Live Updates: The Nevada Legislature’s 2025 second house deadline
Nevada lawmakers passed more than 80 bills during the second house passage deadline on Friday, with eight proposals meeting their demise.
The deadline was the final major one ahead of the constitutionally mandated end of session on June 2. By the time lawmakers wrap up, any bills not voted out of both chambers of the Legislature or granted an exemption will not move forward in the legislative process.
In the 2023 session, just seven bills died at the second house passage deadline.
We’ll likely have to wait much longer to learn the fate of some of the most consequential proposals, almost all of which have received exemptions. Those include Gov. Joe Lombardo’s five policy bills, dueling film tax credit proposals, the multiple efforts to reform Nevada’s boards and commissions and the measure to significantly expand paid family leave policies.
Some of the most prominent bills are the five budget proposals that lawmakers must approve, four of which passed on Friday.
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, @bella_tweetss and @lizzierezz.
Here’s a look at major developments leading up to, and during, the deadline day.
Property tax, legislator pay constitutional amendments among 8 dead bills as Senate adjourns — 10:27 p.m.
The Senate adjourned just before 10 p.m. on Friday, meaning eight bills failed to meet the second house passage deadline including multiple prominent constitutional amendments.
AJR7, proposed by Assm. Howard Watts (D-Las Vegas), called for the creation of a citizen-composed commission to determine legislator and constitutional officer pay. It’s the latest effort related to legislator pay reform to fail.
The other constitutional amendment to die was AJR1, sponsored by Assm. Natha Anderson (D-Reno), which would overhaul the state’s property tax system by resetting a property’s tax valuation upon sale instead of allowing property tax discounts to stay with the home.
The measure was described by the Nevada State Education Association as the state’s best hope for fulfilling the work of the Commission on School Funding, a body created by the Legislature that has called for aggressively increasing Nevada public school funding over the next decade. The teachers union estimated it would net school operating budgets a half a billion dollars a year by fiscal year 2029.
Because these were proposed changes to the state Constitution, they would have required approval in the 2027 legislative session and the 2028 general election to take effect.
Other measures that met their demise were AJR10, a resolution urging Congress to pass legislation that would transfer certain federal lands to state and local governments for housing development; SB395, a proposal requiring a human operator for certain self-driving trucks; and AB495, which would have made certain changes to the rules that would lead to the termination of a charter school.
See the full list of the bills that died here.
— Eric Neugeboren
Assembly passes K-12 education bill, grants waiver to a bill previously in limbo — 9:43 p.m.
Members of the Assembly unanimously passed the K-12 education budget bill, SB500, which under the state Constitution must pass before all other spending bills.
The vote occurred after Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager’s (D-Las Vegas) measure to provide additional compensation to address certain hard-to-fill teacher positions and allocate $38.6 million for charter school teacher raises, AB398, passed on a 41-1 vote.
Lawmakers in support emphasized that AB398 provided much-needed funding for education support professionals and charter school teachers. It came after Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans on a budget committee voted to exclude charter schools from extended funding for educator and support staff raises from Gov. Joe Lombardo’s proposed budget because they wanted more accountability on the funding.
Assm. Natha Anderson (D-Sparks) was the lone opposition vote, noting that she agreed with portions of the bill, but didn’t believe the bill recognized support staff, including special education aids, counselors and speech pathologists.
“I greatly appreciate the work that you have put into this, as well as everyone else, but I will be voting no because I believe all members of a school should be recognized,” Anderson said.
Yeager also granted a waiver to deadlines for Sen. Dina Neal’s (D-North Las Vegas) SB128, which would ban health insurers from solely using artificial intelligence to deny prior authorization requests for medical and dental care. The bill was placed on the chief clerk’s desk earlier in the day.
Assembly members also passed Sen. James Ohrenschall’s (D-Las Vegas) SB179, which would require the Nevada Equal Rights Commission to consider whether an alleged unlawful discriminatory act was motivated by antisemitism.
The bill passed on a 28-4 vote, with 10 lawmakers — all Democrats — excused absent.
— Tabitha Mueller
Property tax overhaul among measures still in limbo as deadline day wears on — 3:53 p.m.
There are about 20 bills that still need to pass out of their second house on Friday to avoid their death, including proposed constitutional amendments establishing a commission to determine legislator pay (AJR7) and overhauling Nevada’s property tax system (AJR1).
Click here to see the bills still at risk of dying. Both chambers are set to reconvene later today.
And also, one more thing that happened earlier that caught our education reporter’s eye.
— Eric Neugeboren
Insulin cap bill passage among highlights from Assembly floor session — 2:25 p.m.
The Assembly recessed from its first floor session at 1:55 p.m. after passing almost all of the bills on its agenda.
Notably, it moved four bills from the chief clerk’s desk (a type of legislative purgatory) and passed them out, including measures related to sanctioning lacrosse as a school sport and county regulation of sidewalk vendors.
Meanwhile, it moved two bills to the clerk’s desk: SB128, which would ban health insurers from solely using artificial intelligence to deny prior authorization requests for medical and dental care, and SB395, a proposal requiring a human operator for certain self-driving trucks .
These two bills appear to be the only Senate ones at risk of death.
Here are the main highlights and votes that caught our eye.
— Eric Neugeboren
What happened in first batch of Senate floor votes — 1:23 p.m.
The Senate recessed at around 1 p.m. after passing dozens of bills. Here are some highlights from Indy reporters.
Here’s a look at major developments leading up to, and during, the deadline day.
A “constitutional oopsie” — 12:21 p.m.
Lawmakers in the Senate committed what one observant lobbyist referred to as a “constitutional oopsie” — not passing the K-12 education budget first, as required under the state Constitution.
