Friday, March 18, 2005 | 3:45 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
March 19 - 20, 2005
As Nevada's general-election ballots get fatter with initiatives from monied special interests, state lawmakers have begun scrutinizing the way these measures are presented to voters.
After a tumultuous election season last year that resulted in multiple court challenges to the state's initiative process, lawmakers have come to believe that the system needs to be overhauled.
As a result the Nevada Legislature is considering numerous proposals aimed at clarifying the often confusing process.
There is little evidence, though, that the proposals will curb the volume of initiatives headed for the November 2006 general-election ballot.
And that troubles Sen. Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, a veteran lawmaker.
He is proposing to amend the Nevada Constitution to make it more difficult for proposed initiatives to get on the ballot by requiring that petition signatures be gathered from all 42 Assembly districts. His proposal would not take effect until the 2010 general election.
"Most people I talk to do not want to see Nevada turn into a California-type ballot system," Rhoads said. "That is why we elect county commissioners and legislators, so that they can make the decisions. That's why I introduced my bill."
The proposed reforms generally fall into two categories: making initiatives easier for voters to understand, and revising the number of signatures needed to get an initiative on the statewide ballot.
"Most reform efforts are intended to limit initiatives," University of Southern California professor John Matsusaka, president of its Initiative & Referendum Institute, said. "That's because legislators don't like people making the decisions. They don't like the initiative process, so they tend to limit it."
Lawmakers find they must walk a fine line between serving as representatives of the people and not getting in the way of the people's right to petition for changes in the law.
"One of my concerns is that we not lose sight that we do have a Legislature that is a representative form of government," Sen. Valerie Wiener, D-Las Vegas, said. "I would think as long as we continue to grow as a state that there will be more initiatives on the ballot.
"But as the ballot gets longer and more complicated, the participation in voting may drop off. I don't want the initiative process to become so large that people don't participate in the voting process anymore."
Western influence
Nevada is one of 24 states -- most west of the Mississippi River -- with a ballot-initiative process. Statewide initiatives can either propose a new law, change an existing one or amend a state's constitution.
The intent was to give the public a way to circumvent the powerful railroad and mining interests that controlled state legislatures in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Today, the process is dominated by powerful special interests that often spend millions of dollars on television advertising, political consultants, polling and signature gathering. Groups that have participated in Nevada's initiative process in recent years have included the gaming industry, organized labor, teachers' unions, chambers of commerce, doctors, lawyers and a pro-marijuana organization financed by a billionaire.
In a 2001 nationwide poll conducted by the initiative institute, 74 percent of Nevadans indicated they approved of the process. That was tied for second highest in the nation with California, just behind South Dakota's 75 percent favorable rating.
Matsusaka said the reason initiatives have gained popularity since the mid-1990s has to do with the increased amount of information voters can access about government through the Internet, cable television and satellite connections.
"People aren't happy with their legislatures, and they're exposed to more information," Matsusaka said. "They know more about what is going on.
"Fifty years ago a regular person didn't know what government did. Today a lot of people say they know as much as the lawmakers, especially when it comes to broad issues like the minimum wage. So people are now saying, 'Let us decide on the laws.' "
Someone who has seen Nevada's process work from different vantage points is Helen Foley of Las Vegas, a former state senator and assemblywoman who is a veteran lobbyist.
She represents a coalition of health care organizations, including the Clark County Health District, that supports a proposed 2006 initiative -- the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act -- that would prohibit smoking in most public places.
"This initiative comes from frustration with the Legislature," Foley said. "The Legislature has dealt with second-hand smoke for more than a decade but we still have among the laxest laws on second-hand smoke in the nation. We still have smoking in grocery stores and restaurants and convenience stores."
Frustration with the Legislature is also why Nevada voters were asked in November to choose among three competing initiatives having to do with medical-malpractice lawsuits.
The Legislature, meeting in special session in 2002, forged what it thought was a reasonable compromise between doctors and lawyers that resulted in caps on damages for pain and suffering with some exceptions.
