Nevada Senate
| Nevada Senate | |
|---|---|
| Nevada Legislature | |
 |
|
| Type | |
| Type | |
|
Term limits
|
3 terms (12 years) |
| History | |
|
New session started
|
February 6, 2017 |
| Leadership | |
|
Leader of the Senate
|
|
|
Assistant Majority Leader of the Senate
|
|
|
Senate Minority Leader
|
|
| Structure | |
| Seats | 21 |
|
Political groups
|
Majority
Minority
|
|
Length of term
|
4 years |
| Authority | Article 4, Nevada Constitution |
| Salary | $146.90/day (for the first 60 days) per diem (for the entire session) |
| Elections | |
|
Last election
|
November 8, 2016 (10 seats) |
|
Next election
|
November 6, 2018 (11 seats) |
| Redistricting | Legislative Control |
| Meeting place | |
| State Senate Chamber Nevada State Capitol Carson City, Nevada |
|
| Website | |
| http://www.leg.state.nv.us/Senate/ | |
Majority
Minority
The Nevada Senate is the upper house of the Nevada Legislature, the state legislature of U.S. state of Nevada. The Senate currently (2012-2021) consists of 21 members from single-member districts. In the previous redistricting (2002-2011) there were 19 districts, two of which were multimember. Since 2012, there have been 21 districts, each formed by combining two neighboring Assembly districts. Each senator represented approximately 128,598 as of the 2010 census. Article Four of The Nevada Constitution sets that Senators serve staggered four-year terms. In addition, the size of the Senate is set to be no less than one-third and no greater than one-half of the size of the Assembly.Term limits, limiting senators to three 4-year terms (12 years), took effect in 2010. Because of the change in Constitution, seven senators were termed out in 2010, four were termed out in 2012, and one is to be termed out in 2014. The Senate met at the Nevada State Capitol in Carson City until 1971, when a separate Legislative Building was constructed south of the Capitol. The Legislative Building was expanded in 1997 to its current appearance to accommodate the growing Legislature.
The first session of the Nevada Territorial Legislature was held in 1861. The Council was the precursor to the current Senate and the opposite chamber was called a House of Representatives which was later changed to be called the Assembly. There were nine members of the original Council in 1861 elected from districts as counties were not yet established. Counties were established in the First Session of the Territorial Legislature and the size of the Council was increased to thirteen. From the first session of the Nevada Legislature once statehood was granted the size of the Senate ranged from eighteen members, in 1864, to a low of fifteen members from 1891 through 1899, and a high of twenty-five members from 1875 through 1879.
In 1919 the Senate started a practice called "Little Federalism," where each county received one member of the Nevada Senate regardless of population of said county. This set the Senate membership at seventeen which lasted until 1965-1967. The Supreme Court of the United States issued the opinion in Baker v. Carr in 1962 which found that the redistricting of state legislative districts are not a political questions, and thus is justiciable by the federal courts. In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court heard Reynolds v. Sims and struck down state senate inequality, basing their decision on the principle of "one person, one vote." With those two cases being decided on a national level, Nevada Assemblywoman Flora Dungan and Las Vegas resident Clare W. Woodbury, M.D. filed suit in 1965 with the Nevada District Court arguing that Nevada's Senate districts violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and lacked of fair representation and proportional districts. At the time, less than 8 percent of the population of the State of Nevada controlled more than 50 percent of the Senate. The District Court found that both the Senate and the Assembly apportionment laws were "invidiously discriminatory, being based upon no constitutionally valid policy." It was ordered that Governor Grant Sawyer call a Special Session to submit a constitutionally valid reapportionment plan. The 11th Special Session lasted from October 25, 1965 through November 13, 1965 and a plan was adopted to increase the size of the Senate from 17 to 20.
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Wikipedia