SOME FACTS ABOUT THE NEVADA LEGISLATURE
Size & Apportionment
The Nevada Constitution sets the maximum size of the Legislature at 75 legislators. It further provides that the Senate may not be less than one-third nor more than one-half the size of the Assembly. Since 1983, the Nevada Legislature has had 63 members, 21 in the Senate and 42 in the Assembly.
The Constitution requires the Legislature to adjust the boundaries of the legislative districts following each decennial census. Due to an impasse that arose when Governor Brian Sandoval vetoed the redistricting measures approved by the Nevada Legislature, the Legislature was unable to complete the legislative and congressional redistricting process during the 120-day regular session in 2011. Following a number of hearings, judicial briefs, motions, and pleas, District Court Judge James T. Russell, in First Judicial District Case Guy et al. v. Miller, appointed three Special Masters to accomplish redistricting. The court-approved maps include four congressional districts (an increase of one), while the size of the Nevada Legislature was retained at 63 members, 21 in the Senate and 42 in the Assembly.
For the first time in Nevada's redistricting history, all districts in both houses are single-member, and two Assembly districts are perfectly nested within each Senate district. The average population of the Assembly districts is 64,299 people (based on the 2010 U.S. Census). The Senate districts have an average population of 128,598 citizens. The State's population was just over 2.7 million in 2010.
There are now 15 Senate districts wholly within Clark County; 4 districts in the Washoe County/Carson City area, 1 of which includes five counties in western Nevada; and 2 rural districts. One rural district consists of Churchill, Douglas, Lyon, and Storey Counties. The other one consists of Elko, Eureka, Lincoln, White Pine, and parts of Nye and northern Clark Counties. The 42 Assembly districts include 30 districts wholly within Clark County, 8 districts in the Washoe County/Carson City/western Nevada area, and 4 Assembly districts within the 2 rural Senate districts.
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Sessions
Regular sessions of the Nevada Legislature are held biennially in odd-numbered years. They convene on the first Monday in February after the election of members of the Senate and Assembly. Sessions are limited to 120 calendar days following the approval by voters of a constitutional amendment in 1998. Previous sessions were unlimited in length following the repeal in 1958 of a constitutional provision setting a 60-day maximum limit on the duration of a session. Since 1958, there has been only one regular session of less than 60 days, that being the single annual session of 1960, which lasted 55 days. Between 1975 and 1997, regular sessions in Nevada ran between 113 and 169 days. Conversely, the 1989 Special Session was the shortest in history, lasting just over two hours in the Senate.
At other times, the Governor may, for a specific purpose, call the Legislature into special session, or the Legislature may, upon a petition signed by two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the Legislature, convene a special session for a specific purpose without action by the Governor.