But when doctors complained that the new law did not result in lower malpractice-insurance premiums, they organized a drive to get an initiative on the 2004 ballot to remove the exceptions to the caps. Their effort paid off with a victory, while two competing measures backed by trial lawyers were defeated.
The lawyers' unsuccessful initiative "The Insurance Rate Reduction and Reform Act" became one of the main reasons lawmakers are looking at reforming the process because of the confusing way the measure was written.
Seeking clarity
One way some lawmakers hope to change the process is by restricting each initiative to a single topic, written in language that everyone can understand.
"The Insurance Rate Reduction and Reform Act" was criticized because it would have done two separate things: lower automobile, homeowner and business casualty insurance rates, and remove any caps on damages for medical malpractice.
Assembly Bill 185, referred to the Assembly Committee on Elections, Procedures, Ethics and Constitutional Amendments, is an example of legislation that would limit an initiative to one topic.
The bill would also give the secretary of state's office the authority to reject a ballot explanation for an initiative if it contains false statements. An initiative sponsor whose explanation has been rejected by the secretary of state may appeal to the state attorney general's office.
"I call it a truth-in-initiative bill," Assemblywoman Heidi Gansert, R-Reno, a sponsor of AB185, said. "The title of the insurance-reduction initiative was deceiving. Common sense would dictate that an initiative should be on a single subject."
Secretary of State Dean Heller, who supports limiting initiatives to a single subject, also wants the Nevada Supreme Court to review the language in ballot measures -- including explanations, arguments and rebuttals -- by early August preceding the November general election to avoid last-minute legal challenges.
"It would make the process go smoother if we were talking about one subject," Heller said. "Once the language is written there should be some judicial contributions to the process. What we're trying to do is to keep this out of the courts at the last minute."
Heller also is asking the Legislature to move up the deadline to submit initiative-petition signatures by 65 days -- the deadline was June last year -- to give county clerks and registrars of voters more time to verify the signatures.
The League of Women Voters normally publishes detailed guides that explain each ballot initiative. And Web sites, such as those run by the Heller's office, also provide information.
The problem is that voters often don't know where to turn for help when it comes to understanding initiatives. To rectify that, Wiener has prepared a bill draft that she said would require all sample ballots to contain sources for more information on statewide initiatives.
She said these sources would include the secretary of state's phone number and Web site and county election department phone number. They may also include the locations of libraries where information has been distributed in the past.
It has not yet been determined whether it would be legal for specific groups such as the nonpartisan League of Women Voters, which has published the "Easy Voter Guide," to also be listed, Wiener said.
"When I walked door to door last year for re-election, people told me they didn't understand what they were voting on. So they said, 'I'm not going to vote for any of them.'
"What we have done in essence is to disenfranchise the people. We need to encourage people to participate, not drive them away."
Wiener also said she wants explanations written so that someone with an eighth grade education can understand them.
"If voters don't understand them, they get frustrated," she said.
A bill draft from Sen. Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, would require proposed constitutional amendments that involve expenditures to cite the tax revenue sources that would be used, a proposal that is being backed by the Nevada Taxpayers Association.
Cegavske also is proposing that initiative petitions be turned in sooner to the secretary of state's office so that any legal challenges can be cleared up well before the election. And she said she wants people to be able to understand the petitions before they sign them.
"The problem is that people often don't read the entire petition before they sign it because they don't have the time," Cegavske said. "I wish people wouldn't sign things they don't understand."
Gathering signatures
Senate Joint Resolution 3, sponsored by Rhoads, grew from a federal court decision last year that declared unconstitutional a Nevada law that required an initiative petition to be signed by at least 10 percent of the voters in the last general election in at least 13 of Nevada's 17 counties.
The court ruled that the law gave more weight to signatures gathered in small counties than in larger ones. The ruling's effect is that an initiative's sponsor can now meet the 10 percent voter threshold by gathering signatures in a single county, Clark, if that is all it takes to meet the number of signatures required.
