Latest news with #AssemblyBill223
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Too busy fretting over you-know-who to follow the NV Legislature? The Current's got you covered.
(Photo: Jeniffer Solis/Nevada Current) The Nevada Current's small but mighty staff of five has so far covered dozens of bills introduced into the 2025 Legislative Session. If you've missed a story or two (or dozen) of them, we understand. (There. Is. A. Lot. Going. On.) Here's a look at the bills that caught our eye and where they are, complete with links to our prior coverage. The next major legislative deadline is Tuesday, April 22. By that date, non-exempt bills need to be voted on by either the full Senate or the full Assembly. * Notes: Bills exempt from legislative deadlines are marked with an asterisk. Lead sponsors are listed in parentheses. Bills with no lead sponsor listed are sponsored by interim committees. (State Sen. Dina Neal, D) would establish a corporate landlord registry and cap purchasing power for corporate owners. Status: Passed Senate Judiciary. Assembly Bill 121 (Assemblymember Venicia Considine, D) would require all non-optional fees, such as sewer and water, be listed in advertisements for rental properties. It would also require landlords to offer a free way for tenants to pay rent. Status: Passed Assembly Commerce and Labor. Assembly Bill 201 (Assemblymember Erica Roth, D) would expand efforts to automatically seal eviction records. Status: Passed Assembly Judiciary. (Assemblymember Venicia Considine, D) would allow a third party to take over the property until repairs are made and living conditions improved. Passed Assembly Commerce and Labor. Assembly Bill 223 (Assemblymember Venicia Considine, D) would give tenants more power to hold landlords accountable for failing to provide livable conditions. Status: Passed Assembly Commerce and Labor. Assembly Bill 280 (Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui, D) proposes rent stabilization for seniors. Status: Passed Assembly Commerce and Labor. (Assemblymember Max Carter, D) would restructure the eviction process. Status: Passed Assembly Judiciary. Assembly Bill 437 (Assemblymember Jill Dickman, R) would establish a Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) plan. Status: Passed Assembly Commerce and Labor. Assembly Bill 475* would provide funding for eviction diversion programs in Clark and Washoe counties. Status: Heard by Assembly Ways and Means, no action taken. * (Gov. Joe Lombardo, R) would allocate $250 million to build more housing and expand the definition of affordable housing to include people with higher incomes. Status: Heard by Assembly Commerce and Labor, no action taken. Senate Bill 218 (State Sen. James Ohrenschall, D) would adopt the Uniform Antitrust Pre-Merger Notification Act, requiring companies to submit to the state attorney general the same notices and information they are already required to provide federal agencies prior to mergers or acquisitions. Passed Senate Commerce and Labor. (State Sen. Rochelle Nguyen, D) would curb how much profit pharmacy benefit managers can make. Status: Passed Senate Commerce and Labor. mandates utilities report the number of disconnections due to non-payment. Status: Passed Senate Growth and Infrastructure. Assembly Bill 44 (Attorney General Aaron Ford, D) seeks to crack down on 'knowingly deceptive' price fixing. Status: Passed Assembly Commerce and Labor. Assembly Bill 204 (Assemblymember Max Carter, D) would prevent collection agencies from threatening to arrest people for debt, obtain a lien against a primary residence, seek to foreclose on home, or garnish wages. Status: Passed Assembly Commerce and Labor. Senate Bill 54 would require the state's Department of Health and Human Services to apply for a federal waiver and amend the state Medicaid plan to cover medical respite care for people experiencing homelessness. Passed Senate Health and Human Services. Senate Bill 244* (State Sen. Roberta Lange, D) would expand the types of obesity treatments covered by Nevada Medicaid, including approving weight-loss drugs like Ozempic for wider use. Status: Passed Senate Health and Human Services, referred to Senate Finance. Senate Bill 353* (State Sen. Marilyn Dondero Loop, D) would increase Medicaid reimbursement for mental health providers. Passed Senate Commerce. * (State Sen. Nicole Cannizzaro, D) would establish the right to assisted reproduction treatment, including in vitro fertilization. Status: Passed Senate Health and Human Services. (Assemblymember Selena Torres-Fossett, D), known as the Right to Contraception Act, would strengthen protections against a state or local government burdening access to contraceptive measures. Status: Passed Assembly Health and Human Services. Assembly Bill 235 (Assemblymember Erica Roth, D) protects employees and volunteers of reproductive health care facilities, as well as their spouses, domestic partners or minor children, by allowing them to request a court order that keeps their personal