KVIG Informative

A bill that would have made former Nevada legislators wait two full years before lobbying the Legislature died without becoming law. Michigan passed nearly the same idea this year.

Companion bills Senate Bill 641 and Assembly Bill 574 would have extended Nevada’s lobbying cooling-off period from roughly one year to two years for both legislators and executive branch employees, applying the same waiting period to current and former public servants and state agency staff alike. Neither bill became law.

Nevada’s current standard, in place since Assembly Bill 273 passed in 2015, bars a former legislator from receiving compensation to lobby the Legislature starting the day they leave office and ending when the next regular session adjourns — typically under two years, but in practice often closer to one.

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Michigan took the opposite path this year. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation barring former members of that state’s executive branch and Legislature who take office after January 2027 from registering as lobbyists for two full years after leaving — with fines of up to $1,000 for former officials who attempt the switch sooner.

More than half of U.S. states currently impose some form of waiting period before a former official can register as a lobbyist, with most falling between six months and two years, according to a review of state lobbying restrictions.

Nevada’s failed two-year proposal would have closed one gap in particular: the current law applies only to legislators, leaving former executive branch employees and agency staff — who often have deep, specific knowledge of how a regulation actually gets enforced — free to move directly into lobbying the same agencies they used to work for.

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No replacement bill addressing the executive branch gap has been introduced in a subsequent session since SB 641 and AB 574 failed to pass.

Nevada had a chance to close its revolving door further and chose not to take it. Michigan just did what Nevada’s Legislature declined to do for itself — leaving Nevada’s former agency staff and executive branch officials free to walk straight from regulating an industry into getting paid by it, with no waiting period required at all.