Clark County School District Superintendent Jesus Jara speaks during the 2023 State of the Schools address at Resorts World Las Vegas, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023.
Sunday, Jan. 29, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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It’s unclear why the petition supporting the most recent attempt to potentially break up the Clark County School District didn’t get enough valid signatures to put deconsolidation legislation in front of state lawmakers this year.
That’s because in Clark County alone, one in three signatures on last year’s petition was tossed for “other” reasons that weren’t specified, Clark County clerk records show.
Although the breakup plan would have allowed any Nevada incorporated city, with local voter approval, to break away from their county school district and create their own, the organizers and momentum are based in the Las Vegas area. That meant that the Community Schools Initiative political action committee did most of its petition work in the Las Vegas area too, putting the fate of the initiative in the hands of the Clark County clerk’s office.
In November, the Clark County clerk’s office received about 196,000 of the 233,173 signatures gathered statewide by the Community Schools Initiative. It appeared the initiative had easily met the legal threshold of 140,777 valid signatures, including at least 35,195 signatures from registered voters in each of the state’s four congressional districts. Following state law, the county verified a random sampling of 5%, or 9,818 of the signatures, and reported those findings to the Nevada secretary of state.
What the county found, according to a “certificate of results of signature examination:” 2,277 were not from registered voters; 85 were illegible; 20 were valid but duplicates; one wasn’t signed in ink; and — far outpacing any other category — 3,377 were “other invalid signatures.” Ultimately, 4,058 in the sample were declared valid.
The failure led to the Community Schools Initiative suing the firm that circulated their petition for fraud and breach of contract earlier this month. In its lawsuit, the Community Schools Initiative claimed that Vanguard Field Strategies assured the breakup backers that at least 70% of the signatures they collected would be valid and even reportedly indicated that it was clearing an 80% success rate.
But in December, the secretary of state said only 53% of the signatures reviewed by all county clerks were valid.
“Based on the examination done by the county election officials across the state, the aforementioned petition does not meet the statutory and constitutional signature requirements and is deemed insufficient,” then-Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske wrote in a letter to organizers in late December notifying them that they did not collect enough valid petition signatures.
In raw numbers, county clerks statewide determined that 6,200 signatures were valid out of a sample of about 11,661. At least 7,039 out of the sample needed to be valid to advance the proposal to the Nevada Legislature for consideration.
“By not hitting (or even coming close to) the agreed-upon 70% validity rate or the indicated 80%-plus gathering rate, Vanguard effectively got an ‘F’ when all it needed to get was a ‘C,’” the suit said.
Community Schools Initiative is seeking at least $2.2 million, the amount it paid the firm since contracting with the company in June, plus punitive damages and attorney’s fees.
The Community Schools Initiative alleged several details in its lawsuit that could potentially flesh out the county’s “other” category: that the petition came back with several names being signed repeatedly, and in other cases, obscenities filled in as names. Some pages were burned, the complaint added, “and others smelled like ‘bong water.’” The company allegedly offered to give the Community Schools Initiative a refund but did not, the lawsuit also said.
Vanguard, a Texas-based firm that works on campaigns nationwide, did not return calls seeking comment. However, in a June letter of engagement that Community Schools Initiative attached to its complaint, Vanguard included this disclaimer: “Although VFS from time to time may opine about the possible results regarding the campaign, VFS cannot guarantee any particular result from services.”
Had the petition drive been successful, state legislators would have considered a law next session to allow local governments to opt out of their county-level school districts. If lawmakers didn’t pass the measure, it would have gone to a statewide ballot in 2024. The next legislative session begins Feb. 6.
Vanguard is a plaintiff in a similar lawsuit in Michigan. In that case, Vanguard, along with a failed gubernatorial candidate, accuse subcontracted petition circulators of forging thousands of signatures, which prevented the candidate frombeing eligible for Michigan’s primary ballot.
