Nevada Question 1, Remove Constitutional Status of Board of Regents Amendment (2024)

Nevada Question 1
Election date November 5, 2024
Topic Education
Status d Defeated
Type Constitutional amendment	Origin State legislature

Nevada Question 1, the Remove Constitutional Status of Board of Regents Amendment, was on the ballot in Nevada as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment on November 5, 2024. The ballot measure was defeated.

A "yes" vote supported removing the constitutional status of the Board of Regents—which governs, controls, and manages the state universities in Nevada—thereby allowing the state legislature to review and change the governing organization of state universities.

A "no" vote opposed removing the constitutional status of the Board of Regents, thereby keeping the current governing organization of state universities without state legislative authority to change it.

Election results

See also: Results for education and school choice ballot measures, 2024

Nevada Question 1
Result		Votes	Percentage
Yes		615,415	45.44%
No		738,901	54.56%

Results are officially certified.

Source

Overview

How would this amendment have changed higher education policy in Nevada?

See also: Text of measure

This amendment would have removed the Board of Regents from the Nevada Constitution and would have authorized the state legislature to review and change the governing organization of state universities.

An amendment to remove the constitutional status of the Board of Regents was also on the 2020 ballot in Nevada. Voters defeated this amendment by 50.15%-49.85%.

What was the Board of Regents?

See also: Nevada State Board of Regents

The Board of Regents was an elected board that oversees eight public institutions of higher education in Nevada, including the University of Nevada System. It was composed of 13 voting members elected to six-year terms in by-district elections. Designated members were elected every two years at the general election. The members decided on policies and approve budgets for Nevada's public system of higher education. These institutions were composed of four community colleges, one state college, two universities and one research institute. They were: College of Southern Nevada; Desert Research Institute; Great Basin College; Nevada State College; Truckee Meadows Community College; University of Nevada, Las Vegas; University of Nevada, Reno; and Western Nevada College.

What were the arguments for and against this amendment?

See also: Support and opposition

In support of the amendment, Dr. Carol Lucey, President Emerita of Western Nevada College, and Dr. John Gwaltney, President Emeritus of Truckee Meadows Community College, said, "SJR7 will help us get NSHE’s focus and energy back to where it needs to be: on serving our students and their communities. The students we are educating today will be taxpayers tomorrow and will help our state and its economy to diversify and grow, even when tough times hit. These students and communities are now being let down by a large, centralized state bureaucracy that is inflexible and tone deaf to their needs and the needs of the institutions educating them. By ensuring that NSHE and the Board of Regents are held accountable, like every other state entity, and not shielded from critical oversight, we will be in a better place to meet the future needs of our state economy."

In opposition to the amendment, the Nevada State Education Association said, "Elected boards are in place to ensure schools and colleges reflect the values of the people, providing direct lines of accountability to the community. This is the main reason elected boards are preferable to appointed or hybrid models. Appointed officials are shielded by an appointing authority who typically has significant other responsibilities in addition to board appointments. It is extremely rare to see an elected official voted out of office over the actions or conduct of another official they have appointed. This is truer still when the appointment is made by another deliberative body."

Text of measure

Ballot title

The official ballot title was as follows:

“

Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended to remove certain provisions governing the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education and its administration of the State University and certain federal land grant funds and to provide additional legislative oversight of public institutions of higher education through regular independent audits, without repealing the current statutory election process or other existing statutory provisions relating to the Board of Regents?

”

Constitutional changes

See also: Article 11, Nevada Constitution

The measure would have amended Section 4, Section 7, and Section 8 of Article 11 of the Nevada Constitution. The following underlined text would have been added, and struck-through text would have been deleted: Note: Hover over the text and scroll to see the full text.

Text of Section 4: Establishment of State University; Control by Board of Regents

1.The Legislature shall provide by law for the establishment and governance of a State University which shall embrace departments for Agriculture, Mechanic Arts, and Mining to be controlled by a Board of Regents whose duties shall be prescribed by Law. and other departments deemed appropriate for the State University.

2. The Legislature shall provide by law for biennial auditing of the State University and any other public institutions of higher education established by the Legislature in this State.

Section 7: Board of Regents: Election and duties.