information confidential on otherwise public records within the offices of county recorder, county assessor, county clerk, city clerk, Secretary of State, or Department of Motor Vehicles. Status: Passed Assembly Government Affairs. (Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui, D) would allow prescriptions for drugs used for medical abortions and miscarriage management to list the name of the prescribing health care practice, rather than the name of the specific individual providing the prescription. Status: Passed Assembly Health and Human Services. Initiative Petition 1, the Clark County Education Association-backed ballot measure that would give Nevada teachers the right to strike, passed the deadline for consideration by the Nevada State Legislature. That deadline was in mid-March but came and went with no fanfare because CCEA leadership has made it clear they are using it as a bargaining chip for their other legislative priorities. The 'A Teacher In Every Classroom' question is now slated to appear on next year's general election ballot unless the union voluntarily withdraws it. Senate Bill 172 (Senator Edgar Flores, D) seeks to bolster protections for farm workers and amend overtime pay laws to include agriculture workers. Status: Passed Senate Commerce and Labor. Assembly Bill 112 (Assemblymember Duy Nguyen, D) would allow workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to use their accrued leave to care for family members. Status: Passed Assembly Commerce and Labor. * (Assemblymember Natha Anderson, D) — give graduate assistants the right to collectively bargain for better pay and conditions. Status: Passed Assembly Government Affairs, referred to Assembly Ways and Means. Assembly Bill 388* (Assemblymember Selena La Rue Hatch, D) — requires private employers with more than 50 workers, as well as all public employers, to provide paid family and medical leave. Status: Passed Assembly Commerce and Labor, referred to Assembly Ways and Means. Assembly Joint Resolution 1* (Assemblymember Natha Anderson, D) would let voters in 2028 decide whether the taxable value of property should reset when a home is sold. Status: Passed Assembly Revenue. Assembly Joint Resolution 8 (Assemblymember Joe Dalia, D) would let voters in 2028 decide whether Nevada should establish a dedicated business court with the goal of enticing large companies to incorporate here. Status: Heard by Assembly Judiciary, then withdrawn and put on the Chief Clerk's desk. On Monday, taken off the Chief Clerk's desk and amended. Assembly Bill 256 (Assemblymember Selena La Rue Hatch, D) would create a Regional Rail Transit Advisory Working Group to assess the need for a regional rail system in the state's largest metro areas, as well as potential funding sources for such a system. Passed Assembly Legislative Operations and Elections. (Assemblymember Rich DeLong, D) would make the Net Proceeds of Minerals Bulletin public again. Status: Passed Assembly Revenue. would allow the Clark County Commission to extend fuel revenue indexing (FRI) an additional decade beyond its current sunset date. Status: Passed Assembly Growth and Infrastructure. (Storey County) would require companies seeking massive tax abatements to enter into agreements to defray the costs of the government-provided services they would require. Status: Passed Senate Revenue and Economic Development. (Assemblymember Natha Anderson) would bar most HOAs from prohibiting licensed home-based childcare operations within their communities. Status: Passed Assembly Government Affairs. Assembly Bill 238* (Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui, D) is known as the Nevada Studio Infrastructure Jobs and Workforce Training Act. It massively expands the state's film tax credit program to support a production studio in Summerlin in Las Vegas. Status: Heard by Assembly Revenue, referred to Assembly Ways and Means. Senate Bill 220* (State Sen. Roberta Lange, D) is known as the Nevada Film Infrastructure, Workforce Development, Education and Economic Diversification Act. It massively expands the state's film tax credit program to support a production studio in southwest Las Vegas. Status: Heard by Senate Revenue and Economic Development, referred to Senate Finance. Assembly Bill 376* (Assemblymember P.K. O'Neill, R) would create a 'regulatory sandbox' for the insurance industry. Passed Assembly Commerce and Labor Committee. * (Assemblymember Venicia Considine, D) seeks to close a potential loophole that can be used by corporate landlords to avoid paying the state's commerce tax. Status: Passed Assembly Revenue. Assembly Bill 487 would ban retail pet sales statewide. Status: Passed Assembly Natural Resources. Senate Bill 318 (State Sen. Skip Daly, D) would ban charter schools from contracting with for-profit education management organizations. Status: Passed Senate Education. * (Assemblymember Erica Mosca, D) would dedicate $100 million in state general obligation bonds for high-needs school construction projects in low-population