Question 1

Voters rejected a measure to remove the constitutional status of the elected Board of Regents, which oversees higher education in Nevada, and grant the Legislature the authority to “review, reform and improve the programs and operations” of the state’s public universities. 

It comes after voters narrowly rejected a similar effort to remove the constitutional status of the elected Board of Regents in 2020. 

Question 1 would have removed all references to the Board of Regents from the Nevada Constitution, but would not have affected other laws regarding the Board of Regents, such as its ability to govern and manage the Nevada System of Higher Education or the processes for electing board members.

Nevada is among 28 states with a single administrative board overseeing all higher education institutions within its borders, and is the only one among those that elects all members of that board through a general election. 

Supporters of the measure — which easily passed in the 2021 and 2023 legislative sessions landing it on the 2024 ballot — said the measure would have helped provide more oversight for the Board of Regents. 

Last year, when speaking in favor of the measure, Assemblywoman Heidi Kasama (R-Las Vegas) said the Board of Regents has “virtually unparalleled power within state government to control and manage higher education spending without the same level of legislative oversight typically applied to other executive branch agencies.” 

The measure was opposed by the members of the Board of Regents, who said it would not adequately address problems in Nevada’s higher education system. In recent years, the Board of Regents has been accused of misrepresenting reports to the Legislature and allowing the misuse of student tuition dollars. 

Question 2  

Voters approved Question 2, which would remove the terms “insane,” “deaf” and “dumb” from the Nevada Constitution and broaden the language so it applies to a wider range of people with disabilities. 

Now that it passed, the term “insane” will be replaced with “persons with significant mental illness”; “blind” to “persons who are blind or visually impaired”; and “deaf and dumb” to “persons who are deaf or hard of hearing.” 

Question 2 received little pushback from legislators, and received broad support from disability advocacy groups that said the measure would help advance the rights of people with disabilities. 

Question 4

Voters approved Question 4, a measure to remove language from the state Constitution that allows for slavery or indentured servitude as criminal punishment. Nevada joins eight other states that have passed similar ballot measures. 

The amended text will change the Constitution’s original language that prohibited involuntary servitude except “in the punishment for crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” to read “neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever be tolerated in this State.” 

Other states’ constitutions have similar language, dubbed the “penal exception” to the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States except as punishment for a crime. In the 19th century, Southern states took advantage of this loophole to allow authorities to incarcerate Black people for petty crimes, such as vagrancy, and force them to work.

Civil rights groups, such as the Las Vegas NAACP, said that it will help promote the rights of Black Americans and other people of color within Nevada. Assemblyman Howard Watts (D-Las Vegas) said during a legislative hearing last year that the passage of the measure would ensure that nobody will ever have to endure state-sanctioned slavery again, opening a “new chapter” in Nevada history. 

“We have seen over the last year that the scars of slavery and racism still cause pain throughout this state and our country,” Watts said. “Changing this language is important to help us all heal and demonstrate our commitment to the concept of justice for all.”

Since 2018, several states and members of Congress have pushed to remove penal exception constitutional language, including several measures that were approved by voters in Colorado, Nebraska, Utah, Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont.

Despite the change in language, prison work programs — some of which pay as little as 25 cents per hour — will continue.

Question 5

Voters passed Question 5, a measure to exempt Nevada’s sales tax on adult and child diapers, adding it to a list of other items that are exempt from the tax such as food and feminine hygiene products.

More specifically, the ballot measure will amend the state’s 1955 sales and use tax, which established sales tax on revenue from personal property, and which has a slew of exemptions, many obtained through recent ballot initiatives. 

Now that it passed, Nevada will join 19 states — ranging from Texas to California — in exempting diapers from the sales tax. The exemption would begin in 2025 and last through the end of 2050.

Question 5 has been backed by legislators and a variety of local organizations, including the nonprofit diaper bank Baby’s Bounty and Battle Born Progress, a progressive organization.

Last year, in a letter to the lawmakers, Baby Bounty’s Executive Director Kelly Maxwell called diapers a “fundamental need” for a child’s health and argued that the measure would help secure access for at-need families. 

The state estimates that it will lose about $400 million in tax revenue over 25 years, according to the secretary of state’s ballot question summary.