The 2025 Legislature ended its biennial session at midnight on Monday, with hundreds of bills now on their way to Gov. Joe Lombardo.
During the session, Channel 13 promised to keep viewers up to date on some of the key pieces of legislation we covered on air and online.
VIDEO: Steve Sebelius breaks down 2025 legislative bills
Here's what befell some of the biggest bills of the session:
Film tax credits
There were two bills that proposed tax credits in order to get Hollywood companies to move film production to Nevada. One of them, Senate Bill 220, never got a vote on the floor.
The other, Assembly Bill 238, would have offered more than $1.6 billion in tax credits over 15 years to lure a partnership between Howard Hughes, Warner Bros./Discovery and Sony Pictures to build a TV and film studio in Summerlin.
That project promised more than 19,000 jobs and more than $3 billion in annual economic impact, but a study commissioned by the Governor's Office of Economic Development said those figures were overinflated.
The rivalry between the two bills contributed to their decline. SB 220 author Sen. Roberta Lange, proposed merging the bills late in the session, an offer that the Assembly backers of AB 238 declined. Lange's side also proposed amending the bill to study the tax credits, but a formal amendment never came.
In the end, AB 238 ended up dying on the Senate floor on the final day of the session without ever getting a vote.
Animal welfare
Animal bills had a wild ride in the 2025 session, with advocates watching from afar and commenting on every step on social media.
One was Assembly Bill 381, also known as Reba's Law, named for a bulldog found taped inside a crate in the Las Vegas summer heat that later died.
The bill calls for increasing the penalties for animal cruelty and torture.
It died back on April 12, the first deadline of the session, but was resurrected after an outcry from activists and given an exemption from the rules. It later passed the Assembly unanimously.
The bill was delayed in the Senate Judiciary Committee, as senators worked on details, but ultimately was passed with an amendment. Committee chair Melanie Scheible said senators weren't against the policy so much as trying to get the bill's language right.
"And so I think sometimes it gets very easy to get in the opposite mindset, 'Oh, this bill is on it's way to passage, someone is standing in the way, somebody's not letting this pass, when really it's just that we don't have all the necessary pieces to get something across the finish line, which is, I think, a subtle but important difference," Scheible said in an interview as the session came to an end.
Another bill — Assembly Bill 487 — wasn't so lucky. The original version of the bill would have banned the sale of dogs and cats in retail pet stores, and passed the Assembly with a big, bipartisan majority.
But in the Senate Natural Resources Committee, chair Shelly Cruz-Crawford, D-Clark County, brought an amendment to turn the bill into a study instead, outraging animal advocates.
The amended bill passed the Senate, again with a large, bipartisan majority, but the Assembly refused to agree to the amendment. The bill died without the houses resolving their differences.
One other animal-related bill, Senate Bill 167, which would have banned the sale of household cleaning products that were tested on animals, passed both houses but was vetoed by Lombardo.
Automated traffic cameras
Nevada lawmakers have tried repeatedly to authorize the use of automated cameras, sometimes called "red-light cameras," several times since they were specifically banned in Nevada during the 1999 session. The cameras snap pictures of traffic law violators and send a citation to a vehicle's registered owner in the mail.
But with 2024 one of the deadliest years on record, and with the strong support of Metro Police Sheriff Kevin McMahill and Lombardo, it seemed like this year would finally see cameras authorized.
Those hopes were mostly dashed, however, after the main red-light bill — Senate Bill 415 — never even got out of the Growth and Infrastructure Committee, despite McMahill's personal testimony in support.
A second bill, sought by the Nevada chapter of the Associated General Contractors, got through the Assembly, but died on the final day of session in the Senate Finance Committee. Assembly Bill 402 would have authorized the use of automated cameras in construction zones.
Only Assembly Bill 527, which would allow cameras to be affixed to school buses to catch people who speed by when the red lights are flashing, passed both houses. That bill is on its way to Lombardo.
Other bills we tracked this session include:
- Assembly Bill 66, which would have added 18 District Court judges to the bench, and provided for future increases based on population, died in the Assembly Ways & Means Committee.
- Assembly Bill 116, to prohibit so-called ghost kitchens, passed both houses and was signed into law by Lombardo. The bill, by Assemblywoman Selena Torres Fossett, D-Clark County, would require food delivery services such as Door Dash and Uber Eats to verify a restaurant's business license before they could start delivering, so consumers know they're getting food from a legitimate establishment.
- Assembly Bill 416, by Assemblywoman Brittney Miller, D-Clark County, would prohibit school boards and library staff from restricting access to materials in school, university or public libraries. The bill is heading to Lombardo's desk.
- Assembly Bill 494, which would continue federal education laws in the event the U.S. Department of Education is abolished by the Donald Trump administration, passed both houses and awaits a decision from the governor.
- Assembly Bill 555, an emergency bill brought at the end of the session by Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, D-Clark County, to cap the price of insulin at $35 per month, passed both houses overwhelmingly. It's on its way to Lombardo.
- Senate Bill 102 — to prohibit anyone from serving in a state of fake electors, the way six Republicans did in 2020 to falsely assert that President Donald Trump won the election — passed the Legislature but was vetoed by Lombardo. The governor rejected a similar measure in 2023.