counties that cannot fund them through typical means. Status: Passed Assembly Government Affairs, referred to Assembly Ways and Means. (Assemblymember Daniele Monroe-Moreno, D) would change how Opportunity Scholarships are administered. Status: Passed Assembly Revenue. Senate Bill 88* would discharge medical debt from those incarcerated once they leave prison. Status: Passed Senate Judiciary Committee, referred to Senate Finance. (Assemblymember Brian Hibbetts, R) would make driving the wrong way a misdemeanor crime. Status: Passed Assembly Judiciary. Assembly Bill 119 (Assemblymember Steve Yeager, D) seeks to crack down on paramilitary organizing and activities. Status: Passed Assembly Judiciary. Assembly Bill 320* (Assemblymember Jovan Jackson, D) seeks to stop judges from using dress codes to turn away defendants. Passed Assembly Judiciary. Senate Bill 457 (Gov. Joe Lombardo, R) is known as the Safe Streets and Neighborhoods Act. Status: Referred to Senate Judiciary, no hearing scheduled. Senate Bill 199* (State Sen. Dina Neal, D) — would establish guardrails around artificial intelligence. Status: Passed Senate Commerce and Labor. would mandate that cities and counties with populations exceeding 100,000 people include 'heat mitigation' as part of their master plans. Status: Passed Government Affairs.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Legal groups seek to fix state's habitability laws, ensure tenants can hold landlords accountable
(Photo: Ronda Churchill/Nevada Current) The broken air conditioning unit of the apartment soaked through carpet and ruined furniture before it ultimately stopped running in the dead of summer, Kacee Atherton told state lawmakers on Monday. As a student lawyer with UNLV's Boyd Law School Tenants' Rights Legal Clinic, Atherton has represented tenants living in substandard living conditions unable to get substandard conditions fixed or take legal action against their landlords. One client in particular, who Atherton referred to as Jane, suffered for months last summer without a properly working AC unit. When first trying to identify the source of the problem, Jane found black mold and mushrooms sprouting behind the AC unit. 'She asked her landlord to repair these issues, and twice the landlord sent unlicensed maintenance workers to come to Jane's apartment to inspect but no repairs were made,' Atherton said. Jane finally sent a letter to the property manager 'detailing the mold and mushroom growth caused by the still unrepaired AC unit.' 'This letter went ignored after the required 14 day period,' Atherton said. 'Jane withheld the next month's rent. Instead of addressing the issues, her landlord initiated an eviction for nonpayment.' The focus of the court case became about the lack of payment rather than fixing the air conditioner. When it comes to holding landlords accountable to fix habitability issues, Atherton said current Nevada current law works about as well as Jane's busted AC. Assembly Bill 223, heard Monday at the Assembly Commerce and Labor Committee, seeks to remedy the process and give tenants more power to hold landlords accountable for failing to provide livable conditions such as running water, working air conditioning, and a functioning lock on doors and windows. 'It removes language that has allowed loopholes that don't require unsafe conditions to actually be fixed,' said Las Vegas Democratic Assemblymember Venicia Considine, the bill's sponsor. Under the proposed bill, a tenant could file a verified complaint with the court for expedited relief if a landlord hasn't fixed an issue within 15 days. The court must conduct a hearing within seven judicial days of the filing. Once a complaint is filed with the court, tenants can withhold rent and place it in a court escrow account. State law requires landlords to make 'best efforts to remedy breaches of habitability law,' said Alice Samberg, another student attorney with the Tenants' Rights Clinic. The legislation would replace existing statutory reference to 'best efforts' with language requiring landlords to actually make repairs, she said. Under the current process, if a tenant withholds rent because a landlord refuses to fix habitability issues, renters can still face an eviction for nonpayment of rent. 'If the landlord fails to take action within this time, the tenant may lawfully withhold rent,' Atherton said. 'This almost always prompts the landlord to initiate an eviction against the tenant for nonpayment. If the landlord does not, the tenant is often left in limbo, living in an uninhabitable home but unable to access a court.' During eviction proceedings clients can bring up habitability issues, but if a tenant misses 'even one step' in the complicated process the tenant 'will almost certainly be evicted,' Atherton said. Tenants are required to deposit any withheld rent into the court's escrow account prior to the eviction hearing. Renters are often unaware of this requirement or how to comply with it, Atherton said. 