The government of Nevada is organized under the Constitution of Nevada of 1864 and divided into three branches of government. The executive branch consists of six independently elected officers, including the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer, and controller. The legislative branch is bicameral and comprises the Nevada Legislature, which includes the Assembly (lower house) and the Senate (upper house). The judiciary is headed by the Supreme Court of Nevada, which organizes and oversees the states appellate, district, justice, and municipal courts.
The state is subdivided into one independent city, the state's capital Carson City, and 16 counties: Clark, Washoe, Lyon, Nye, Elko, Douglas, Churchill, Humboldt, White Pine, Pershing, Lander, Mineral, Lincoln, Storey, Eureka, and Esmeralda. Each county is governed by an elected, partisan board of county commissioners. Unlike other states, county commissions in Nevada do not have to follow the separation of powers doctrine the state and federal governments must follow and in 2015, were granted functional home rule by the Legislature.
In addition to counties, Nevada has more than 100 special-purpose, overlapping, county-equivalent political subdivisions including health, water, school districts and 43 judicial townships. Unlike in other states, townships are not general purpose municipal governments. Nevada instead has judicial townships for the purpose of creating limited jurisdiction courts staffed by elected justices of the peace.
As independent county-level governments, school districts are consolidated at the county-equivalent level, except for two: a special-purpose state-wide publicly-funded charter school district (the Nevada State Public Charter School Authority or SPCSA) and one comprising schools at state correctional facilities. Other political subdivisions below the state level include a variety of water authorities, health districts, and regional special-purpose improvement districts created by the legislature.
After European settlement and prior to statehood in 1864, modern-day Nevada was previously governed by a succession of informal, popular governments as well as formal governments. These included the Nevada Territory from 1861 to 1864 and the Utah Territory from 1851 to 1861 in the United States. Non-permanent settlements between 1820 and 1848 were nominally part of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo México.
Constitution and laws
Drafted by a convention of delegates, Constitution of Nevada is the supreme state law became effective on October 31, 1864 when the Nevada Territory achieved statehood.. Based on the 1848 Constitution of California, the majority of the Constitution's framers not only were from California but had served in government there.
Three primary bodies of law apply state-wide and include the Constitution of Nevada, Nevada Revised Statues (NRS), and the Nevada Administrative Code (NAC). The current codified laws of Nevada are the Nevada Revised Statues, which include the legislation passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor. Executive agency regulations adopted by any of the executive branch agencies are codified as the Nevada Administrative Code.
Nevada Revised Statutes
Nevada Revised Statutes are the annotated codification of Nevada's laws, the United States and Nevada constitutions, certain court rules, various special and local acts, and other materials deemed appropriate by the legislative counsel of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.
Organized by subject matter, the laws are divided first into titles, each embracing a single topic, then into chapters covering specific subjects within that topic, and finally into individual sections, each immediately followed by its legislative history. The legislative history is denoted by numbers in brackets and parentheses corresponding to the page and year in the Statutes of Nevada where the section was originally derived or amended.
The NRS also contains comparative tables, a comprehensive index, and various annotations appearing after each provision, which may include reviser's notes explaining substantive provisions, cross-references to related statutes, administrative or constitutional provisions, and summaries of relevant court decisions, attorney general's opinions, or opinions of the Nevada Commission on Ethics.
Statutes of Nevada The Statutes of Nevada are the session laws and are a printed and bound compilation of all laws and resolutions enacted by the Legislature for a specific legislative year, published for every session since the establishment of the Nevada Territory. An indexed edition of the statutes are normally available within a few months of the close of a session. Prior to the final indexed version, a temporary, softbound compilation known as the advance sheets, which contains the same laws and resolutions in the same order and includes an index and locator tables are published.
Bills and resolutions appear in the Statutes of Nevada in the same form as the enrolled copies filed with the secretary of state, with new material printed in bolded italics and deleted material enclosed in brackets with strikethrough. Laws are arranged by chapter number assigned by the secretary of state in the order received from the governor.
In addition to the complete text of all laws and resolutions, the Statutes of Nevada contain indexed copies of the United States and Nevada constitutions, along with an index and several tables identifying amended, repealed, or newly added sections and chapters of the Nevada Revised Statutes, as well as selected special and local acts. The reprint of the NRS incorporates the statutory changes adopted during the previous session.
