Where I Stand -- Mike O'Callaghan: Protecting Nevada voters

LAST WEEK the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on three questions presented in an argument between the state of Colorado and the American Constitutional Law Foundation. The matter before the court was the controls Colorado had put on people seeking signatures for initiative petitions to place issues on the election ballot.

The issue and questions were in brief:

Whether the state of Colorado may constitutionally regulate the process of circulating initiative petitions by requiring that: 1) petition circulators who verify the signatures of petitions signers must be registered to vote; 2) petition circulators must wear identification badges; and 3) proponents of an initiative must file reports disclosing the amounts paid to circulators and the identity of petition circulators.

In split decisions the justices ruled against Colorado on all three questions. I find little reason to disagree with the 8-1 ruling against the badge-wearing requirement. This requirement was law to protect the public from circulators who perpetrate fraud and to aid the state in seeking them out. According to Justice Clarence Thomas, the problem with this law is that it burdens all circulators with this additional burden.

The other two questions were declared unconstitutional by votes of 6-3. Chief Justice William Rehnquist when dissenting took a close look at the requirement that circulators be registered voters. He especially disagreed with the majority of the court, ruling that to demand circulators be registered voters flies in the face of the First Amendment. He also points out that the court approves a state restriction to eligible voters. Then he asks what is an eligible voter and does it include those only in Colorado?

Rehnquist writes: "Thus, the Court today holds that a State cannot require that those who circulate the petitions to get initiatives on the ballot be electors, and that a State is constitutionally required to instead allow those who make no effort to register to vote -- political dropouts -- and convicted drug dealers to engage in this electoral activity. Although the Court argues that only those eligible to vote may now circulate candidate petitions, there is no Colorado law to this effect. Such a law would also be even harder to administer than one which limited circulation to residents, because eligible Colorado voters are that subset of Colorado residents who have fulfilled the requirements for registration, and have not committed a felony or been otherwise disqualified from the franchise. A State would thus have to perform a background check on circul ators to determine if they are not felons. And one of the reasons the State wished to limit petition circulation to electors in the first place was that it

is far easier to determine who is an elector from who is a resident, much less who is 'voter eligible.' "

As for the necessity of doing away with disclosure of pay to circulators, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor dissents and writes: "The recognized benefits of financial disclosure are equally applicable in the context of petition circulation. Disclosure deters circulation fraud and abuse by encouraging petition circulators to be truthful and self-disciplined ... The disclosure required here advances Colorado's interest in law enforcement by enabling the State to detect and to identify on a timely basis abusive or fraudulent circulators. Moreover, like election finance reporting generally, Colorado's disclosure reports provide facts useful to voters who are weighing their options. Members of the public deciding whether to sign a petition or how to vote on a measure can discover who has proposed it, who has provided funds for its circulation, and to whom these funds have been provided. Knowing the names of paid circulators and the amounts paid to them also allows members of the public to evaluate the sincerity or, alt

ernatively, the potential bias of any circulator that approaches them ... "

So how does all of this affect Nevada and other states? By having no restrictions on the eligibility of circulators and hushing up where the money comes from, Nevada becomes an easy target for every wealthy nut group in nearby California and here at home. Because Nevada is so much smaller it becomes an easy and cheap target. Petition circulating has become a multimillion-dollar business.

This lifting of restrictions also doesn't please thinking Californians where the ballot is already overloaded with a lengthy list of propositions. A Los Angeles Times editorial says, "California law includes two of the invalidated Colorado provisions: that petition circulators be registered to vote in the state and that petition campaigns report all expenditures to the state. We oppose any limits on the public's ability to find out just which special interests may be bankrolling a petition drive ... "

The Times' editorial concludes, "Many Californians are disgusted by the free-spending special interests that skew the political process through initiative campaigns, but they also are reluctant to limit their own ability to right wrongs through the ballot box. The state's rules balancing these opposing impulses make sense; the Supreme Court's action in striking down similar ones in Colorado do not. If California's rules indeed are voided, then the Legislature should try to craft new ones that can survive a court test."

I'm sure by now that Nevada's competent secretary of state, Dean Heller, is taking a close look at the Supreme Court decision and considering legislation to protect Silver State voters. Something everybody should remember is that the U.S. Constitution doesn't demand or guarantee a right to initiative petition. Only 24 states and D.C. have such provisions.

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