May 14, 2021
Welcome to the end of the 15th week of the Nevada Legislative Session! We have reached a very important deadline, Second Committee Passage, and there are now only 18 days left to go until we’re done. A good amount of our bills were voted out and are moving on to the next stages. One of these was AB195, the English Language Learners rights bill. It will be voted on the Senate floor next week with a minor amendment. SB420, which provides a public healthcare option. It was voted out with some clarifying amendments and amendments to allow for a couple different health insurance plans. Lastly, was AB141 for sealing Covid-19 evictions due to non-payment.
There are also a few of the bills we were supporting that are not moving forward. SB218, the tenants rights bill, which provided a late fee grace period, expedited the security deposit process, got rid of predatory fees, and made it so the full rent amount that had to be on the first page of the lease did not get voted through. To say we are disappointed is an understatement. This bill would have helped so many people. We still have AB161, which was turned into a study looking at how we can get rid of summary evictions.If anything comes out of that study, it won’t happen in this session, so we will continue to work hard for the next one in 2023. Another bill not moving forward is AB395, which repealed the death penalty. Once again, we are extremely disappointed this did not make it through. We were hoping to be the next state to join the 22 other states that successfully repealed it.
These were just a couple of bills that are not moving forward. We still have a lot of good bills that we are fighting for this legislative session. That means our work will continue on past the legislative session to make sure we have good bills for our community.
There are still a few upcoming deadlines left. Friday, May 21 is the Second House Passage. All these bills that are moving forward need to be voted out of the house that they are in currently. Budget hearings have been happening and now as we are getting to the end they will be putting everything together into budget bills. These will fund the state of Nevada for the next two years. These have to be out of committee by May 26. We will be seeing a lot of hearings in finance and ways and means. The final deadline that ends it all is May 31st. No other legislative work will be able to be done.
Join our Digital Activation Team or Rapid Response Team to help us out and stay up to date on what is happening with these bills, or join our Organizing Team to engage legislators. All the information is on our website along with all our Legislative priorities which are now available for you to look over here. Thank you for being a part of this journey through the Nevada Legislative Session with us, and stay tuned for more updates next week!