Editorial: Good riddance to a thoughtless plan

The Nevada Republican Party could no longer ignore the writing on the wall.

Its so-called "paycheck protection" ballot initiative, thinly veiled as an attack on organized labor, was doomed. A similar measure to require unions to ask members for permission to spend dues on political activities was rejected by voters earlier this month in California. It also is highly questionable whether organizers even had enough valid signatures to qualify it for the November ballot in Nevada.

To top it all off, District Court Judge Myron Leavitt last week ruled that the measure was unconstitutional. Leavitt properly found that to require unions to seek permission from its members to use dues for political purposes violated the First Amendment right of association. In addition, Leavitt noted that if approved, it would have contradicted federal collective bargaining laws.

Fearing that an appeal would be upheld by the Nevada Supreme Court, backers of the initiative sought a deal with organized labor, asking it to pull its counter initiative. It wasn't easy for organized labor, which was bullied into defending itself with its own initiative, to agree to forgo its measure, which would have prohibited state regulation of dues.

On Tuesday, the deadline for submitting signatures to the secretary of state's office to qualify initiatives for the November ballot, both labor and the Nevada Republican Party agreed to withdraw their petitions, precluding a contentious fight this year.

Neither side was unanimous in agreeing to drop the ballot initiatives: among labor, the teachers' union was reluctant to give up, and Venetian megaresort owner Sheldon Adelson was reportedly still pushing the Republican Party to go forward with an appeal to the Supreme Court.

This anti-union initiative was a loser from the beginning. There was absolutely no need for it. Nevada, a right-to-work state, isn't California, a union shop state where mandatory union membership can be a condition for employment. And it was the height of hypocrisy for the Nevada Republican Party, which over the years has repeated the mantra of wanting to get government out of our lives, to push an initiative that would have interfered with the workings of a private organization.

The best thing that can be said about this initiative can be summed up in two words: good riddance.

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