The Nevada Senate is the upper house of the Nevada Legislature, the
state legislature of U.S. state of Nevada, the lower house being the
Nevada Assembly. It currently (2012â€"2021) consists of 21 members
from single-member districts. In the previous redistricting
(2002â€"2011) there were 19 districts, two of which were multimember.
Since 2012, there have been 21 districts, each formed by combining two
neighboring state assembly districts. Each State Senator represented
approximately 128,598 as of the 2010 United States Census. Article
Four of the Constitution of Nevada sets that State 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 was 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 1965â€"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 political questions, and thus are 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. Nevada Senate Biography, NetWorth, Height, Age, Weight, Family, Married, Son, Daughter