Sharron Angle sues secretary of state over ballot initiatives

By Steve Green

Published Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009 | 10:16 a.m.

Updated Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009 | 5:41 p.m.

U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle filed suit in federal court Monday in hopes of voiding state rules she says hinder her initiative to limit property taxes.

The Republican former Reno assemblywoman, who is competing in the primary for the right to run against Sen. Harry Reid, filed suit against Secretary of State Ross Miller.

The suit seeks a declaration that initiatives can be circulated without requiring petition gatherers to comply with certain verification rules -- rules Angle claims are raising fears of criminal prosecutions.

The suit, filed by Las Vegas attorney Kermitt Waters, also includes plaintiffs We the People, a ballot advocacy group chaired by Angle; and the national foundation Citizens in Charge.

Virginia-based Citizens in Charge helped finance previous property tax initiatives in 2006 and 2008 in Nevada and plans to assist with another initiative in the current election cycle, the suit says.

The suit notes We the People tried to propose ballot initiatives in the 2004, 2006 and 2008 election cycles but could not qualify the initiatives because of various problems. In 2008, placement of the initiative was blocked by a lawsuit.

Now, Angle and her group say in Monday's lawsuit they are worried about a precedent in Oklahoma in which a Citizens in Charge petition circulator faced criminal prosecution over what the suit called "technical violations" of state law there.

"The citizens of We the People are afraid that because of the hostility shown to any initiative petition proposed by the citizens, that they too could be subject to criminal prosecution," the lawsuit says.

"Specifically, Sharron Angle is afraid that the attorney general and or the district attorney will prosecute their circulators who 'verify' that a citizen swore that they were a registered voter or a United States citizen, if in fact they were not. If a circulator does not sign the verification form attached to the gathered signatures, which must be signed under penalty of perjury, the Secretary of State will not accept the signatures submitted in support of the initiative petition," the suit says.

The suit says Nevada law and Secretary of State regulations make it difficult to put an initiative on the ballot because of the requirement that circulators must certify that voters they collect signatures from are registered to vote in their county of residence.

"There are no reasonable, practical or economical ways for a circulator to know, while gathering signatures in the field, whether or not, a person signing the initiative petition is in fact a registered voter in that county," the suit complains.

This has had a chilling effect on the petition-gathering process, the suit complains.

The Secretary of State's office was reviewing the complaint Tuesday and had no immediate comment on the allegations.

Volunteers "are aware that one of their co-plaintiffs, Paul Jacob of Citizens in Charge, was indicted criminally in Oklahoma for a conspiracy to violate the election laws that require a similar affidavit that all signature gatherers are in fact residents of Oklahoma."

"The circulators for We the People understand that even though they can accept signatures from registered voters, statistically, over 25 percent of the signatures gathered will be from individuals who are not validly registered," the suit complains.

The suit charges state rules requiring certification violate the First, Fifth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution in that they chill free speech and potentially require circulators to incriminate themselves.

In 2008, Angle's petition effort gathered 83,000 signatures to amend the Nevada Constitution to limit taxes. But the Nevada teachers union filed suit and a district judge ruled there were defects in the petition that prevented it from going on the ballot.

The 2008 measure proposed to limit property taxes to 1 percent of the base value of the property pegged to the fiscal 2003-2004 value. When the property would be sold the base value would be increased annually only by 2 percent.

In an interview Tuesday, Angle said she hasn't decided yet whether to pursue a property tax initiative for the 2010 ballot. Angle said she's also considering sponsoring an initiative to reform the initiative process; and would be supporting an effort in the Legislature to do the same thing.

Angle said she'd like to see a system in which voters could sign petitions online, just as they can register to vote online. Such online petition signatures could be verified with state computers matching the signatures against voter registration information, she said.

This would reassure financial sponsors of initiatives, who now have to worry that their money will be spent on dealing with costly lawsuits, she said.

"To have to fight lawsuits, it's a very chilling effect" on the initiative process, Angle said.