With two weeks left in the Nevada Legislature, lawmakers pick up the pace
The end is near.
Legislators are burning the midnight oil in Carson City, pushing through hundreds of bills. Last week marked the major second committee passage deadline, and there is one more major deadline between now and the final day of the session on June 2.
Bills without exemptions must pass out of the second house by Friday to get the governor’s consideration.
That means there are roughly two weeks for committees to consider some of the most talked-about legislation of the session. Gov. Joe Lombardo’s remaining four priority pieces of legislation still need to have their first hearings. At least one of the bills is scheduled to go in front of the Assembly Ways and Means committee this week. Assembly Bill 584, his education package, will be heard Tuesday morning.
But beware: A missed deadline does not mean a piece of legislation is doomed. Policies can be revived or amended into existing bills, prolonging their discussions until sine die, when the 2025 session ends.
Here’s what’s going on in Nevada’s capital.
Recapping the recent deadline
Last week was eventful for the biennial Legislature. It pushed bills through the second committee passage deadline, and advanced some major bills that had been exempt from the deadline.
First, the bid to stop Nevada’s clocks from changing twice a year failed. AB 81, which would have exempted Nevada from daylight saving time, didn’t make it out of the second committee passage.
An amended version of the governor’s AB 540, called the Nevada Housing Access and Attainability Act, passed out of the Assembly Committee on Commerce and Labor on Friday – the first of the governor’s priority bills to make through committee.
It was amended to decrease the amount put into the proposed Nevada Attainable Housing Fund from $200 million to $150 million, and to remove a portion that would have allowed attainable housing projects to be exempt from prevailing wage requirements.
In other news from deadline day, an amended version of the SB 179, which would allow the Nevada Equal Rights Commission to investigate claims of antisemitism in housing, public accommodations and employment, passed out of committee.
During the bill’s discussion May 13, Jewish advocacy groups called for the bill to be amended to use the widely recognized definition of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
Other dead bills
In addition to the death of the daylight saving time bill, 30 other measures failed to advance the Friday deadline.
Among them:
■ AB 156 would have increased the salary of Clark County School District trustees to the base salary of a county commissioner.
■ AB 291 would have automatically sealed criminal records for defendants who had their charges dismissed or who were acquitted.
■ SB 143 would have required a study on artificial turf and synthetic grass during the 2025-2026 interim.
■ SB 324 would have prohibited the sale of most water bottles in communities abutting Lake Tahoe.
It’s far less than the 281 measures that failed the first committee passage deadline on April 11. But there are still 414 bills and resolutions as of Monday that are exempt from all deadlines, most often because they contain an appropriation or would have a fiscal or revenue impact to the state.
Monday updates
That brings us to Monday. Agendas have grown longer for money committees, where lawmakers are hearing bills with significant fiscal impact to the state, some for the first time. The Senate passed SB 89, a bill preventing someone convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime from purchasing or owning firearms for up to 10 years after the conviction. The bill passed 12-8 and still must be considered by the Assembly.
The Democrats’ answer to education policy — SB 460, sponsored by state Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro – was heard for the first time Monday afternoon.
Contact McKenna Ross at mross@reviewjournal.com and Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ and @jess_hillyeah on X.