Nevada Administrative Code The Nevada Administrative Code (NAC) is the codified body of permanent regulations adopted by executive branch agencies. This process is governed by the Nevada Administrative Procedure Act, contained in NRS Chapter 233B. Under that law, certain bodies are exempt from these rule-making provisions and may write their own regulations, such as the governor, the Department of Corrections, and the Gaming Control Board among others.
Rulemaking may begin when the legislature mandates it, when an agency acts within its statutory authority, or when a member of the public petitions for it. Of the three types of regulation—permanent, temporary, and emergency—only permanent regulations become part of the NAC; temporary regulations expire by limitation, and emergency regulations last no more than 120 days.
The Nevada Register of Administrative Regulations, similar to the United States Federal Register, is published monthly by the Legislative Council Bureau, a body within the Legislature that acts on its behalf in between sessions, and is available online. Permanent regulations are added to the NAC upon approval by bureau.
Temporary and emergency regulations do not become part of the NAC, though both appear in the Register. For a temporary regulation to become permanent, the agency must anticipate the expiration date and submit a permanent regulation under the normal procedures. Emergency regulations must be endorsed by the governor and a regulation may be adopted by the emergency procedure only once. Regulations of agencies exempt from Chapter 233B are not included in the NAC unless the bureau authorizes their inclusion.
Legislative
The Nevada Legislature is the bicameral state legislature of the U.S. state of Nevada. Formed by the state's constitution of 1864, the Legislature consists of the Nevada Assembly, its lower house with 42 members and the Nevada Senate, its upper house with 21 members. The Constitution does not set a minimum size of the Legislature, but it does set a maximum of 75 legislators with the Senate not less than a third nor larger than a half of the size of the Assembly.
Regular sessions of the Legislature are biennial (once every two years), begin on the first Monday in February in odd-numbered years, and may not exceed 120 days. Originally, the Constitution limited the sessions to 60 days. In 1958, the 60 day-limit was removed by constitutional amendment. A trend towards longer and more expensive sessions was the primary motivator of the consitiutional amendment limiting sessions to 120 days.
Special sessions can be called by the governor and, since 2013, by the Legislature itself if two-thirds of lawmakers agree. Legislative work continues between sessions in standing committees and the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau.
In 2019, Nevada became the first U.S. state with a female-majority legislature. As of most recent 83rd () legislative session, women retain 62% of the seats overall and within each chamber, the highest in the nation.
, members of the Democratic Party have a majority in both chambers since 2009.
With a total of 63 seats, it is the nation's third-smallest state legislature after Alaska (60) and Delaware (62).
Legislative Counsel Bureau
The Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau is a legislative state agency that provides research, legal, fiscal, and administrative support to the Nevada Legislature. Created in 1945, it maintains offices in Carson City and Las Vegas and is supervised by the Nevada Legislative Commission, a twelve-member bipartisan body drawn from the Assembly and Senate that meets between the state's biennial sessions. The commission appoints the bureau's director, who holds the title of Legislative Counsel and serves as the commission's nonvoting recording secretary.
The bureau is divided into five units, including administrative, audit, fiscal analysis, legal, and research divisions. Each division is headed by an administrator appointed by the commission. Their responsibilities include personnel and IT support, performance and financial audits of executive agencies, revenue forecasting and budget analysis, bill drafting and legal opinions, and policy studies and legislative histories. The research division also operates the bureau's library and produces publications, among them the Political History of Nevada, a reference work maintained with the secretary of state since 1910 and issued in a twelfth edition in 2018.
During sessions, staff draft bills, support committees and floor proceedings, analyze amendments, and prepare fiscal notes. Between sessions, the bureau serves interim committees, tracks compliance with audit recommendations, supplies budget analysis to the interim finance committee, and reviews administrative regulations. The agency employed roughly 300 permanent staff as of 2018, supplemented by temporary session hires, and its employees are barred from lobbying, campaign work, and political advocacy.
Legislative Building The Legislature, Supreme Court, and governor originally shared the State Capitol in Carson City that was built between 1870 and 1871. Constructed from local sandstone with a silver-colored cupola tall and cost less than . Just after 1900, an octagonal annex was added to in order to house the Nevada State Library. Later, the Capitol doubled in size when wings were added to the north and south ends of the building. However, signs of aging became apparent by 1950 when the Legislature developed a plan to demolish the building and rebuild it from the ground up.
In 1959, the Legislature changed plans and decided instead to undergo a complete restoration of the building, the funding for which was passed in 1977. During its restoration, the entire building was gutted and retrofitted for modern building codes and earthquake resistance and installed a new Alaskan marble foyer. The original dome was replaced with a fiberglass construction replica.