Updating the Nevada Policy Tracker: A guide to key issues in the 2025 legislative session
Hundreds of proposed bills are being debated, amended, voted on and potentially signed into law during Nevada’s 83rd legislative session.
The state budget and the competing policy priorities of legislative Democrats (who hold solid majorities in both legislative chambers) and Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo are taking center stage.
The Nevada Independent is tracking key legislation and policy debates through our Nevada Policy Tracker, presenting a concise summary of what observers see as the most significant actions lawmakers are taking in major policy areas.
Scroll through the subject matter areas below for the most intriguing storylines in the Legislature this year and the state of play in different policy areas.
As the session progresses, our tracker will be updated to reflect the evolution of policy discussions, while this story will remain the same.
K-12 Education
Uncertainty is looming over K-12 education this session. Under Gov. Joe Lombardo’s proposed budget, per-pupil funding would remain relatively flat in a state that’s already $4,000 under the national average.
Although he has vowed no new taxes, groups including the Nevada State Education Association hope to eventually bring in more revenue for schools through AJR1, a proposed state constitutional overhaul of Nevada’s property tax system that aligns with one of the recommendations from the Commission on School Funding.
Lombardo’s major education policy bill seeks to make salary raises for educators approved in 2023 permanent and extend those raises to charter school educators. His bill would also continue transportation funding for charter schools. He’s proposed bonuses for continuously high-performing teachers and administrators.
The bill would also expand the state’s open enrollment policies and provide transportation support for students attending low-performing schools.
Senate Majority Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) also introduced her education omnibus bill, SB460, which seeks to expand free pre-K for families of all income levels to the extent funds are available, and create more oversight for school districts and private schools that enroll students in the state Opportunity Scholarship program.
Other prominent bills include AB398, sponsored by Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas), to offer extra pay to attract teachers to certain hard-to-fill positions; AB205, which would require parents to opt their students out of sex education curriculum, a reversal of the current opt-in system; AB416 and AB445, which push back on book ban efforts; and SB444, requiring school districts to adopt policies to limit students’ cellphone use.
Two bills by Assm. Selena Torres-Fossett (D-Las Vegas) and Lori Rogich (R-Las Vegas), AB494 and SB398, would codify federal protections for students with disabilities in case the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate the Department of Education jeopardizes federal services.
Education-related bills that have died include AB240, which would limit student athletes to sports based on their sex at birth; AB214, which would have increased the tax credits available to support the state’s Opportunity Scholarships program from $6.65 million to $30 million; and SB252, which would have revived the state’s Education Savings Account program.
— Rocio Hernandez
Health care
High costs, a lack of providers and possible cuts to Medicaid are dominating health care discussions in the Legislature.
Reproductive rights are also front and center. Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro’s (D-Las Vegas) SB217 seeks to require certain health plans, including Medicaid, to cover infertility treatment.
Assm. Selena Torres-Fossett’s (D-Las Vegas) AB176 would generally ban the state or any of its agencies from limiting access to contraception.
Notably, after the failure of SB139, Nevada continues to be the only state to criminalize self-managed abortions — the act of ending a pregnancy outside of a formal medical setting — after the 24th week of pregnancy.
Gov. Joe Lombardo highlighted health care costs in his January State of the State address. Though his health care policy bill has not yet been introduced, he has called for the state’s Department of Health and Human Services to be split into two agencies.
Lawmakers have already heard measures (SB262) to expand residency training and postdoctoral fellowships (a popular idea on both sides of the aisle), standardize the time frames for which insurance approvals are valid (AB290), set a deadline for providers to reimburse patients who overpay (AB282) and tackle the high cost of prescription drugs (SB316) by proposing to adopt drug prices negotiated by Medicare (AB259) and making changes to pharmacy benefits managers (SB316) — entities that administer an insurer’s prescription drug benefit plan.
Lawmakers are also considering Lombardo’s call to create an Office of Mental Health and improve care coordination for youth by restructuring state agencies.
There are also differing views on how to best address a nursing shortage. A major nurse union supports efforts to mandate nurse-to-patient ratio requirements (SB182) in medical facilities. But it opposes a hospital-supported proposal, SB32, to ease out-of-state nurses’ path into Nevada through a multistate licensure compact; that bill has died.