'This is where they typically lose their habitability defense,' she said. 'Without putting rent in escrow, the tenants' habitability defense will fail no matter how egregious or dangerous the ignored habitability issue is.' AB 223 gives tenants another avenue to file habitability complaints through the court without waiting for eviction proceedings. 'We have all heard the stories from our constituents of black mold, broken air conditioners in the peak heat of summer, water that doesn't run or water that runs brown,' Considine said. 'Common sense tells us that no one should have to endure those living conditions while paying rent.' Republican Assemblymember Toby Yurek of Henderson asked how the legislation would determine if the landlord is at fault. The example he gave was for pests and if infestations are the result of the tenant or neighbors in the property, not the landlord. 'Perhaps in these multi-family dwelling units where it isn't the landlord, but it's a neighboring unit that is doing that,' Yurek said. Jonathan Norman, the advocacy, outreach and policy director for Nevada Coalition of Legal Service Providers, said it would be up to the court to make that ultimate determination. State lawmakers have proposed bills over several sessions to seek to bolster tenant protections and rebalance a system legal groups say favors landlords. When tenants violate lease agreements either by not paying rent or becoming a nuisance, the landlord has the ability to evict, Considine said. 'In the habitability issue, there is nothing a tenant can do that doesn't put them in jeopardy of eviction,' she said. 'Low income folks tend to not do anything because they don't want to put themselves in a situation where they could be evicted, have an eviction on their record and are stuck trying to find a new place to live.' Tenants, housing organizers and legal groups speaking in favor of the bill detailed countless stories of insects and vermin overwhelming apartments, broken air conditioning in the middle of summer, and overall substandard living conditions. In an hour of testimony in support of the bill, they tried to reiterate the point that sometimes landlords ignore requests to fix issues and how the current legal process doesn't empower tenants to take action. John Sande, a lobbyist for the Nevada State Apartment Association, disagreed. While speaking against the bill, alongside the Nevada Realtors, Sande said the state 'already has a fair system for tenants to challenge habitability issues.' 'While courts may sometimes make bad decisions, that doesn't mean the law itself is bad or in need of drastic change,' Sande said. The bill 'doesn't fix an inherent problem in the law. It creates a new one.' The committee took no action on Monday.
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘What the landlord wants, the landlord gets,' effort to change Nevada state law for tenants
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – Nevada state lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow tenants to take a property owner to court for failing to make timely repairs before the property owner may try to evict them. Assembly Bill 223, introduced Monday at the Committee on Commerce and Labor by Assembly Member Venicia Considine, would allow tenants to pay reduced rent and file a verified complaint for unhabitable conditions. Renters' rights and 13 more bills to watch at the 2025 Nevada Legislature Tenants can currently withhold rent in Nevada for unhabitable conditions, but they must deposit the money with the justice court. That rarely happens, according to supporters of the bill, and the end result is eviction. 'What you often see is how habitability presents itself as a tenant Is there on the eviction,' Jonathan Norman of Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada told legislators. 'They have their phone and they say, 'Judge, I have pictures,' and it can be, you know, sewage backing up in their bathtub. It can be, you know, really horrific stuff, and the judge looks at them and then asks if they escrowed the rent, and the answer is almost always no because people don't understand how they're supposed to do that, how they can take advantage of that and then the judicial officer orders the eviction.' Assembly Bill 223 would allow the tenant to turn to court first. Numerous groups and individuals testified in support of the bill. 'I have stared into the eyes of cockroaches. I have sweated in the broken air conditioner night. I have breathed the dangerous poles of mold. I have felt trapped. I have felt meaningless. I have felt like I did not matter,' Noah Cicero testified. 'I have felt like that I too have become a cockroach, a pest that doesn't matter to anyone. Cockroaches can be evicted just as quickly as I can in the state of Nevada. What the landlord wants, the landlord gets.' Opponents of the bill, including the Nevada Realtors Legislative Committee, testified laws are already in place to address landlord and tenant issues. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