The Governor, Secretary of State, and Superintendent of Public Instruction, shall for the first four years and until their successors are elected and qualified constitute a Board of Regents to control and manage the affairs of the University and the funds of the same under such regulations as may be provided by law. But the Legislature shall at its regular session next preceding the expiration of the term of office of said Board of Regents provide for the election of a new Board of Regents and define their duties.

Text of Section 8: Immediate Organization and Maintenance of State University

The Board of Regents shall, from the interest accruing from the first funds which come under their control, immediately organize and maintain the said Mining department in such manner as to make it most effective and useful, Provided, that all the proceeds of the public lands donated by Act of Congress approved July second AD. Eighteen hundred and sixty Two, 2, 1862, ch. 130, 12 Stat. 503, and thereafter amended by Act of Congress, for a college for the benefit of Agriculture, the Mechanics and Mechanic Arts, and including Military tactics shall be invested by the said Board of Regents State of Nevada in the manner required by law in a separate fund to be appropriated exclusively for the benefit of the first named departments to the State University as set forth in Section Four above; 4 of this article. And the Legislature shall provide that if through neglect or any other contingency, any portion of the fund so set apart, shall be is lost or misappropriated, the State of Nevada shall replace said amount so lost or misappropriated in said fund so that the principal of said fund shall remain forever undiminished.

Readability score

See also: Ballot measure readability scores, 2024

Using the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) and Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) formulas, Ballotpedia scored the readability of the ballot title for this measure. Readability scores are designed to indicate the reading difficulty of text. The Flesch-Kincaid formulas account for the number of words, syllables, and sentences in a text; they do not account for the difficulty of the ideas in the text. The secretary of state wrote the ballot language for this measure.

The FKGL for the ballot title is grade level 36, and the FRE is -41. The word count for the ballot title is 69.

Support

Supporters

Unions

• Clark County Education Association

Arguments

• Hawah Ahmad, lobbyist representing the Clark County Education Association: "CCEA supports this resolution because we believe that the K through 20 education delivery system in Nevada needs to be well funded with sufficient transparency and accountability measures to reach the goal of economic diversification in the State of Nevada. We know the key to economic diversification and workforce development lies in agility of program development and an abundance of resources to provide our students with a quality education. This is just one step in many that will help ensure the $1 Billion dollars spent biennially on higher education is strategically spent to improve student outcomes."
• Dr. Carol Lucey, President Emerita of Western Nevada College, and Dr. John Gwaltney, President Emeritus of Truckee Meadows Community College: "To ensure that the community colleges are able to play the strongest possible role in strengthening Nevada’s workforce, we must ensure first, that their support from public dollars is adequate and secondly, that they have the flexibility needed to respond to the the needs of their communities’ expanding and diversifying economies … SJR7 will help us get NSHE’s focus and energy back to where it needs to be: on serving our students and their communities. The students we are educating today will be taxpayers tomorrow and will help our state and its economy to diversify and grow, even when tough times hit. These students and communities are now being let down by a large, centralized state bureaucracy that is inflexible and tone deaf to their needs and the needs of the institutions educating them. By ensuring that NSHE and the Board of Regents are held accountable, like every other state entity, and not shielded from critical oversight, we will be in a better place to meet the future needs of our state economy."

Opposition

Opponents

Unions

• Nevada State Education Association

Arguments

• Nevada State Education Association: "Elected boards are in place to ensure schools and colleges reflect the values of the people, providing direct lines of accountability to the community. This is the main reason elected boards are preferable to appointed or hybrid models. Appointed officials are shielded by an appointing authority who typically has significant other responsibilities in addition to board appointments. It is extremely rare to see an elected official voted out of office over the actions or conduct of another official they have appointed. This is truer still when the appointment is made by another deliberative body."
• Amy Pason, former chair of the Faculty Senate of the University of Nevada, Reno: "Given the range of issues related to higher education currently being proposed in this legislative session, SJR7 begs the question on what additionally the Legislature would like to do in terms of “reforming and improving” programs. The Legislature already has control over the state allocated portion of our institution’s budget; the Legislature has the power to implement furloughs or mandate cost of living increases. Budgeting, in turn, affects hiring our institution can do, programs we can support, or initiatives we can pursue. This legislative session has also shown the Legislature has the power to give tuition or fee waivers to some populations (leaving our institutions to address budget impacts and provide support for those groups), and address other topics as wide ranging as providing education on FAFSA, providing information to students on mental health resources, and compensation for college athletes. Working in partnership, our institutions have worked with policy makers on bills that allow access to DACA students as well as reforms for sexual assault and harassment policies on our campuses. This legislative session also included bills on reorganizing community colleges separate from NSHE, and a bill to study community colleges in relation to workforce and economic ecologies of the state. Given the range of issues here, what more would the Legislature like to govern as it related to higher education? As noted in the explanatory language of SJR7, the Nevada Supreme Court rule, the Legislature is limited to some areas of legislation that might with the Board of Regents’ management of higher education. Again, this begs the question of what areas the Legislature would like to influence that they currently cannot? What further accountability is needed that current legislative powers does not provide or that elections of Regents cannot remedy?"

