Nevada voters will decide on a ballot initiative in 2026 to exempt school teachers and certain other school employees from the state law prohibiting public employee strikes.

The initiative, if approved by voters, would change Nevada state law to allow public school teachers, and other education personnel, to strike. In 1969, Nevada passed legislation making strikes illegal for state and local government employees, including public school teachers. 

Currently, 37 states and Washington, D.C. prohibit public school teachers from going on strike.

The campaign supporting the initiative, A Teacher In Every Classroom, sponsored the initiative and submitted signatures for it. The campaign submitted 127,812 valid signatures in November 2024 to the secretary of state’s office, exceeding the required 102,362 signatures needed to get on the ballot. In Nevada, signatures need to be collected from each of the four petition districts for the initiative to be certified to the legislature.

In Nevada, citizen-initiated state statutes are indirect, meaning that the initiative first goes to the legislature before it goes to the ballot. With indirect initiatives, once enough signatures are verified, the initiative goes to the state legislature first. In Nevada, the legislature then has 40 days to adopt the initiative into law, or send the initiative to the ballot for voters to decide if they take no action or reject the initiative. The legislature received the initiative from the secretary of state on February 3. Because they did not decide on the initiative, it qualifies for the 2026 ballot.

Marie Neisess, president of the Clark County Education Association, supports the initiative, saying, “We’re looking for resolutions. This isn’t a quick fix to say oh, we’re immediately going to call for a strike. We don’t want to do that. We want to be able to change this process. Because, clearly, binding arbitration does not work and having our educators as well as our students and community wait months on end for things to be settled is not acceptable.”

Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) opposes the initiative. He said, “It’s not a good business model to have firemen and policemen or your first responders, and teachers in my opinion are a necessity, to be able to go on strike for wages and collective bargaining was brought in as part of that solution.”

Nevada voters will also be deciding two constitutional amendments in 2026—Question 6, which would provide for a state constitutional right to an abortion, and Question 7, which would require photo identification to vote.