NEVADA

Background:

In Nevada, both congressional and state legislative district boundaries are drawn by the state legislature. The lines are subject to veto by the governor. Under a state law enacted in 2019, incarcerated individuals in state prisons are counted as residents of their home addresses for redistricting purposes.

Community of Interest Story

During the 2021 redistricting process, members of the public were given the opportunity to draw both full redistricting plans and communities of interest maps and to submit them for consideration through the web-based redistricting application MyDistricting Nevada. Over 500 users registered for an account with MyDistricting Nevada, and 50 redistricting plans were submitted as public proposals for Nevada’s congressional, state senate, and state assembly districts. Additionally, 11 communities of interest maps were submitted.

The Let Nevada Vote Coalition advocated keeping Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI), Native, and Latinx communities together. Though they successfully kept AAPI and Native communities together, the Latinx community in Las Vegas was split among three congressional districts. The new map redistributes about one in seven Latinx residents and decreases the demographic group’s share of the district from 45.1 percent to 35.5 percent. As a result, no district fully represents Latinx individuals, who account for roughly 4 out of every 10 Nevada residents.

Grades:

Overall State Grade: B-

Lessons Learned:

  • Cross-community coalition made a difference: Due to the advocacy of the coalition to prioritize drawing maps around tribal lands over county boundaries, the legislature made changes to keep tribal communities together. Another win for the coalition was that the legislature made revisions for reallocating additional incarcerated people to their home communities.
  • The Nevada Legislature should lower barriers to participation: Participation should be made more accessible by providing language access, especially to the Spanish-speaking communities, using more user-friendly mapping tools, holding meetings in more locations (including on tribal lands), and creating an easier-to-navigate website, especially on mobile devices.