For the sixth legislative session, lawmakers are debating whether to legalize medical-aid-in-dying (AB346). Though Lombardo has vowed to veto the measure, the idea passed the Assembly with more support among GOP lawmakers than in past sessions.
Lawmakers have also focused on the medicinal potential of psychedelics with SJR10, calling on federal agencies to recategorize compounds classified as dangerous, prohibited drugs. Another measure, AB378, would establish a pilot program to treat people using certain psychedelic substances.
Underscoring the health care conversations is the potential for Medicaid cuts at the federal level that could increase Nevada’s uninsured population, harm the state’s efforts to overhaul its beleaguered children’s behavioral health system and further stress providers. Federal funding cuts could also further reduce services for people with disabilities, who have already been unable to receive certain supportive services because of a budget shortfall.
— Tabitha Mueller
Housing
To address Nevada’s housing affordability crisis, Gov. Joe Lombardo has called for changes including to streamline permitting processes and create pathways to homeownership for first responders, teachers and nurses.
He also wants to use state financing mechanisms to establish $1 billion in new “attainable” housing units affordable to people with middle incomes.
And he’s petitioning the federal government to release more public land for housing — a bipartisan effort, with Assembly Democrats introducing a resolution to that effect that passed out of the Assembly despite opposition from six Democrats.
Legislative Democrats have a variety of housing measures of their own, including reintroducing ideas Lombardo vetoed in 2023 to implement rent caps for seniors (AB280) and change the state’s unique summary eviction process (AB283), which requires tenants make the first filing in an eviction legal proceeding. Lombardo is open to it.
Lawmakers are also weighing measures to outlaw the purchase of more than 100 homes in a calendar year (SB391) to crack down on corporate purchasers of homes, require counties to pass laws that allow accessory dwelling units, colloquially known as granny flats (AB396), help eligible first-time homebuyers buy down the interest rate on mortgage loans (SB193), require landlords to disclose the total cost of rent without any hidden fees (AB121) and allow tenants to withhold rent payments if the home does not comply with habitability laws (AB223).
— Tabitha Mueller
Guns
Legislative Democrats are moving toward a showdown with Gov. Joe Lombardo, advancing several gun bills this session similar to ones that the Republican governor vetoed in 2023.
Members of the Assembly advanced on party lines AB245, a bill sponsored by Assm. Sandra Jauregui (D-Las Vegas) that would ban Nevadans younger than 21 years old from possessing semi-automatic rifles or shotguns, with exceptions for veterans or for activities such as hunting.
Another gun-related bill brought by Jauregui (AB105) would prohibit firearms within 100 feet of an election site. Only law enforcement, security personnel and lawful firearms in a private vehicle or property would be exempted. The bill was exempted from legislative deadlines.
Jauregui also brought a bill (AB451) that would have originally established a process for individuals to voluntarily give up their firearms if they were in a mental health crisis, but was amended to give law enforcement and gun dealers immunity from civil liability if they temporarily store a person’s firearms as a suicide prevention measure.
Similarly, Sen. Melanie Scheible (D-Las Vegas) is sponsoring SB347, which would authorize police officers to confiscate firearms from individuals in a mental health crisis. An amendment would allow firearms to be returned after the person undergoes treatment unless a police officer asks the court to not return the firearm if the individual has high-risk behavior or if they were already not allowed to own a gun.
Another gun-related bill (SB89) that would prohibit individuals from possessing a firearm if they’ve committed a hate crime in the past 10 years has been exempted from legislative deadlines. Lombardo vetoed a similar bill last session.
Several Republican-backed gun bills — including one making concealed carry permits valid for 10 years instead of five, failed to advance.
— Lizzie Ramirez
Criminal justice
As promised during his State of the State address, Gov. Joe Lombardo introduced a sweeping crime bill (SB457) that would reduce the dollar amount at which a theft is considered a felony, increase penalties for repeat offenders and lower the drug quantity threshold required to trigger drug trafficking charges.
Lombardo, however, said that the bill, which is estimated to cost the Nevada Department of Corrections an extra $42 million, is unlikely to pass given its current form. It remains exempt from passage deadlines.
A few other criminal justice bills are still in play, including AB16 to appropriate $10 million in state funds to build a new Mineral County jail.
