Marijuana, frivolous suits initiatives fail

Cy Ryan and Kirsten Searer

Wednesday, July 14, 2004 | 10:51 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Backers of two initiative petitions that failed to qualify for the ballot Tuesday said they planned to keep fighting to get the measures before voters.

A measure to allow an adult to possess up to an ounce of marijuana and another that would have penalized attorneys who filed frivolous lawsuits failed to garner enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, Secretary of State Dean Heller said.

Heller said Tuesday that an initiative petition that would order a 20 percent reduction in insurance rates qualified for the ballot.

The group pushing the initiative to penalize attorneys who file frivolous suits plans to file a motion today to join the AFL-CIO on its bid to count signatures that had been disqualified.

Heller's office said signatures were declared invalid because the petitions lacked an affidavit of someone who signed the petition, as well as one from the person gathering the signatures, as required by the state constitution.

On Monday the AFL-CIO of Nevada won the right to argue in court that the signatures without a proper affidavit should be counted. The hearing is set for next Tuesday. The state AFL-CIO is fighting to get an initiative on the ballot that would raise the minimum wage and has so far won a temporary court injunction.

A representative for the group behind the frivolous lawsuit initiative, People for a Better Nevada, spoke with the judge involved in that case Tuesday, said Gail Tuzzolo, a consultant working with the group.

Tuzzolo said she believes that the group can win its argument in court and, if the signatures are counted, the frivolous lawsuit petition would have enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.

A spokeswoman for the initiative to legalize up to one ounce of marijuana said the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana isn't giving up yet.

While the group doesn't have immediate plans to join in the court appeal, it will watch it and determine the best course of action from there, spokeswoman Jennifer Knight said.

"We just have to wait for the AFL-CIO court case to be settled," she said. "A lot of our fate sort of depends on that." If a court orders the secretary of state to count signatures that have been thrown out, the group would have enough signatures to ask for a full recount, she said.

"This has a lot more twists and turns than we planned for in this campaign, but we're sticking to it," she said.

But Chief Deputy Secretary of State Renee Parker said even if those signatures had been counted, the marijuana petition could not qualify based on the numbers. Heller said he was looking forward "to the court's assistance in determining if these signatures should be counted."

"As I have previously stated, people signed these petitions in good faith; but, unfortunately, due to the fact that the petitioners did not follow the prescribed constitutional requirements, clerks and registrars had to disqualify thousands of signatures," he said. Heller said he would abide by a court ruling "if the court says I must disregard the rules set forth in the constitution and count the signatures in question." Heller had asked the state attorney general's office for legal advice on requiring the affidavit of a petition signer. The state constitution and an opinion from the Nevada Supreme Court both say the law must be followed on those affidavits.

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling, however, may contradict those views. The law requires 51,337 signatures of registered voters with at least 10 percent of the voters signing it in 13 of the 17 counties. County clerks looked at a sampling of the "raw" signatures and verified the names, tossing out those who were not registered to vote.

Several petitions did not include a valid affidavit signed by a registered voter who had signed that particular document, as required by the Nevada constitution. Because of that defect, the marijuana petition lost 19,830 raw signatures.

Heller said the frivolous lawsuit petition failed after 10,331 raw signatures were eliminated because of the constitutional prohibition. The petition received 49,592 valid signatures and qualified in every county except Carson, Clark, Douglas and Esmeralda, where no petition was submitted.

The secretary of state said the frivolous lawsuit petition would be able to join in the suit filed by backers to raise the minimum wage, which was disqualified for the same reason.

Two additional petitions -- one to repeal the $833.5 million tax increase imposed in 2003 and the other to prohibit government employees from serving in the Legislature -- are due to be turned in Tuesday. Counting will then begin on those documents.

The secretary of state's office has already certified initiative petitions to require the Legislature to pass the school budget before other budgets and to require the state to equal the national average in spending per pupil by 2012. They gathered the required number of signatures and will be on the election ballot.