The Senate rescinded votes in approval of two budget implementation bills, AB592, the state worker pay bill, and AB591, the appropriations act, that both passed unanimously. The Senate only needed to rescind the appropriations act vote since that is the only one with funding.
The education bill, SB500, awaits a vote in the Assembly, which has not yet convened.
— Tabitha Mueller and Eric Neugeboren
Bills we’re watching today — 10:55 a.m.
There are about 40 Senate and more than 60 Assembly bills without exemptions — meaning that they must pass out of the opposite chamber Friday or die.
Here are the ones we’re watching most closely. All of these are, as of this writing, on the agendas for a vote, though that is no guarantee they will pass.
- A bill brought by Storey County (SB69), which would require certain large-scale projects seeking tax abatements to partner with local governments and fire protection districts to chip into public service costs.
- Sen. Skip Daly’s (D-Sparks) proposal (SB116) to revise the compensation structure for county elected officials. It sets a new base salary for the upcoming fiscal year and allows a board of county commissioners to provide a 2 percent annual cost-of-living pay increase.
- SB128, sponsored by Sen. Dina Neal (D-North Las Vegas), which would ban health insurers from solely using artificial intelligence to deny prior authorization requests for medical and dental care.
- SB179, a proposal from Sen. James Ohrenschall (D-Las Vegas), that would require the Nevada Equal Rights Commission to determine if antisemitism was the reason behind instances of discrimination in housing, employment or public accommodations.
- Two bills that aim to crack down on fraud in the solar industry. SB379, sponsored by Sen. Fabian Doñate (D-Las Vegas), would strengthen protections for solar buyers to opt out of their contract and prohibit sellers from providing false information on public utility costs. The other, the Nevada Solar Association’s SB440, would increase disclosure requirements for solar companies, among other reforms.
- SB295, also sponsored by Doñate, would require local health boards in Clark and Washoe counties to adopt regulations for sidewalk vendors and exempt certain vendors, selling items from a narrow list of food, from certain regulations.
- AB79, the secretary of state office’s campaign finance bill, that changes the penalty process related to campaign finance reporting violations. It also allows elected officials to use unspent campaign finance donations to cover ordinary expenses incurred in connection with their role.
- Assm. Duy Nguyen’s (D-Las Vegas) AB112, which allows employees to use sick leave for immediate family care if they are covered by a collective bargaining agreement.
- AB148, from Assembly Minority Leader Greg Hafen (R-Pahrump), which would require mail ballots be sent to voters between the fourth and fifth Monday before an election, unless a voter requests one for earlier.
— Eric Neuegboren and Isabella Aldrete
Notable bills that passed Thursday with non-party-line votes — 8 a.m.
Lawmakers in the Assembly and Senate passed more than 100 measures Thursday, most of which were unanimous or along a party-line vote, with Republicans in opposition.
However, votes on several measures caught our attention:
- Assm. Lisa Cole (R-Las Vegas) joined Democrats to pass SB350, a bill sponsored by Sen. James Ohrenschall (D-Las Vegas) that, as amended, would double the pre-execution wait time after an execution is approved by a judge. She didn’t discuss on the floor why she voted the way she did, but the bill passed on a 28-14 vote.
- Members of the Assembly unanimously passed Sen. Melanie Scheible’s (D-Las Vegas) SB141, which would adopt regulations for the supervision, custody, care, security, housing and medical and mental health treatment of transgender, gender non-conforming, gender non-binary and intersex offenders. However, Sen. James Ohrenschall’s bill to shield gender-affirming care providers from other states’ crackdowns, SB171, passed along a party-line vote of 27-15, with all Republicans in opposition.
- Senate Minority Leader Robin Titus (R-Wellington) was the only Republican to vote in support of AB209, a proposal from Assm. David Orentlicher (D-Las Vegas) that would protect people engaging in prostitution from criminal liability if they report being victims or witnesses of violent crime.
- Sen. Lori Rogich (R-Las Vegas) voted for AJR9, which urges Congress to pass a law to prohibit Immigration and U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement from entering schools and places of worship, after President Donald Trump threw out a policy limiting where migrant arrests could happen.
—- Tabitha Mueller, Eric Neugeboren and Isabella Aldrete
Assembly places four measures on the chief clerk’s desk — 8 a.m.
On Thursday afternoon, legislators in the Assembly placed four bills on the chief clerk’s desk, a procedural purgatory that temporarily holds a bill before it’s formally considered or acted upon by the chamber.
The move doesn’t necessarily mean a bill is dead, but it could be a way to pause for review or to strategize on how to gain support, delay action on a bill without killing it or hold it as part of a negotiating strategy.
The four measures set aside were:
- SB305, sponsored by Sen. Fabian Doñate (D-Las Vegas), which would require the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association (NIAA) to adopt a process for designating new sanctioned sports. As amended, the measure would require the NIAA to adopt regulations designating lacrosse as a sanctioned sport beginning with the 2026-2027 school year.
- SB306, sponsored by Sen. Michelee Cruz-Crawford (D-Las Vegas), whi h would require the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a task force to develop recommendations to offer housing and other services to children discharged from a psychiatric treatment facility or a state detention facility whose parents or guardians cannot take back into their home.
- SB414, sponsored by Sen. Melanie Scheible (D-Las Vegas), which would require elected officials’ financial disclosure reports to include any business where they have a stock valued at $5,000 or more and require the disclosure of finances related to the inaugural committees of constitutional officers. This would include all contributions and expenses exceeding $1,000, as well as any entity that collectively gave or received more than $1,000.
- SB443, sponsored by the Senate Committee on Growth and Infrastructure, that declares legislators’ intent to pay prevailing wages to workers employed by a contractor or subcontractor.
— Tabitha Mueller