Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford appears in court Dec. 18, 2023, for an arraignment at the Regional Justice Center in downtown Las Vegas. Ford said that despite President Donald Trump’s election last month, he would not be deterred in prosecuting the case against six “fake electors” who filed false certification that Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said his mission to help instill justice at every opportunity is reflected in his office’s actions as state lawmakers gear up for the 2025 legislative session.
With election results certified and the 2025 state legislative session only months away, government officials and policy advocates have filed the first pieces of potential legislation for the new year.
State offices like those of the secretary of state and treasurer, as well as school districts, are allowed to file a certain number of bill draft requests, usually ranging from three to 10 per session.
“Things have stalled quite a bit at the federal level, and while there are certain provisions within the federal bill that would overlap what we’re talking about here at the state level, we can’t wait to protect Nevada youth.”
Aaron Ford, Nevada attorney general
The attorney general’s office, however, is allotted 20 draft requests, giving it a noticeably larger sway in the legislative process.
Ford’s office has already filed 16 bill draft requests, representing 10% of requests already filed. But he said the number of bills is less important than the issues each one targets.
“I’ve never used the entirety of my allotment, because it’s not about quantity for me; it’s about the quality of the bills,” Ford said. “We curated these bills specifically for the purpose of ensuring that they touch on justice and that they fall under one of our C’s.”
The “five C’s” Ford mentions are the guiding lens for how his office views justice in its different forms: consumer protection, criminal justice, civil rights, community justice and constitutional rights.
Ford said the 16 bills filed all aim to tackle one of the five in different ways, from consumer protections against predatory home pricing to increased punishment for hate and bias crimes.
One such bill Ford marked as particularly important: Assembly Bill 35, which would update the outdated term “child pornography” in state law to “child sexual abuse material,” or CSAM. It also aims to make AI-generated CSAM explicitly illegal.
Several public safety departments in Nevada and national technology companies have contacted Ford’s office about the issue.
“We’ve already heard from Metro and other law enforcement agencies that they’re seeing this AI-created CSAM become prevalent in scenes,” Ford said.
“It’s feeding into an underbelly of criminal activity that we want to see come to an end.”
AB 35 is not the only bill filed by Ford’s office with online security in mind.
Senate Bill 63, the Nevada Youth Online Safety Act, would mandate social media companies proactively confirm users’ age and place wide-ranging restrictions on platform usage if they are under 18.
The bill would restrict younger users from seeing likes or shares on their posts, stop them from live-streaming and ban infinite scrolling on apps used by minors.
SB 63 takes many ideas from the Kids Online Safety Act, a wider-reaching and more restrictive federal bill introduced in 2022. That bill was held back in the House of Representatives over concerns about censorship.
Ford emphasized his desire to protect children at the state level from the mental health impact social media can have.
“Things have stalled quite a bit at the federal level, and while there are certain provisions within the federal bill that would overlap what we’re talking about here at the state level, we can’t wait to protect Nevada youth,” Ford said.
A check on federal overreach
With Donald Trump set to retake the White House in January with a Republican majority in the House and Senate, Ford said he expects to butt heads with the incoming administration as legal issues arise.
“I am not denying the election, and I’m not trying to necessarily get in the way of his ability to act lawfully in the pursuit of his particular goals and policies,” Ford said. “That said, if the past is prologue, he will in fact violate the law in attempting to put into place his policies.”
While Trump was in office, a coalition of Democratic attorneys general filed a record-breaking 160 lawsuits against his administration, more than 83% of which were successful. It was the most lawsuits filed against a single administration.
Ford joined that coalition almost immediately after taking office in 2019 to sue the federal government over religious refusals of health care, and he said he isn’t afraid to do it again.
“He won, and as long as he’s acting lawfully, he won’t hear from me,” Ford said.
Fake elector case ongoing
Another piece of the fallout from Trump’s historic win in Nevada and across the country potentially affecting the state attorney general: the drawback of legal proceedings against the president-elect and allies. Trump, who was convicted in New York on 34 felony counts of falsified business records and was charged federally for allegedly retaining classified documents, has seen the federal case dropped and the state case delayed indefinitely.
The halting of charges has many concerned of a potential chilling effect against prosecution targeting Trump’s allies, including the six “fake electors” in Nevada who filed false certification that Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
Ford, however, said Trump’s victory has little effect on his pursuit of charges against the six, as his office is awaiting an appeal from the Nevada Supreme Court on whether the electors’ case will be dismissed.
“Our job is justice, and justice doesn’t change based on who becomes president,” Ford said. “I am not deterred in the least in pursuing justice against these six fake electors who attempted and did, in fact, undermine the integrity of our elections and violated Nevada law by doing so.”
Ford said if the state Supreme Court does side with the defense, his office plans on refiling in a different county as per the lower court’s basis of dismissal. ayden.runnels@gmgvegas.com / 702- 990-8926 / @a_y_denrunnels