Pubdate: Sat, 19 Mar 2005
Source: Las Vegas Sun (NV)
Copyright: 2005 Las Vegas Sun, Inc
Contact:  http://www.lasvegassun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/234
Author: Steve Kanigher
Cited: Marijuana Policy Project ( www.mpp.org )
Cited: American Civil Liberties Union ( www.aclu.org )
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/marijuana+initiative
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

LIMITING INITIATIVES

Legislators Pitch Tighter Restrictions to Curb Growth Of
Often-Confusing Ballot Measures

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. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake