Editorial: Suit takes aim at fair initiatives

Monday, Nov. 24, 2003 | 8:45 a.m.

Citizens who want to change the Nevada Constitution or get new laws on the books can circulate initiative petitions as a first step. With enough valid signatures from voters, the petitions automatically go onto a general election ballot in the form of questions. If the questions are ultimately approved, new laws and constitutional changes are brought about directly by the voters, rather than by the normal legislative process. The process for conducting initiative petitions was crafted in order to ensure that people throughout the state would have a say on proposed changes that would affect them. The framers of the constitution did not want densely populated counties dominating the process. This fair approach is now endangered by a federal lawsuit.

For a statewide initiative petition to be successful, signers must number at least 10 percent of all those who voted in the previous general election. This number currently stands at 51,243. But the constitution recognizes population disparities and prohibits petitions that simply gather the raw 10 percent. The reasoning is sound. If raw numbers were allowed, those circulating petitions wouldn't go anywhere near the rural counties. So the constitution contains a provision requiring that for initiative petitions to be valid, they must contain signatures from at least 10 percent of the active voters in 13 of the state's 17 counties.

A quick review of the numbers shows the logic. In Esmeralda County, 619 people are registered to vote. In Eureka County, there are 894 registered voters. In Elko County, 18,247. All of the rural counties are small potatoes compared to Washoe and Clark counties, home of Reno and Las Vegas, where the registered voters number 190,144 and 588,028 respectively. If a raw 10 percent of those who voted were allowed, all of the signatures could be gathered from Clark County alone. The constitution is written so that changes in state law and the constitution itself cannot be proposed without participation by voters in the less populated counties.

But a federal lawsuit filed in Las Vegas this week would change this fair process. Filed by anti-tax activist Dan Burdish and state Sen. Sandra Tiffany, R-Henderson, the suit is based on a September decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which struck down Idaho's multi-county approach to initiative petitions. The court ruled, mistakenly in our view, that Idaho's system gave too much power to the sparsely populated counties. The raw-vote system favored by Burdish and Tiffany, however, gives all the power to densely populated counties, with no regard for the rest of the state. We hope the 9th Circuit's decision affecting Idaho is overturned, and that the Burdish-Tiffany lawsuit is dismissed.