SB350, which would lengthen the required time between when the death penalty is ordered and an execution is carried out, passed out of the Senate along party lines, with Democrats in support. SB334, which requires the director of the Nevada Department of Corrections to submit a yearly report on the employment status of incarcerated individuals, also passed 14-7.
One highest-profile proposal to survive the first major deadline was AB381, sponsored by Assm. Melissa Hardy (R-Henderson), which would have extended prison time for people convicted of animal cruelty. That bill known as “Reba’s Law,” after an English bulldog that died in Southern Nevada, was granted an exemption after public outcry triggered a last-minute committee vote.
Besides that, Republicans have largely focused on sex trafficking, although many of their proposals failed to pass. Sen. Lisa Krasner’s (R-Reno) SB110, which would increase prison time for people facilitating sex trafficking, was never heard.
Many other contentious public safety proposals failed to pass. SB415, which would have greenlit (pun intended) automated red light traffic enforcement, failed to make it out of committee – a move celebrated by the American Civil Liberties Union, which said that the measure raised data privacy concerns and predatory fee collection issues.
— Isabella Aldrete
Elections
Several election-related measures are progressing through the Legislature, with a focus on speeding up ballot counting and not changing people’s access to mail ballots — and some measures have bipartisan support.
The Assembly unanimously passed AB148, sponsored by Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) and Assembly Minority Leader Gregory Hafen (R-Pahrump), which would require all sample ballots be sent to voters before mail ballots are distributed and provide a clearer timeline for when mail ballots must go out.
The Assembly also unanimously passed AB73, a bill on behalf of the secretary of state’s office requiring disclosure of artificial intelligence used in campaign materials.
The secretary of state’s office has also prioritized speeding up ballot counting by giving local governments more resources — a provision now in AB287, sponsored by Assm. Cecelia Gonzalez (D-Las Vegas).
The office is also behind AB79, a bill that passed along mostly party lines to amend the process for addressing campaign finance violations and allows officials to use unspent contributions for everyday costs incurred because of their role.
Yeager is also sponsoring AB306, which would increase the number of ballot drop boxes the weekend before Election Day — a gap during which many drop boxes are inaccessible — with the intention of counting more ballots before Election Day. It passed the Assembly with all Democrats and one Republican — Assm. Lisa Cole (R-Las Vegas) — in support.
Sen. Skip Daly’s (D-Reno) SB102 is his second attempt to criminalize fake elector schemes. Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed the 2023 version, but the latest iteration carries less severe penalties. Daly is also proposing SB100, which would make it a felony for county election officials who do not perform their duties on time.
But don’t expect changes to deadlines for accepting ballots. Existing law allows mail ballots to be received up to four days after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.
SB103, sponsored by Sen. Lisa Krasner (R-Reno), would have required all ballots mailed to an election clerk to be postmarked by the end of early voting, and received before polls close on Election Day. It was dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Legislature.
But Gov. Joe Lombardo indicated in his State of the State address in January that he would be support a ballot question regarding the mail ballot timeline if the Legislature failed to act.
There also won’t be changes to signature curing deadlines. Existing law allows voters to fix signatures on mail ballots by the sixth day following the election. A bill from Assm. Ken Gray (R-Dayton) to halve that timeline (AB178) never received a hearing.
— Eric Neugeboren
Economic
Cost-of-living has been top of mind for state lawmakers.
Among the most prominent related proposals is AB388, sponsored by Assm. Selena La Rue Hatch (D-Reno), which would require public and private employers with at least 50 employees to provide their workers with 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave.
The bill, which was exempt from legislative deadlines, has received pushback from Republicans and the business community, which has argued that it would place further burdens on employers.
Additionally, AB44, brought by the attorney general’s office, would prohibit increasing prices of essential goods, such as food, shelter and medication, beyond the “basic forces of supply and demand.” It passed the Assembly, but without the support of three Democrats.
The business community has also opposed the bill, arguing that price fixing is already illegal in Nevada and that it was unclear what types of price increases would be subject to prosecution.
Other bills that have passed include Sen. Julie Pazina’s (D-Las Vegas) SB338, dubbed the “Taylor Swift bill,” which requires sellers to disclose the total price of tickets, including mandatory fees. A proposed constitutional amendment (AJR8) from Assm. Joe Dalia (D-Henderson) would also establish a new type of court in Nevada to oversee business cases.
