general fund to weather economic uncertainty (AB587), establish a “baby bonds” savings account for every child covered by Medicaid when born (AB67), create a new fund for nonprofits seeking grants (AB254) and fund universal free school meals (AB268). The latter mirrored a proposal Lombardo vetoed two years ago.
Proposals to appropriate state dollars for a veterans community center in Virginia City, to the Nevada School of the Arts and toward the construction of an elementary school in White Pine also appear dead.
However, it’s never over until it’s over, and legislative sources said rules on certain bills are expected to be waived.
Plus, elements of these proposals could still be included in other legislation. For example, the proposal to create a fund in the secretary of state’s office to provide more resources to county election officers is included in a bill that appears dead (AB287), but it has been amended into another bill that remains alive (AB534).
Click here for a full list of Assembly bills that appear dead.
— Eric Neugeboren
Assembly passes more than 60 bills in floor session — 7:23 p.m.
The Assembly passed more than 60 bills in an early evening session on Saturday.
Here are the highlights.
Latest boards and commissions bill likely dead, sources say — 2:19 p.m.
The latest proposal to reform Nevada’s boards and commissions is likely dead, three sources told The Indy on Saturday.
Assembly Minority Leader Greg Hafen (R-Pahrump) introduced AB601 this week, a proposal allowing the state office that oversees boards and commissions to periodically review the boards, after which it would provide a recommendation about its future.
However, the bill is not moving forward, sources say, though they did not provide a reason why. Asked whether the bill was still alive, Hafen told The Indy on Saturday that “it has not received a hearing at this time.”
One legislative source also indicated that the other two expansive boards and commission proposals are also dead: SB78, the controversial bill from the Department of Business and Industry (B&I) and SB425, an amended bill from Sen. Fabian Doñate (D-Las Vegas) that would have moved the boards and commissions away from B&I jurisdiction.
The only boards and commissions reform bill that appears to be alive is SB507, a committee bill that would allow the office that oversees the boards to prescribe a fee for certain services. It unanimously passed the Senate on Saturday.
The deaths of the most expansive bills would be a significant setback in Gov. Joe Lombardo’s and B&I’s efforts to reform the system governing more than 300 boards and commissions.
Lombardo set out in the early days of his administration to overhaul the state’s occupational licensing requirements, and said in his State of the State address this year that the system of boards and commissions should be “smart, lean and productive.”
However, officials and lobbyists tied with the boards have been resistant to certain changes, particularly ones proposed by B&I to merge and consolidate many of the boards, reflecting the difficulty in passing substantive reforms to streamline Nevada’s governmental operations.
The Legislature passed a bill in 2023 (SB431) that put the boards and commissions under B&I’s purview, but state officials sought additional oversight this session to address what they described as a lack of accountability.
A B&I spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
— Eric Neugeboren
Banking bill fails in Assembly, but proponents plan to try again — 1:31 p.m.
AB500, a bill sponsored by Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas), would have created a new type of payments bank in Nevada to cut out the middlemen in certain financial transactions, while also creating an additional source of state revenue.
However, the bill required the support of two-thirds of legislators because it imposed a fee — and fell three votes short in a late Friday night vote. Six Democrats and 11 Republicans voted against the bill. It is now sitting on the Assembly clerk’s desk, where it could be put up for another vote.
Assm. Sandra Jauregui (D-Las Vegas) voted no despite supporting the proposal in committee, telling The Indy that she is still backing the bill, but voted no to be in the prevailing side, which entitles her to revive the bill later.
Yeager told The Indy on Saturday that he was not surprised by the vote because of the complicated nature of the bill, but that he still thinks it has a chance to pass.
“We’ll give it a shot today,” Yeager said.
— Eric Neugeboren, Tabitha Mueller
Voter ID amendment receives first hearing — 12:33 p.m.
The amended version of AB499, which The Indy reported Friday would institute new voter ID requirements backed by Democratic leaders, received its first hearing on Saturday morning in the Senate Committee on Finance, where lawmakers posed questions about the potential for disenfranchisement and plans to educate voters about the changes.
The amended bill represents a potential deal between Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) that would resurrect a vetoed measure to increase the availability of mail ballot drop boxes (AB306) in exchange for requiring voter ID beginning in the 2026 election. It comes amid wide expectations that voters will enact voter ID by 2028 anyway though an ongoing ballot measure effort.
The more than two-hour hearing, which was not listed on the agenda beforehand, included concerns from lawmakers about its potential to depress voter turnout and how it could affect people with disabilities.
“I’m wrestling with the philosophical issue that I have with voter ID,” Sen. Dina Neal (D-North Las Vegas) said. “I'm not in the space where I am openly willing to disenfranchise a population that may not even understand this law as written.”
In response, Yeager said that “those feelings are legitimate and real,” while touting the bill’s $3.2 million appropriation for educating voters on the changes. Gabriel Di Chiara, the chief deputy secretary of state, also acknowledged that the education element “will be a challenge,” but that “it's going to come down to conversations” and a holistic approach from the secretary of state’s office.
