State Senate Majority Leader Kelvin Atkinson.
Days after the 2018 midterm elections, the Nevada Senate Democratic Caucus announced state Sen. Kelvin Atkinson was unanimously elected as its next majority leader.
Atkinson, who was elected to the Assembly in 2002, became the first openly gay African American to serve in the Nevada legislature when he came out in 2013.
He inherits the position from state Sen. Aaron Ford, who won his bid Tuesday to become Nevada’s first African-American Attorney General — he is the first black candidate to serve as Majority Leader and now he is the first to win a statewide office.
Assemblyman Jason Frierson serves as the Assembly Speaker — he too was the first African American to hold that position.
Democrats hold a 13 to 8 majority over Republicans in the Senate, and a 29 to 13 majority in the Assembly.
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