In the name of stopping “price manipulation” and “price fixing”, an overreaching proposal has been introduced into the Nevada legislature. Introduced by the current state Attorney General and expected 2026 Democratic Gubernatorial nominee Aaron Ford, AB 44 bans, in part:
Manipulating the price of an essential good or service in this State. For the purposes of this paragraph, a person manipulates the price of an essential good or service in this State when the person, alone or in concert with others, intentionally engages in any fraudulent or deceptive conduct which is intended to and does cause the price of an essential good or service in this State, as compared to the price of comparable essential goods or services readily available in the 24 months immediately preceding the conduct, to increase in a manner that does not reflect basic forces of supply and demand.
This is very vague wording that would allow almost any appreciable increase in prices to be prosecutable if it were subjectively considered “deceptive” or outside what prosecutors consider the “basic forces of supply and demand”.
Do you trust the government to understand basic economics?
Stop laughing.
The trigger for eligibility for prosecution is actually small enough to hurt small businesses.
“After Ford introduced Assembly Bill 44 (AB44), lawmakers challenged the bill on several points. But opposition from the business community went beyond that, casting the bill as an overreach that would apply to mom-and-pop businesses as well as the business giants like AT&T, home builders, auto dealers, generic drug manufacturers and even the Henderson Chamber — all who showed up to testify against it.
“The bill specifies the kinds of increases it is targeting: ‘The price for which results in the person paying more than $750 for the good or service over a 30-day period or $9,000 for the good or service over a 1-year period. Proposed amendments are already looking to change that section of the bill, but substitute language that compares price changes over a five-year period doesn’t appear to be a viable solution either.”
This language is even vaguer than it seems if one considers that this makes no distinction between an hourly or daily rate, and an overall rate. Furthermore, it is open ended in what is considered a covered “daily necessity”.
The bill, as introduced, can be read here or below.
