Rural counties crucial to initiative petitions

Monday, June 8, 1998 | 10:30 a.m.

Initiative petitions are being circulated to gather 46,764 signatures of registered voters to put each proposal on the ballot. The deadline for turning in the petitions is June 16.

The big concern for backers of the petitions is whether they'll comply with a law that requires 10 percent of the voters in each of 13 of Nevada's 17 counties to sign petitions to qualify the questions.

Rural Nevada's population is widely dispersed. Even if the qualified number of signatures is obtained, it might take only a few disqualifications to knock the petition off the ballot.

Rival petitions are being circulated by the Republican Party and organized labor over the issue of restricting the use of union dues for political purposes. Both sides, now working the rural counties, say they have 60,000 signatures.

Claude "Blackie" Evans, executive secretary of the Nevada State AFL-CIO, said the union goal is 75,000 signatures. The AFL-CIO hired the San Francisco firm of Kimball and Associates to help circulate the petition.

"We want to qualify in all 17 counties," Evans said. But he says there may be problems in gathering the 10 percent of the signatures needed from each county.

Chuck Muth, spokesman for the GOP effort, said, "we're not concerned about the raw numbers. But it's making sure it's qualified in 13 of the 17 counties."

He said the party's goal is to obtain 30 percent more of the signatures than is required in each county to make sure the petition qualifies.

"I'm not saying this is a slam dunk (in qualifying), but we're hopeful," Muth added.

The GOP has hired National Voter Outreach of Carson City, which has been successful in other Nevada voter drives, to circulate the petition.

Republicans leadership wants a constitutional amendment to require that workers sign a yearly consent form to allow their union dues to be used for political purposes.

Organized labor's proposal would stop any interference in the collection of union dues. The amendment also would require full disclosure of every campaign contribution; prohibit campaign contributions from foreign interests; and prohibit laundering of campaign contributions.

A group called Nevadans for Medical Rights is backing the marijuana petition which allows its use, upon the advice of a physician, for "treatment or alleviation of cancer, glaucoma, AIDS, persistent nausea, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and other medical problems."

Dan Hart, spokesman for the medical marijuana petition, said the number of signatures isn't the problem - but the geographical requirement may present a roadblock.

There were four initiative petitions filed by a group called The Justice Foundation of Nevada in Las Vegas to make changes in the court system. But Jack Ferm, who headed the foundation, said the group gave up its efforts to qualify the four for the ballot.

He said there was a lot of interest but nobody wanted to donate the time to gather the signatures. "We're trying again next year," he said.