72% of Nevadans Said Break the Monopoly. Then $63 Million Said No.
In 2016, Nevada voters overwhelmingly approved Question 3 to end NV Energy's monopoly. A constitutional technicality gave the monopoly a second chance — and $63 million was enough to override the will of the people.
In 2016, 72% of Nevada voters said yes to breaking NV Energy's monopoly. It wasn't close. It wasn't controversial. Nearly three out of four voters looked at the state's only electricity provider and said: we want a choice. Two years later, after the monopoly spent $63 million telling them they were wrong, they changed their answer.
The First Vote: A Clear Mandate
Question 3 appeared on the 2016 ballot as a straightforward proposal: amend Nevada's constitution to allow energy choice. Instead of being locked into NV Energy as your only option, you could pick your electricity provider the way you pick your phone company or your internet service.
The idea wasn't radical. Texas, Ohio, and more than a dozen other states already had some form of retail energy competition. The argument was simple — competition lowers prices and improves service. Monopolies do the opposite.
Nevada voters agreed. 72.4% voted yes. That's not a slim majority squeaking through on a technicality. That's the kind of margin that, in most elections, would be called a landslide. A mandate. A done deal.
Except it wasn't.
The Constitutional Catch
Because Question 3 was a constitutional amendment, Nevada law required it to pass in two consecutive general elections. The 2016 vote was only round one. It would appear again on the ballot in 2018, and it needed to win again.
This is where the story shifts from civics to something darker.
In 2016, NV Energy's parent company — Berkshire Hathaway Energy, owned by Warren Buffett — spent relatively little opposing the measure. The result was a blowout loss. So for round two, the strategy changed. If you can't win the argument, you can still win the spending war.
$63 Million to Change Your Mind
Between the two elections, Berkshire Hathaway Energy poured roughly $63 million into the "No on 3" campaign. To put that number in context:
- It was the most expensive ballot measure campaign in Nevada history
- It was more than some candidates spend running for governor
- It worked out to roughly $50 for every single voter who showed up in 2018
The money bought a saturation campaign of TV ads, mailers, digital advertising, and paid canvassers. The messaging was carefully crafted to turn a simple idea — you should be able to choose your power company — into something that sounded dangerous and uncertain. Ads warned of "California-style blackouts," higher rates, and chaos from "out-of-state energy companies."
Notably, NV Energy is an out-of-state company. Berkshire Hathaway is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Every dollar of profit leaves Nevada. But with $63 million, you can make people forget that part.
The Second Vote: A Purchased Reversal
In November 2018, Question 3 failed. 67% voted no.
Read that again. In two years, public opinion didn't just shift — it reversed. A measure that won 72% support lost with 67% opposition. That's a 39-point swing on the same question, asked of the same population, with no material change in circumstances.
Nothing about NV Energy's service had improved. Rates hadn't gone down. The arguments for competition hadn't gotten weaker. The only thing that changed was the amount of money spent telling voters to be afraid.
What $63 Million Buys
It's worth sitting with what actually happened here, because we tend to talk about campaign spending in abstract terms. Here's the concrete version:
The people of Nevada exercised their democratic right and said, overwhelmingly, that they wanted energy choice. A corporation whose monopoly profits were threatened then spent more money than most Nevadans will earn in a lifetime — not to improve service, not to lower rates, not to invest in infrastructure — but to convince those same people that they didn't actually want what they'd just voted for.
And it worked.
This is what monopoly power looks like in practice. It's not just the power to set prices or control supply. It's the power to override democratic outcomes. When a corporation can spend $63 million on a single state ballot measure and consider it a sound investment — because the alternative was competing for your business — that tells you exactly how much they're making off the current arrangement.
Acts of the Powerless
There's a concept in organizing called "acts of the powerless" — the things people do when they have no real leverage. Voting, in theory, shouldn't be one of those things. Your vote is supposed to be the great equalizer, the one moment when a billionaire's voice and a line cook's voice carry the same weight.
But Question 3 showed how that works in practice. The people spoke. The monopoly wrote a check. The people's answer was revised.
This doesn't mean voting is pointless. It means that voting alone isn't enough when you're up against an entity that can outspend you a thousand to one. The 72% who voted yes in 2016 weren't wrong about what they wanted. They were outgunned by a company that had more to lose than any individual voter had to gain — and the resources to make sure everyone heard its version of the story.
The Larger Pattern
Question 3 isn't an isolated incident. It's part of a pattern that defines NV Energy's relationship with Nevada:
- 2015-2016: Rule changes killed the rooftop solar industry, protecting NV Energy's monopoly on generation
- 2018: $63 million killed energy choice, protecting the monopoly on retail
- 2002-2024: $65 million in customer overcharges went unaddressed for two decades
- 2025-2026: New demand charges target the customers who use the least energy
Each of these is a different mechanism, but the result is always the same: the monopoly extracts, the public absorbs, and when the public tries to change the arrangement, the monopoly spends whatever it takes to maintain the status quo.
What This Means for Las Vegas
If you pay an NV Energy bill — and in Southern Nevada, you almost certainly do — Question 3's story is your story. You were part of a supermajority that tried to create competition in your energy market, and a corporation based in Omaha, Nebraska decided that wasn't going to happen.
The question now isn't whether the system is rigged in favor of the monopoly. Question 3 answered that definitively. The question is what comes next — and whether the next attempt to challenge NV Energy's grip can be built to withstand the inevitable $63 million response.