The 2024 ballot initiative to crack down on high-interest lending in Nevada won’t be resurrected this year despite initial plans to do so, according to an official for the group behind the initiative.

Stop Predatory Lending NV, a group run by Democratic political strategist Peter Koltak, tried in 2024 to limit the interest rates for certain types of high-interest loans that are particularly common in Nevada. However, signature-gathering efforts never got off the ground because of legal uncertainty. 

It would have placed a 36 percent interest rate cap for short-term loans that provides people immediate cash at a high interest rate. Another proposal, which was struck down in court for being too broad, would have increased how much of a person’s bank account is protected from a seizure for an unpaid debt.

In December 2024, after the signature-gathering deadline had passed, Koltak told The Indy that the group planned to restart the effort this month. But he said last week the effort is on pause.

“While Stop Predatory Lending won’t be pursuing an initiative petition this year, the coalition believes that policies, such as interest rate caps and better debt collection protections, are good for consumers and encourages the Legislature to consider them in 2027,” Koltak said in a statement.

One element of the broader version of the 2024 ballot initiative — which would have protected up to $5,000 in a person’s bank account from an unpaid debt seizure, up from the current $400 — was part of a bill that passed the 2025 legislative session (SB142) along party lines, with Democrats in support. Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed the bill, saying it could unintentionally encourage debt evasion.

The initiative would have been the most significant change to Nevada’s high-interest lending industry in decades. A 2023 report from the Center for Responsible Lending — a nonprofit that opposes high-interest lending — found that the average interest rate for Nevada payday loans was 548 percent, the fifth-highest in the country. 

The ballot initiative needed tens of thousands of signatures to reach the Nevada Legislature. If lawmakers did not pass the proposal, it would be placed on the following general election ballot.

Following the money

Several national left-leaning groups — including the Hopewell Fund and Sixteen Thirty Fund — bankrolled the initiative. They are considered “dark money” entities because they do not have to disclose their donors.

But the writing has been on the wall.

On Dec. 15, the group returned $58,000 in unspent funds to the Hopewell Fund. At the start of January, it filed its official dissolution notice, according to online business records.

It came as the payday lending industry, which poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into an effort to oppose the ballot initiative, continued to donate to state officials, according to a Nevada Independent analysis of campaign finance records.

• Since 2012, the industry has given nearly $2 million to state officials and PACs.
  • The top donors were TitleMax, which gave $345,000 to officials from both parties, and Dollar Loan Center CEO Chuck Brennan, who has given more than $310,000.

• In 2025, the industry donated more than $47,000 to state officials and PACs, almost all of which came in December.
  • Gov. Joe Lombardo received $20,000 from Dollar Loan Center and an affiliated company — which were able to skirt the state’s contribution limit by giving through multiple entities — at the end of the year.  
  • Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) received $10,000 from Dollar Loan Center in mid-December.

• Aside from the PAC seeking to kill the ballot initiative, Cannizzaro, who is running for attorney general this year, has been the top recipient of the industry’s donations since 2012.
  • She has received more than $140,000 in direct campaign donations and contributions to a PAC she runs. About half of that money came in 2024 — a year with higher-than-usual industry donations — when Dollar Loan Center gave $60,000 to her PAC.

• Other top recipients include former Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, who received more than $130,000 from the industry, and the state Senate Republican caucus, which received a $100,000 contribution from Brennan in 2020.

Other changes underway?

Even though the ballot initiative isn’t proceeding, the payday lending landscape could see changes in the coming months.

State financial regulators are considering a proposal that would allow lending companies to provide both low and high-interest loans. It received pushback from some progressive groups that argued it “weakens long standing consumer safeguards.”

The proposal stemmed from a legal dispute between the state and Dollar Loan Center. The company has long wanted to offer low and high-interest loans, but state officials prohibited it, according to legal filings. A settlement moved the issue to the state’s regulatory process.

The proposal previously would have allowed lenders to offer both kinds of loans at a single location, but critics said that could be used as a “bait and switch” on vulnerable Nevadans. The updated proposal removed this provision but still allowed companies to offer both kinds of loans.

Dollar Loan Center said the changes “abandon” its settlement with the state.

The proposal is still pending approval from financial regulators. If it is approved, it would go before a group of state lawmakers.