Campaign finance

See also: Campaign finance requirements for Nevada ballot measures

Ballotpedia has not identified ballot measure committees registered to support or oppose the ballot measure.

	Cash Contributions	In-Kind Contributions	Total Contributions	Cash Expenditures	Total Expenditures
Support	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Oppose	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Total	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00

Media editorials

See also: 2024 ballot measure media endorsements

Support

The following media editorial boards published an editorial supporting the ballot measure:

• Las Vegas Sun Editorial Board: "Nevada is unique in that its entire public higher education system is managed by a single elected board, the Board of Regents, which has constitutional status. In the past, the Board of Regents has invoked that constitutional status as a means of claiming immunity from oversight by the state Legislature and other government accountability offices. Question 1 on the ballot proposes to change this by removing the board’s constitutional status. This reform is overdue and would align the board with other state governing bodies by allowing the Legislature to audit, review and adjust the board’s structure, management and finances, enabling a more efficient, effective and responsive system that is better suited to the evolving demands of modern higher education."

Opposition

Ballotpedia did not locate media editorial boards in opposition to the ballot measure.

Background

Nevada State Board of Regents

See also: Nevada State Board of Regents

The Nevada State Board of Regents was an elected executive agency of the Nevada state government, responsible for managing the state's system of higher education. The board was composed of 13 voting members elected to six-year terms in by-district elections. Designated members are elected every two years at the general election. Elected board members were required to be a resident in the district they are elected to represent. Duties of the Board of Regents, according to Title 1, section 3 of the Board of Regents Handbook, were to be "responsible for the management and control of the University but may delegate specific authority to its officers as hereinafter provided."

The institutions the Board was responsible for overseeing were composed of four community colleges, one state college, two universities and one research institute. They were: College of Southern Nevada; Desert Research Institute; Great Basin College; Nevada State College; Truckee Meadows Community College; University of Nevada, Las Vegas; University of Nevada, Reno; and Western Nevada College.

Nevada Question 1 (2020)

See also: Nevada Question 1, Remove Constitutional Status of Board of Regents Amendment (2020)

An amendment to remove the constitutional status of the Board of Regents was also on the ballot for Nevada voters in 2020 as Ballot Question 1. Nevada voters rejected this amendment by 50.15-49.85%.

Nevada Assemblymember Jim Wheeler (R), who supported Ballot Question 1, said, "Ballot Question 1 restores accountability, transparency, and oversight to higher education by reinvigorating the original intent of the framers of the Nevada Constitution. Question 1 simply makes the Board of Regents a statutory body, subject to checks and balances—an important American principle." Laura Perkins, a member of the Nevada Board of Regents who opposed the 2020 amendment on the ballot, said, "There’s no numbers or positive proof that the system that may or may not come out of this is better than the system that we have now."

Historical facts regarding ballot measures in Nevada

See also: List of Nevada ballot measures and History of Initiative & Referendum in Nevada

In Nevada, a total of 131 ballot measures appeared on statewide ballots between 1985 and 2022. Eighty-two ballot measures were approved, and 49 ballot measures were defeated.

Nevada statewide ballot measures, 1985-2022
Total number	Annual average	Annual minimum	Annual maximum	Approved		Defeated
				#	%	#	%
131	3.22	0	17	82	62.60	49	37.40

Path to the ballot

See also: Amending the Nevada Constitution

In Nevada, a majority vote is required in two successive sessions of the Nevada State Legislature to place an amendment on the ballot.

