Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004 | 11:10 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Supreme Court ruled today that initiative petitions to raise the state minimum wage and to prevent frivolous lawsuits are qualified to be on the November election ballot.
The court upheld a ruling by District Judge Bill Maddox of Carson City, who threw out a rule requiring petition circulators who are not registered voters get an affidavit signed by a registered voter on each petition document.
The court said that the rule, which is in the state constitution, "impermissibly burdens political speech by either compelling the use of only registered voters as circulators or compelling unregistered circulators to be accompanied by a registered voter who is willing to sign a petition booklet and execute an affidavit under oath authenticating that booklet's signatures."
Danny Thompson, the executive secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO of Nevada, which is pushing the minimum-wage hike, called the Supreme Court decision a "victory for the people."
"You have to have the ability to petition government," he said.
Secretary of State Dean Heller had said that thousands of signatures on the two petitions needed to be disqualified because they were not accompanied by the required affidavit.
Supporters of the two petitions filed suit and Maddox struck down the requirement. Heller, the State Medical Association and the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce appealed to the state Supreme Court.
Heller appealed the issue to the Nevada Supreme Court because he wanted a court precedent, spokesman Steve George said.
"We had conflicting law between the U.S. Supreme Court and the Nevada Constitution," he said. "Their (the state Supreme Court's) decision will help clarify that issue in the future."
George said this morning he had not yet had a chance to read the decision so he could not comment on it.
The state Supreme Court's decision comes after the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in a Colorado case that a circulator of a petition does not have to be a registered voter.
The Nevada Supreme Court said the extra steps required in the state Constitution and regulations requiring an added affidavit, "impose a burden on political speech that is no less severe than the direct registration requirement invalidated" in the Colorado case.
More than 13,000 signatures on the minimum wage petition were not counted because of the alleged legal defect. The frivolous lawsuit petition lost more than 10,000 signatures because of the problem.
But the Maddox ruling allowed those to be counted and put both of them over the required 51,337 signatures of registered voters.
Thompson said he doesn't agree with all of the initiatives that could be headed to the ballot but he thinks the secretary of state should not enforce the rule that required the affidavit.
"It made no sense and every judge that's ever heard this, including the Supreme Court, said it doesn't make sense to make people sign this twice," Thompson said. "I think the people won today."
Plus, he said, the AFL-CIO followed the instructions for gathering signatures that was laid out by the Secretary of State.
Gail Tuzzolo, a campaign consultant who helped gather signatures for the minimum wage petition and the frivolous lawsuit petition, said she thinks the affidavit rule was randomly enforced this year.
"We have done signatures in the past the same way we did them this way and they were never questioned before," she said.
The minimum wage petition would raise the rate by $1 an hour and by the cost of living up to 3 percent in years after it is effective. The other would penalize lawyers that file frivolous suits and would prohibit limiting the award of damages to a person who wins civil lawsuits known as torts.
The decision only will affect the frivolous lawsuit petition and the minimum wage petition, George said. Another petition to regulate up to one ounce of marijuana is still in the courts but is under review by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, he said.
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