It is the second straight cycle where the industry was the second-highest category of donor to state lawmakers, slotting in behind gaming groups, but this year’s haul had much more of a Republican lean than the 2022 cycle.

A new PAC pre-booked more than $9.4 million in ad buys in Las Vegas, Reno and on Satellite from Sept. 10 to Nov. 5, 2024.

Out of more than $856,000 in campaign contributions to state lawmakers last cycle from lawyers, law groups and legal political action committees, no single donor spent more on legislative campaigns than Citizens for Justice — the political arm of the Nevada Justice Association, an organization for Nevada trial lawyers. 

Question 3 will ask voters whether they want to overhaul the state’s election system and fundamentally change the way people cast votes.

While individual candidates are subject to a $10,000 contribution limit per cycle ($5,000 each for the primary and general), political action committees in Nevada are allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts.

Amounting to almost $2.3 million, the funds represent a significant investment in an initiative largely aimed at giving Nevada’s growing nonpartisan voters a greater voice in the election process. 

The resort association said it has already raised more than $2 million from association members to “recruit, assess, endorse, and elect state legislative candidates in 2022.” 

This year, members of Nevada’s new employee misclassification task force began meeting to address a problem that costs the state — and Nevada workers — millions of dollars each year. They have met four times this year, including a week ago.

SB218 comes on the heels of a previous tenants’ rights measure Ratti sponsored in 2019 — SB151 — that capped late fees landlords could charge. That stirred up a hornet’s nest of opposition from groups including the Nevada Association of REALTORS, and Ratti said it prompted some landlords to retaliate by eliminating grace periods for late payments and inventing new fees.

Nevada is, once again, healing, just as it did after the tourism industry was rocked by 9/11, the Great Recession and 1 October. That healing, though, has only ever been surface deep. The question now is whether history will repeat itself.

The discussion, which laid bare starkly different visions of how the state should be intervening in housing policy during the pandemic, comes at a time when home values are at record highs and homes are in short supply.

Experts estimate about 10 to 13 percent of renters, or more than 100,000 households, are behind on rent. Gov. Steve Sisolak announced Thursday a gradual lift of the eviction moratorium at a time when thousands are facing potential eviction notices and the state's unemployment rate, which peaked at more than 28 percent in April, is estimated to be worse than that seen in the Great Depression.

Of the 42 seats in the state Assembly, almost a quarter will be decided in the primary election. Four races will actually be decided in the primary — including three incumbent Republicans fending off challengers — because no other candidates filed to run in those districts. Another five races will effectively be decided in the primary, given vast disparity in voter registration totals making it all but impossible for the opposing party to gain a foothold.

Bishop said the market was "hot" before the coronavirus hit, and even in March, sales were going well. However, since the beginning of April, some of his clients have been cancelling transactions because of uncertainty.

More than 20 organizations signed on to a letter last week calling on Sisolak to issue a statewide moratorium on evictions to provide peace of mind to renters, who comprise 45 percent of Nevada households, and replace a confusing patchwork of orders from individual local courts offering varied levels of relief to tenants.

Good morning, and welcome to Indy 2020, a biweekly newsletter focused on the 2020 presidential election in Nevada. A reminder that email subscribers get early access to this newsletter, so be sure to subscribe and tell your friends. It’ll be peachy.

The two political action committees — Realtor Champion PAC and Realtor Industry PAC — were each registered with the state on the same day in December and given $1 million each by the REALTORS association. It’s part of an expanded strategy by the association (already a major contributor to legislative candidates of both parties) to play a larger role in recruiting and supporting candidates in both major political parties aligned with the industry after a 2019 legislative session that association President Chris Bishop called “one of the worst legislative sessions we've been through.”