2021 legislative session

The amendment was introduced as Senate Joint Resolution 7 (SJR 7). It was approved by the Senate on April 13, 2021, by a vote of 20-0 with one excused. On May 18, 2021, the Assembly passed SJR 7 by a vote of 30-11 with one excused.

Vote in the Nevada State Senate April 13, 2021
Requirement: SImple majority vote of all members in each chamber in two sessions
Number of yes votes required: 11  a
	Yes	No	Not voting
Total	20	0	1
Total percent	95.24%	0.0%	4.76%
Democrat	12	0	0
Republican	8	0	1

Vote in the Nevada House of Representatives May 18, 2021
Requirement: SImple majority vote of all members in each chamber in two sessions
Number of yes votes required: 22  a
	Yes	No	Not voting
Total	30	11	1
Total percent	71.43%	26.19%	2.38%
Democrat	26	0	0
Republican	4	11	1

2023 legislative session

This amendment was approved by the Senate by 19-2 on April 10, 2023. It was approved by the House by 34-7 on May 18, 2023.

Vote in the Nevada State Senate April 10, 2023
Requirement: SImple majority vote of all members in each chamber in two sessions
Number of yes votes required: 11  a
	Yes	No	Not voting
Total	19	2	0
Total percent	90.4%	9.5%	0%
Democrat	13	0	0
Republican	6	2	0

Vote in the Nevada House of Representatives May 18, 2023
Requirement: SImple majority vote of all members in each chamber in two sessions
Number of yes votes required: 22  a
	Yes	No	Not voting
Total	34	7	1
Total percent	80.9%	16.6%	2.3%
Democrat	27	0	1
Republican	7	7	0

How to cast a vote

See also: Voting in Nevada

See below to learn more about current voter registration rules, identification requirements, and poll times in Nevada.

How to vote in Nevada

Poll times

All polling places in Nevada are open from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. local time. An individual who is in line at the time polls close must be allowed to vote.

Registration

Check your voter registration status here.

To register to vote in Nevada, each applicant must be must a citizen of the United States, a resident of Nevada for at least 30 days before the election, and at least 18 years old by the day of the election.

Seventeen-year-olds can preregister to vote. Anyone who has been declared mentally incompetent by a court may not register to vote.

A voter registration application can be completed in person at the county clerk’s office, the Department of Motor Vehicles, other social service agencies, or college campuses. In-person registration must be completed 28 days before regular elections; registration forms submitted by mail must be postmarked by the same day. Online applications must be submitted by the Thursday before regular elections.

Nevada also allows same-day registration.

Automatic registration

Nevada automatically registers eligible individuals to vote through the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Online registration

See also: Online voter registration

Nevada has implemented an online voter registration system. Residents can register to vote by visiting this website.

Same-day registration

Nevada allows same-day voter registration at polling places during early voting and on election day.

Residency requirements

In order to register to vote in Nevada, applicants must be a resident of the state for at least 30 days prior to the election.

Verification of citizenship

See also: Laws permitting noncitizens to vote in the United States

Nevada does not require proof of citizenship for voter registration. An individual applying to register to vote must attest that they are a U.S. citizen under penalty of perjury.

All 49 states with voter registration systems require applicants to declare that they are U.S. citizens in order to register to vote in state and federal elections, under penalty of perjury or other punishment. Seven states — Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Wyoming — have laws requiring verification of citizenship at the time of voter registration, whether in effect or not. In three states — California, Maryland, and Vermont — at least one local jurisdiction allows noncitizens to vote in some local elections. Noncitizens registering to vote in those elections must complete a voter registration application provided by the local jurisdiction and are not eligible to register as state or federal voters.

Verifying your registration

The Nevada Secretary of State’s office allows residents to check their voter registration status online by visiting this website.

Voter ID requirements

Nevada does not require voters to present identification while voting, in most cases. A voter in Nevada must sign his or her name in the election board register at his or her polling place. The signature is compared with the signature on the voter's original application to vote or another form of identification, such as a driver's license, a state identification card, military identification, or another government-issued ID.

See also

2024 measures

• 2024 ballot measures
• Education on the ballot

Nevada

• Nevada ballot measures
• Nevada ballot measure laws

News and analysis

• Ballot measure lawsuits
• Ballot measure readability
• Ballot measure polls

External links

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