As in legislative sessions past, The Nevada Independent is publishing a series of profiles featuring the new lawmakers in the state. Check back in coming days for additional stories on new legislators' backgrounds, interests and policy positions.

Assemblymember Rebecca Edgeworth 

• Edgeworth, a Republican, replaces Democratic Assm. Michelle Gorelow, who retired after scrutiny over ties with a nonprofit that received millions of dollars from a bill the Legislature passed in 2023. 
• She represents Assembly District 35, which cuts across which cuts across Southern Highlands and Mountains Edge in the Las Vegas Valley. A plurality of voters there (33 percent) are registered as nonpartisan, while 32 percent of voters are registered as Democrats and 29 percent are Republicans. 
• Edgeworth beat Democratic challenger Sharifa Wahab in the general election by nearly 10 percentage points (55.1 percent against 44.9 percent). 
• She sits on government affairs, health and human services and legislative operations and elections committees. 

Profile 

Rebecca Edgeworth never had politics on her “bucket list,” but seeing patients struggle during her years working as a physician finally compelled her to run for office this year. 

Edgeworth was born on Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas and, as a child, her family frequently moved, pushing her to become adaptable at a young age. On the military bases where she lived, “there was this cool mix of every kind of person,” while the surrounding areas had little diversity or even what Edgeworth says resembled de facto segregation.

“I became pretty adept at meeting all different kinds of people,” Edgeworth, 56, said.  Her husband, she noted, had a completely different experience, raised around the same people most of his life. They met in what Edgeworth called the small, local Jewish community in Las Vegas. 

That desire to figure people out compelled Edgeworth to study medicine. Today, she leads a physician assistant community outreach program at Touro University — a private university in Henderson — and works to help domestic violence victims, people experiencing homelessness and uninsured people access health care. 

Through her work, she’s seen countless people run into issues with insurance and Nevada’s health care system. Many of her patients are immigrants who don’t speak English and struggle to understand the American health care system.

“Everybody complains about medical care not being very good in Nevada and so I decided I would do something about it,” Edgeworth said.

She said she tries to understand her patients — whether they are Vietnamese monks or just arrived from Central America — to create a foundation of trust and respect. 

Edgeworth aims to continue learning about new cultures — through connecting with her patients or picking up Spanish and Tagalog. She frequently attends different cultural celebrations such as Dia de Los Muertos or Lunar New Year. 

Edgeworth attended the University of South Florida in Tampa for her undergraduate degree before attending medical school at the University of South Florida’s College of Medicine. She completed her residency at the University Medical Center Southern Nevada  in Las Vegas, returning to her “home.” 

“I think medical care could be a lot better in this state. I'm very excited to be the only practicing physician in the Assembly so that I can try to fix that. I think a lot of people want to fix that and that it's in the hearts of most legislators,” Edgeworth said. 

On the Issues 

Health care

Edgeworth says that one of her top focuses this session is health care. On top of wanting to address the state’s provider shortage, she seeks to tackle more specific health care concerns through her bills. 

One of the bills Edgeworth said she is most excited for is AB161, which would require hospice care programs to accept payment through Medicare and increase oversight of new hospice programs.  

Edgeworth is also working on another bill that seeks to decrease Medicaid fraud in the state. 

“Tricksters are getting away with getting millions of dollars. That's money that we could be using on other programs to help people who don't have a lot of care,” Edgeworth said. 

Education

Edgeworth, who works in the education sphere herself, said that she is a proponent of school choice, including Opportunity Scholarships, which provide private school scholarships to students from low- and middle-income households.

Edgeworth also said that she does not support funding universal free school meals for K-12 students, a measure that Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo controversially vetoed last session, drawing fierce criticism from Democrats. She believes that there are some affluent students who may not be in need of free meals and those funds would be better spent on making classroom sizes smaller or increasing teacher salaries. 

Housing

Edgeworth said she also has hesitations about revising the state’s summary eviction process. She expressed concerns that making it harder to evict tenants is going to make people less likely to want to be landlords.

She supports policies toward “making evictions fair, but not lengthening the process. I think that would not add more attainable housing,” Edgeworth said. 

Gun control

Edgeworth said she doesn’t think any major changes are needed to the state’s current gun laws. She opposes increasing the age from 18 to 21 to buy certain semiautomatic rifles and shotguns and doesn’t believe doing so would reduce gun violence. 

Film tax credits

Edgeworth said that she is excited about the idea of the Las Vegas area being a destination for the film industry, but said that “the devil is in the details” about whether she would support film tax credits. 

Elections

Edgeworth says that she is concerned about allegations of voter fraud and distrust in the  election system. She believes that it's unnecessary and a waste of taxpayer dollars to send mail-in ballots to every voter in the state.

Updated at 1:50 p.m. on 3/3/2025 to correct the location of District 35.