Rhoads' resolution would amend the state constitution to require that a petition must be signed by enough registered voters to equal at least 4 percent of the population in each of the 42 Assembly districts. That would have meant 96,430 signatures statewide last year.
To take effect, the proposal would have to pass the Legislature both this year and in 2007 and then be approved by voters in the 2008.
"If it stays like the court ruled, someone could stand in front of a Wal-Mart in Las Vegas and collect enough signatures without having to go to any of the rural counties," Rhoads, the longtime rural Nevada lawmaker, said.
Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, is proposing instead that petition drives to change a state law gather signatures equating to at least 15 percent of the registered voters in the last general election from each of Nevada's three congressional districts. That would have equated to 160,654 signatures statewide last year.
In the case of a proposed constitutional amendment, the signature minimum threshold would be 20 percent from each congressional district, which would have been 214,207 signatures last year.
"A requirement to get signatures from all 42 Assembly districts is too unwieldy," Giunchigliani said of Rhoads' proposal. "I don't want to do anything to impede the right of people to petition the government."
Heller has proposed that any government agency that prevents someone from gathering petition signatures in a designated area at a public building be fined by the state up to $5,000 per day from its operating budget for each violation.
Greg Bortolin, spokesman for Gov. Kenny Guinn, said the governor's office supports that proposal because agencies should follow the law and allow access for petition drives. Last year a group that unsuccessfully sought to repeal the 2003 state tax increases complained that it was prevented from collecting signatures at the Department of Motor Vehicles, UNLV and a Reno bus station.
"There's some merit behind this," Bortolin said of Heller's proposal. "If you hit people where it hurts, they will follow the law. The governor's office complained pretty angrily last year when our agencies didn't follow the law."
Giunchigliani also is proposing that for a petition to be considered by the Legislature, it must have valid signatures equating to 10 percent of the voters in the last general election prior to when the petition was certified by the state.
So a petition intended to be considered by the Legislature in 2007 would need at least 83,156 valid signatures if certified before the November 2006 general election -- with the 83,156 representing 10 percent of the voters in November 2004 -- or signatures equating to 10 percent of the voters in November 2006 if the petition is certified after that election.
This became an issue that landed in the courts in January after Heller, acting on legal advice from the attorney general's office, rejected three petitions -- two dealing with public smoking and another on legalizing marijuana. He rejected them because they were certified after the November election and none had the 83,156 signatures he believed were required.
But the backers of the marijuana petition won a ruling in federal court based on their argument that election information supplied by the state stipulated that petitions presented to the 2005 Legislature needed only 51,337 valid signatures. That number represented 10 percent of the voters in the 2002 general election, and the marijuana petition had 69,261 signatures.
Because of the court ruling, Heller dropped his challenge and allowed all three petitions to be considered by the Legislature.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which sided with the Marijuana Policy Project in its court battle, is taking a wait-and-see attitude on the proposals from Rhoads and Giunchigliani. However, ACLU attorney Allen Lichtenstein said that his organization would take a position once it studies the details.
"It involves equal protection in an area of political speech and communication that is clearly at the core of our civil liberties," Lichtenstein said of signature-gathering requirements.
Looking ahead
Because the Legislature failed to approve the two public smoking petitions and the marijuana petition within the first 40 days of the session, they will be placed on the November 2006 ballot.
They will be joined by a proposed constitutional amendment to raise the state's minimum wage, which was approved by voters last November, but must be approved again in 2006 to change the constitution.
There has also been talk of a property tax proposal if the Legislature cannot agree on a plan to limit the recent property tax increases that have come with rapidly rising housing values. And there are at least 10 proposed constitutional amendments that, if approved by legislators this year and in 2007, will land on the 2008 general-election ballot.
Despite the proposed reforms of the initiative process, Foley said she doubted they would affect the wording of the initiative she is backing to limit smoking in public places.
Kami Dempsey, a lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project, likewise said she didn't believe the proposed reforms would affect the wording of the initiative to legalize up to 1 ounce of marijuana.
"The proposals would not affect us because we believe we have followed a high standard," Dempsey said.
archive