The hearing also included emotional opposition testimony from officials with the NAACP, Make the Road Nevada and Silver State Voices, who said the proposal would restrict people’s constitutional right to vote and represents a backward step in voting rights thrown together in the final days of the session.
Jim DeGraffenreid, the state’s Republican national committeeman, also opposed the bill because of the ballot drop box provisions, as well as a decreased emphasis on a voter’s signature (if the signature is unverifiable, an election official would be able to validate a voter’s identity solely through the personally identifiable number that they attach to their mail ballot).
Nevada Policy, a libertarian-leaning think tank, gave the only testimony in support.
It represents a significant shift for Democrats related to voter ID after they tried to block a ballot question that received support from more than 70 percent of voters and is set to return to the 2026 ballot, with the earliest implementation being the 2028 elections.
Yeager acknowledged that the policy is not ideal, but that his goal is to implement voter ID as early as possible so that the Legislature can pass additional legislation in the 2027 session based on lessons learned from next year’s rollout.
— Eric Neugeboren
Critics decry bill to rein in freestanding emergency rooms as de facto ban — 12:01 p.m.
Under Sen. Fabian Doñate’s (D-Las Vegas) SB378, patients who request electronic medical records would receive them within seven business days, health care systems would be banned from implementing non-compete clauses for patient-facing providers and Nevada Medicaid would have the ability to prospectively investigate claims of Medicaid fraud.
Though many of the proposals are popular across both sides of the aisle, the bill passed on a 12-8 vote in the Senate, with Republicans raising concerns that the new regulations surrounding freestanding emergency rooms could severely curtail them and cut access to lifesaving services in places that are already health care deserts.
“I rise in absolutely strong opposition to Senate Bill 378 which jeopardizes access to critical health care services particularly to undocumented immigrants and other vulnerable Nevadans,” Sen. Robin Titus (R-Wellington) said ahead of the vote. “[The bill] fragments the system, risking patient confusion, higher cost from transfers and worse.”
Doñate responded that the bill was drafted to restore trust in the health care industry and address various issues surrounding freestanding emergency rooms, including patients being overbilled when they go to one, undercutting competitors and other problems.
And during a Friday hearing in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, Assembly lawmakers were skeptical about the bill’s new oversight and licensing requirements for freestanding emergency departments.
The measure would prohibit new freestanding emergency centers being licensed within a 5-mile radius of an existing one or a hospital with an emergency department, which critics have said would effectively ban them.
Proponents, however, have said the goal of the legislation is not to prohibit freestanding emergency rooms, but rather ensure that billing for services is done correctly.
Doñate said the inspiration stems from a proliferation of freestanding emergency rooms that don’t offer the full range of services of an emergency department within a hospital and often require transporting patients to an emergency department. He added that freestanding emergency rooms can lead to billing issues and that needs to be addressed.
“It’s a model incentivized to misrepresent to consumers what they’re receiving,” Doñate said Friday.
But lawmakers pushed back against the proposal.
“If you don’t have transportation and you’re in East Las Vegas, the reality is … you have telehealth or you have nothing,” said Assm. Selena Torres-Fossett (D-Las Vegas), noting there was only one 24-hour urgent care in Southern Nevada. “I’m concerned that if we just ban these freestanding ERs, we’re not addressing the real issue, which is, we need urgent cares.”
Committee Chair Daniele Monroe-Moreno (D-North Las Vegas) echoed Torres-Fossett’s concerns, sharing that she had a heart attack in January and received treatment from a freestanding emergency room.
“I do not want to limit health care for others because I may not be here for my husband, my children and my grandchildren,” she said, asking Doñate to consider amending his bill.
Doñate responded that he was open to a discussion offline about those changes. He said he’s not opposed to freestanding emergency rooms but said it’s imperative to fix the concerns about patient overbilling, but reducing the proposal to a study isn’t enough.
“The question becomes as to what do we deserve? What do consumers deserve when they’re expecting that level of treatment and if that’s appropriate,” he said. “If it’s a study, then something else has to happen. We have to stop the bleeding because patients are being overbilled.”
— Tabitha Mueller
Film tax credit bill clears Assembly; one Democrat explains her ‘yes’ vote — 9:54 a.m
Assm. Sandra Jauregui’s (D-Las Vegas) AB238, one of this session’s two major film tax credit expansion proposals, passed 22-20 out of the Assembly late Friday, a key step toward passage for the closely watched proposal backed by Sony and Warner Bros.
Assm. Brittney Miller (D-Las Vegas), one of the deciding votes, told The Nevada Independent that she was swayed by a recent amendment that would funnel additional funds toward public pre-K programs and boost transparency. It would also raise investment thresholds.
Miller, however, still maintained reservations about the bill.
“Like anything, you want to make sure that it works for the state financially,” Miller said. “I know they're making a huge investment.”
— Isabella Aldrete