In the economic development space, there are two proposals aimed at significantly expanding the state’s film tax credit to lure film production to Nevada. Both have received exemptions from legislative deadlines, but they passed out of committee “without recommendation,” meaning lawmakers advanced the bill without supporting it as written.
The proposal with momentum is AB238, sponsored by Assm. Sandra Jauregui (D-Las Vegas), which has the backing of Sony and Warner Bros., as well as many trades unions, but opponents have been skeptical that it would be worth the investment and help regions outside of Southern Nevada.
Gov. Joe Lombardo also has a yet-to-be-released economic development proposal that he said would modernize the state’s tax incentive and abatement program. He also proposed $24 million in tax credits for the construction of child care facilities.
— Eric Neugeboren
Environment and energy
A wide variety of environmental and energy-related bills are still in play this session after clearing deadlines or being exempted from them.
Both the Assembly and Senate are looking at water bills (SB36 and AB104) that would establish tools to permanently retire water rights from voluntary sellers.
Another water bill, AB9, looks to expand the amount of time irrigators can temporarily forgo use from three to 10 years. It would protect irrigators from “use it or lose it” rules, with proposed safeguards to prevent speculators from taking advantage.
Lawmakers are also talking about plastic — SB324, which mimics similar initiatives on the California side of Lake Tahoe, would prohibit the sale of single-use plastic water bottles on the Nevada side of the lake; SB173, an omnibus environment and health bill, would prohibit the sale of certain products containing perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl, more commonly known as PFAS or “forever chemicals.”
Other bills aimed at protecting Nevadans include SB442, which would require utilities to report to the state when they disconnect customers because of non-payment. And, outdoor workers could get workplace protections from poor air quality, particularly during wildfires, under SB260.
And in matters affecting utilities, NV Energy is lobbying hard against bills that would affect the company’s bottom line.
AB452 directs state energy regulators to potentially adopt what’s called a fuel cost sharing mechanism, which would have the utility take on a portion of fuel costs instead of having it be paid 100 percent by customers, and AB458, which would enable property owners to install rooftop solar on multifamily affordable housing properties to expand net metering access to low-income renters.
Eyes are also on the utility to see if it will bring forward a bill to protect it in case its equipment was to start a wildfire. The utility has been silent on the matter, but Berkshire Hathaway, its parent company, has pushed through similar legislation in other states.
— Amy Alonzo
Gaming and tourism
The two most contentious gaming industry bills introduced this session have died at deadlines.
A proposed constitutional amendment to implement a Nevada lottery, AJR5, did not move forward because of concerns about economic uncertainty, implementation costs and a small amount of projected revenue, according to Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas). The measure had been approved in the 2023 session but required a second round of legislative approvals before voters could weigh in on ending the 159-year-old constitutional prohibition on Nevada operating a lottery.
Also, a daily hotel room-cleaning mandate, SB360, didn’t receive a hearing or committee vote after it was introduced by Sen. Lori Rogich (R-Las Vegas). Gov. Joe Lombardo signaled he would veto the bill, which was attempting to resurrect a pandemic-era requirement that all hotel rooms be cleaned daily. The bill was opposed by the resort industry.
Requirements to enter a casino’s private gaming salon for high-end players could loosen through SB459, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas). It would remove a $500 minimum wager requirement on slot machines and allow the casino to set the minimum wager with approval from the Gaming Control Board.
Meanwhile, a bill to curtail illegal gambling in Nevada, SB256, was unanimously passed in the Senate and is awaiting a hearing in the Assembly. The legislation from Sen. Rochelle Nguyen (D-Las Vegas) would allow Nevada courts to impose stiffer fines beyond the existing $50,000 maximum fine for violating the state’s online gaming laws.
Though a measure from Sen. John Steinbeck (R-Las Vegas), SB371, sought to stiffen penalties for crimes committed at a casino, the bill was heavily amended and now only addresses trespassing.
Another measure, SB431, would have repealed an exemption from the live entertainment tax for Nevada-based professional sports teams playing in Nevada, but that was amended out. The bill now proposes to assess the live entertainment tax on certain resales and revises the distribution of the taxes.
Still alive are SB46, which would allow the control board to investigate whether a license holder previously found unsuitable has not divested their ownership in a gaming operation, and AB58, which would allow the control board to administratively approve new casino games without additional approval from the Nevada Gaming Commission.
