Nevada Voters Have Banned Slavery. Why Hasn’t California?

The ground was still smoking when a group of women who were imprisoned at Jean Conservation Camp were taken to a site outside of Laughlin, Nevada, in the aftermath of a large wildfire that swept through the region in the spring of 2021. The women — all trained firefighters — were there to contain the remnants of the blaze. But the ground was so hot that it seared the skin on the bottom of their feet, melting their socks onto their skin. When they complained, their supervisors laughed at them and told them to get back to work, according to a lawsuit filed by ACLU of Nevada. The women experienced second-degree burns, which weren’t treated until the next day.

Under Nevada state law, incarcerated people like those women are required to work, yet ineligible for workers’ compensation. That might soon change, however: On Election Day, voters passed a measure striking “slavery and involuntary servitude” from the Nevada Constitution, meaning that people in the state’s prisons might no longer be forced to work. But just over Nevada’s western border, in California, voters overwhelmingly rejected a similar measure, Proposition 6. “Slavery” might be illegal in the Golden State, but “involuntary servitude” is still acceptable as punishment for a crime.

Involuntary servitude and slavery “are pretty much synonymous for one another,” said Jamilia Land, co-founder of the Abolish Slavery National Network, a nonprofit organization that is spearheading a campaign to remove slavery from all state constitutions as well as, eventually, the United States Constitution. The 13th Amendment banned “slavery and involuntary servitude” with one exception, as a punishment for a crime — an exception that resulted in the incarceration of formerly enslaved people. Even if you end legalized slavery, Land explained, “its vestige of involuntary servitude” endures.

Removing slavery from the Constitution has been one of the key priorities for California’s Reparations Task Force. But voters may not have made the connection between involuntary servitude and slavery, Land said; differences in the ballot initiative’s language, lack of voter information, and a growing opposition to prison reform may have swayed voters to oppose it.

Under state law, most incarcerated people in both Nevada and California, with few exceptions, are required to work, typically for less than 40 cents an hour, although the passage of Nevada’s Question 4 means that this law may no longer be constitutional in the state, said Christopher Peterson, legal director of ACLU of Nevada. If incarcerated people refuse to work, they risk being written up, which could influence parole hearings and even land them in solitary confinement. Both states employ incarcerated workers for critical jobs, including fighting wildfires and overseeing prison maintenance. Incarcerated people often leave prison with debt from legal and medical fees, phone calls and commissary purchases, no matter how hard they work.

Neither California’s Proposition 6 or Nevada’s Question 4 faced open opposition from those states’ legislatures or ballot committees, and the measures received little attention, despite Proposition 6’s tumultuous history. California legislators considered a similar measure in 2022 but withdrew support after Department of Finance officials argued that the initiative’s language could have allowed incarcerated people to demand minimum wage, something that would have cost the state $1.5 billion annually. California, which has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, generates hundreds of millions of dollars from prison labor.

Proposition 6 appeared on the ballot only after legislators agreed that the California Department of Corrections would set the wages for incarcerated people, meaning that they would likely remain below minimum wage. The Nevada Legislature did not raise similar concerns about prison wages, and the impacts of Question 4 on wages and other labor issues are still unknown. Still, the measure could permit incarcerated workers to sue for workers’ compensation and assert their rights as workers, Peterson said.

The language in the initiatives may have been part of the reason the two states voted so differently. California’s ballot measure stated that it would eliminate “involuntary servitude” as a criminal punishment from its Constitution, but it made no mention of slavery, while Nevada’s specifically called for removing language about both slavery and involuntary servitude.

Even before Election Day, Mark Baldassare, director of the Public Policy Institute of California Statewide Survey, feared that voters would have a hard time with the term “involuntary servitude” and fail to connect it to slavery. There was essentially “no campaign to educate voters,” he said, and California’s Official Voter Information Guide, unlike most other ballot measures, only listed Assemblymember Lori Wilson, the Democrat who introduced the measure, as a supporter. No opponents were listed. “When voters in California don’t understand or are not sure who the supporters and opponents are, they’ll take a pass,” Baldassare said.

Land agreed that voter education significantly impacted how Californians responded, but pointed out that there might have been another reason that Californians rejected the measure: Proposition 36, which increases penalties for drug crimes and theft. Campaigns grouped the two together, perhaps making Proposition 6 seem like a criminal justice reform initiative. Proposition 36 raised millions of dollars, unlike Proposition 6, which was also hindered by opposition from law enforcement and multiple business groups. On Election Day, Californians supported initiatives and candidates that were tough on crime, including Proposition 36.

Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which is one of the two entities, along with the Republican Party, that formally opposed Proposition 6, said that Californians understood the text and spirit of the law: “People just don’t like soft-on-crime proposals.” Coupal says he strongly believes that forced prison labor is “an appropriate punishment” for a crime.

Land, however, argued that ending legalized slavery is not a criminal justice issue. It’s a civil rights issue: “You can’t reform legalized constitutional slavery,” she said.

Nevada has also historically supported tough-on-crime legislation, Peterson said. “It’s possible that Nevada voters view this as not related to criminal legal reform,” he said, but rather “simply a matter of principle that, look, we’re not going to treat people like slaves.”

He added that Nevada has enshrined civil liberties in its Constitution, including abortion rights, this election cycle. “It fits the broader way Nevadans view themselves,” Peterson said. “Generally speaking, our state has a tendency to put limitations on the government’s power.”

Now that Nevada has ended involuntary servitude, Peterson expects that incarcerated people may start suing the state to improve their working conditions or argue for workers’ compensation. “There are attorneys in our jurisdiction that have been willing to fight these workers’ compensation cases on behalf of incarcerated people,” he said. “And I know that they’ll have an interest in taking up that fight again.”

High Country News is an independent magazine dedicated to coverage of the Western U.S. Subscribe, get the newsletter, and follow HCN on Facebook and Twitter.