This story was updated at 12:10 p.m. on 5/4/26 to add a disclosure that the author is publicly backing and raising money for Reno mayoral candidate Tim Ross, who has not held elected public office before.

This story was updated at 10:27 a.m. on 5/5/26 to add a disclosure that the author is publicly backing and raising money for Washoe County district attorney candidate Wes Duncan.

I have spent more than two decades representing clients in Nevada civil litigation, and one of the first things a young lawyer learns in a negligence case is that what's legal and what's reasonable are not the same thing. The law tolerates a great deal of legal conduct that falls below a reasonable standard of care. Entire industries sometimes operate below that standard for years until someone finally asks whether the customary practice is actually safe for the public.

The question is never simply whether the conduct is legally permitted. The question is whether the conduct is reasonable under the circumstances.

Nevada politics has a practice that deserves that question. Sitting officeholders routinely campaign for higher office without resigning the seat they already hold — without forfeiting the salary, the staff, the platform or the donor relationships that come with it. 

The practice is lawful. The practice is also negligent in precisely the sense a jury would recognize. It falls below the standard of care our democracy deserves.

When a state senator files to run for Congress during a four-year legislative term, the senator retains their legislative seat regardless of the success or failure of their congressional campaign. Similarly, when a county commissioner runs for attorney general or some other statewide office, the commission seat remains theirs unless they are elected to the new position. 

In the 2026 electoral cycle, as in preceding cycles, numerous state and local races follow this pattern. None of these actions violate any statute or regulation. Nevertheless, collectively, such practices reflect a deficiency in civic imagination, a shortcoming for which society continues to bear the consequences. 

Consider what the sitting officeholder actually carries into a race for a different seat. They carry name recognition purchased with taxpayer-funded constituent mail and press coverage. They carry fundraising relationships with donors and lobbyists who have business before the current body. They carry a platform, a title and the implicit signal that losing the race will not cost a thing.

The opponent carries none of this. The playing field is tilted before the first vote is cast.

The donor side of this arrangement deserves particular attention. When a sitting officeholder asks for a check for the next campaign, the donor knows two things. First, the donor knows that the officeholder may or may not successfully be elected to the new position they are seeking. Second, the officeholder will remain in office whether the check gets them elected to the new position or not. The request is therefore not a clean ask for support in a future role. It is also an implicit reminder of present power, leveraging the current elected seat for the potential future elected seat.

I wrestled with whether to name names in this piece, and I want to explain why I have decided to name some. The argument I am making is structural rather than personal, and I do not want anyone to read this column as a hit piece. 

Even so, an argument without examples is just an abstraction, and Nevada's 2026 cycle offers more than enough illustrations to make the point concrete. Each of the candidates named below is, by all accounts I am aware of, running a lawful campaign in good faith. None of them is doing anything that the rules forbid. That is precisely the point.

In the current cycle, state Sen. Carrie Buck (R-Henderson) is running for a House seat while keeping her state seat in District 5, which runs through 2028. Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) is running for attorney general while keeping her seat in District 6, also through 2028. Washoe County Commissioner Alexis Hill (D) is running for governor while keeping her commission seat through 2028. Douglas County Commissioner Danny Tarkanian (R) is running for attorney general while keeping his commission seat, also through 2028. In Sparks, City Attorney Wes Duncan (R) is running for Washoe County district attorney while keeping his city attorney seat through 2028. (Disclosure: I publicly support and have raised money for Duncan.) Reno City Council members Kathleen Taylor and Devon Reese are running for mayor while keeping their council seats, which run through 2028.  

Consider what the Reno mayoral race alone illustrates. Two sitting members of the city council are competing against each other and against several first-time candidates for the same office. (Disclosure: I am publicly and financially backing first-time candidate Tim Ross in this race.) Whoever loses returns to the council, and whoever wins triggers either an appointment by the remaining council members or a special election funded by Reno taxpayers. Most of the candidates in the race carry the full risk of running. The two council members carry none. 

The donors and businesses with matters before the council know exactly where to direct their checks, because a check to either council member is a check to a current officeholder regardless of how the mayoral race ends. 

Voters elect an officeholder to do a particular job for a particular term. When the elected official begins campaigning for a different job in the middle of that term, the original promise to voters has been quietly renegotiated without their consent.

The public cost of the practice is real, and in Nevada, it takes a particularly troubling form at the state level. When a state legislator wins a different office midterm, the vacancy is not filled by special election. It is filled by appointment. Under NRS 218A.260, the relevant board of county commissioners selects the replacement, and the commission must choose someone from the same political party as the departing legislator.

Voters do not cast a ballot. Voters do not winnow a field. Voters do not get to ask a single question of the person who will cast their votes in Carson City for the remainder of the term. 

The only people who get to weigh in are a small group of county commissioners, some of whom may themselves be politically indebted to the legislator who just vacated the seat. 

The problem is not limited to the Legislature. A county commissioner vacancy is filled by gubernatorial appointment, with the governor required to pick from the same political party. Other county officer vacancies are filled by the board of county commissioners itself. In other cases, a special election is held, which means the city or the county pays the bill. Municipal special elections in Nevada routinely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the money comes from the same general fund that pays for police, fire protection, street maintenance and parks. 

Either outcome is a loss for voters. Voters lose their voice to an appointment or voters lose their tax dollars to an election that would not have been necessary if the officeholder had simply resigned before running.

The costs are similar at the federal level. A congressional special election in Nevada can easily cost the state hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the bill is paid from the Reserve for Statutory Contingency Account whenever the contest cannot be consolidated with another election. 

That money does not materialize from nowhere. It comes from the same general treasury that funds roads, schools and public safety. Every time a sitting officeholder wins a higher seat midterm, voters pay twice. They pay once in the election that installed the officeholder and again in the election that replaces them.

The remedy is not complicated. Nevada should adopt a resign-to-run requirement. If a sitting officeholder wants to seek a different office, that officeholder should file a resignation before filing a candidacy. Five states have such laws on the books: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii and Texas. Florida has required resign-to-run for decades. The policy is neither radical nor novel. It simply aligns the officeholder's personal ambition with the risk every ordinary citizen already bears when they step forward to seek public service.

Opponents of resign-to-run laws argue that the policy discourages qualified candidates from running for higher office. They say it drains experienced talent from legislative bodies. Both arguments rest on the assumption that the current system is working. I do not believe it is working. The system is working for career politicians who treat public office as a ladder, and it is failing the voters who are asked to subsidize the climb.

If the practice is lawful, why does it feel so wrong? The answer is that our civic instincts are tuned to a standard the law has not yet codified. We sense that a person who asks us to entrust them with a four-year term and then spends the middle of that term auditioning for a different job has broken faith with the original promise. We sense that a person who seeks a new office while keeping the old one has arranged matters so the voters bear all the risk and the candidate bears none. We sense that a system tolerating this arrangement year after year has grown negligent toward the people it exists to serve.

Leadership sometimes requires asking whether a legal practice is also a right practice. Nevada's political establishment has avoided the question for too long. The Legislature should take it up in the 2027 session. 

And the sitting officeholders currently campaigning for different offices while drawing their current salaries should consider, as a matter of conscience rather than compulsion, whether the right thing to do is simply to resign.

The law permits what it permits. But the integrity of our electoral system requires more.

Jason D. Guinasso is an attorney with Greenman Goldberg Raby & Martinez in Reno and Las Vegas. Licensed in Nevada and California, he is a litigator and trial attorney. He holds a Masters Degree in Leadership, Theology and Society. The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the author in his personal capacity and do not necessarily reflect the views of his law firm, its clients or any other organization with which the author may be affiliated.