— Howard Stutz
Immigrant communities
Legislative Democrats have introduced several measures to push back against President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda and grant additional protections to Nevada’s undocumented community of nearly 170,000 people.
Assm. Cecelia González (D-Las Vegas), the chair of the Latino Legislative Caucus, had two bills survive initial legislative deadlines: AB217, which would ban immigration officials from school facilities, passed the Assembly 31-11, while AB460, which would streamline the process for obtaining temporary guardianship for a child whose parents were deported, was declared exempt from deadlines.
The Assembly also passed a resolution along party lines urging Congress to ban immigration enforcement activity in schools and places of worship.
Another one of immigrant advocacy groups’ biggest priorities is to address street vending regulations authorized in 2023 they see as overly burdensome.
Sen. Fabian Donate’s (D-Las Vegas) SB295, which requires local boards of health in Clark and Washoe counties to more specifically outline acceptable practices for street vendors and would prohibit them from stopping the sale of certain kinds of food from those vendors, passed out of the Senate. But AB180, sponsored by Assm. Reuben D’Silva (D-North Las Vegas), which sought to streamline the street vending licensing process, failed to make it out of its first committee.
There were also a slew of measures to improve access for people with limited English proficiency, such as AB367, which seeks to increase language access in elections, and SB188 which would do the same in health care settings.
Republicans also introduced some measures to beef up coordination between local law enforcement and federal immigration officials, which ultimately failed to pass.
Sen. John Ellison’s (R-Elko) SB267, which would have removed restrictions on local law enforcement's cooperation with federal immigration authorities and repealed a requirement to inform prisoners about the purpose of immigration-related questioning, was never heard.
— Isabella Aldrete
Cannabis
Legislators introduced several measures this session to rein in Nevada’s illicit cannabis market, but most proposals that sought to crackdown on enforcement are stuck in budget committees.
Early on in the session, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo slashed hopes for SB360, which aimed to tackle the illicit market by mandating daily room cleaning in hotels and casinos.
AB76, which would have authorized the Cannabis Compliance Board to issue summonses and subpoenas to unlicensed cannabis sellers, and AB203, which would have added enforcement responsibilities for the Department of Public Safety, passed out of committee but were referred to budget committees and have not received a floor vote.
But measures that deal with the regulatory side of the cannabis industry proved to be more successful.
Sen. Rochelle Nguyen’s (D-Las Vegas) SB168, which passed out of the Senate almost unanimously, would give the Cannabis Compliance Board the authority to issue holds on cannabis products which are deemed a public health risk. It would also limit the amount of usable cannabis sold in a single package to 2.5 oz or 3,500 mg of concentrated cannabis.
SB41, which would require businesses that sell cannabis products to have a cannabis tax permit, also passed out of the Senate. Assm. Danielle Gallant’s (R-Las Vegas) AB307 which would eliminate the excise tax (the tax that merchants pay) on wholesale cannabis sales and offset that by increasing the retail tax, passed out of committee without a recommendation and was moved to a budget committee.
The Cannabis Compliance Board submitted a fiscal note estimating that the tax changes from AB307 would yield an additional $153 million in tax revenue per biennia.
— Isabella Aldrete
State government
A prominent bill to significantly overhaul the state’s occupational licensing boards,SB78, only passed its committee so that it could move through the legislative process, rather than on its merits.
The bill proposed by the Department of Business and Industry and a priority for Gov. Joe Lombardo, received significant opposition at a hearing in April.
Another early failed bill was AB33, brought by the controller’s office, which would have created an Office of the Inspector General to audit any recipient of state funding. It’s the fifth session in a row with an inspector general bill failing to pass the Legislature. Another bill brought by the controller’s office (SB2) would have subjected government employee collective bargaining talks to the state’s open meeting law, but it never received a hearing and died.
It wasn’t the only transparency proposal to fail. Assm. Heidi Kasama (R-Las Vegas) proposed multiple constitutional amendments that would have subjected the Legislature itself to the open meeting law and public records requests, but those never received a hearing.
A prominent state worker bill is AB188, sponsored by Assm. Max Carter (D-Las Vegas), which would expand employee eligibility for subsidies that cover part of their health care benefits following retirement. It is exempt from legislative deadlines.
— Eric Neugeboren