By Eric Neugeboren and Isabella Aldrete — The Legislature isn’t used to moving fast in the early days of the session — but this year, it’s proceeding at a (relatively) breakneck pace.

March 17 is the deadline for lawmaker bills to be introduced this session, while March 24 is the last day for committee bill introductions. This excludes emergency bills (which can be introduced at any time) or budget bills, which come at the end of session.

We got a tip from an observant lobbyist who believed there was a surge in bills introduced in the early days of the session — and the data backs it up.

Bills introduced by day 3 of a legislative session

The 2025 session has seen by far the most bills introduced by day 3 since at least the 2017 session.

Through the first three days of this session, a whopping 438 bills were introduced — 170 more than any other session since 2017, according to our friends at the Legislative Counsel Bureau (LCB).
Zooming out, nearly 1,000 measures were requested before the session, and more than 40 percent had been introduced by day three of the session, a rate much higher than past legislative sessions.
Lack of advance planning can lead to problems down the road. In 2021, when the number of prefiled bills was particularly low, lawmakers had to push back bill introduction deadlines to allow LCB’s legal division more time to finish drafting bills.
- Context: A prefiled bill is a requested measure that has been drafted in full ahead of the session.
Interim LCB Director Diane Thornton said this session’s surge was because of several factors, including process improvements and the support of caucus leadership, who ensured that members submitted bill details in a timely manner so that the LCB’s legal division could draft bills quickly.
- Thornton added that “improvements” such as LCB no longer accepting bills for prefiling after the first day of the session, helped contribute to the increase.
Lorne Malkiewich, a former head of the LCB, said in an interview that the bureau has long tried to make its processes more efficient.
- “That is something that has been a constant effort on the part of the Legislative Counsel Bureau and the Legislature is to … try and get as much work in as early as possible,” he said.
Assembly Minority Leader Gregory Hafen (R-Pahrump) said he attributed the increase to “the timing of how the bills get presented.”