Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo is shown with law enforcement officials while speaking about his public safety bill outside the Carson City Sheriff’s Office on April 8.
Photo by Scott Neuffer.
Flanked by law enforcement personnel at the Carson City Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo laid out his Nevada Safe Streets and Neighborhoods Act – 84 pages of proposed legislation aimed at crime and public safety issues.
A Republican expected to seek reelection in 2026, Lombardo was hopeful that Senate Bill 457, introduced Monday, would garner bipartisan support.
“As a law enforcement officer for 34 years and former sheriff, I’ve seen public safety legislation impact our communities and neighborhoods firsthand, both for the better and for the worse,” Lombardo said. “As governor, it’s now my responsibility to pass legislation that makes our streets safer and our communities more secure. Historically, partisanship has prevented meaningful progress for public safety, but I am hopeful we can push past that this session.”
The governor said the bill was drafted to “put teeth back into Nevada’s penal code, hold criminals accountable, empower judges and prosecutors and support victims of crime.”
Washoe County District Attorney Christopher Hicks discussed the bill by section, including a provision the governor had mentioned about vulnerable victims of crime.
“Section 42 through 49, as the governor touched upon, eliminates the specialty court diversion option for those criminals who abuse, exploit, neglect children or the elderly,” Hicks said. “Right now, criminals who victimize children and the elderly are eligible for diversion programs that offer dismissal and automatic sealing of their convictions.”
Additionally, the bill enhances – by 1-20 years in state prison – any secondary felony committed while a person is out on bail pending a primary felony charge. The bill clarifies statute regarding stalking and cyberstalking, allows separate felony charges for each visual item in cases of child pornography possession, and lowers the threshold between misdemeanor and felony theft from $1,200 in property value stolen to $750.
The bill would also extend the time requirement between an arrest and bail hearing from 48 hours to 72 hours.
“In 2021, the Legislature passed AB 424, which mandated that all pretrial release hearings be held 48 hours after a person is taken into custody, with no exception for weekends or court holidays,” said Hicks. “Since implementation, most jurisdictions have struggled to comply with this reduced timeframe, which is often too short to ensure that judges have all the information they need to make fully informed decisions about what pretrial release conditions are necessary to protect the public.”
The bill deals with crimes associated with drug use, too, specifically lowering quantity thresholds for felony fentanyl trafficking charges. The threshold for the lowest category B felony would go from 28-42 grams to 4-14 grams.
At the same time, the legislation would address opioid addiction with measures to get people sober, maintained Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam.
Balaam described how the bill would require local law enforcement to collaborate with the Nevada Department of Health and Human services on medication-assisted treatment specifically for opioid-use disorders – contingent on available funding. The bill would further require the Nevada Department of Corrections to make available online information regarding peer recovery support services “and how individuals can access those services,” said Balaam.
“And by moving to enhance the availability of these types of programs and increasing the number of people participating in the programs at NDOC, as well as … partnering with the Department of Health and Human Services, I am confident that we will not only see results, but we will see continued success for those suffering from opioid use disorders,” Balaam said.
In an April 7 fiscal note on the bill, NDOC projected the new policy would cost the department more than $10 million this biennium and over $42 million in future biennia.
Asked about fiscal impacts, Lombardo said it was a matter of balancing the state budget, weighing projected savings related to certain nonviolent offenders (he said $37 million for the first fiscal year) with costs of new felony charges. He added there wasn’t enough money in the current budget, as it stands, to fund the entire bill but expressed confidence he could work with lawmakers.
The full text of SB 457 is online: leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/83rd2025/Bill/12857/Text