Vol.
34 No. 6, Email Edition
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In the last Issue of the Newsletter we covered many of the important issues of the Legislature. In writing that newsletter I was surprised at the success that we had on such major issues as immigration, gun rights, REAL ID, personal liberties, and limiting government. I did not report on the election and petition issues, which were some of our greatest and most important battles. They consumed an incredible amount of time. Many were long and complicated bills sometimes over 100 pages. I will report on some of the major election and petition issues in this report. Next month we will conclude our Reports on other issues at the Nevada Legislature.
Let
me quote from a Supreme Court Justice in America Communicators Association vs
Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 442 who said, “It is not the function of our
Government to keep the citizens from falling into error; it is the function of
the citizens to keep government from falling into error.” This
quote identifies the reason that the whole philosophy of AB142, which was to
control and limit citizen participation in government, is misdirected.
The
bill required citizens and volunteer lobbyists to take and pay for a course on
“ethics” in order to be able to speak to the Legislature.
How Absurd! This would suppress Free Speech and citizen participation, and the
right to petition the government for redress of grievances especially for unpaid
and citizen activists lobbyists. The cost and time involved would
discourage and eliminate the participation of many.
To require Citizens who speak before the Legislature to take an ethics
class before they can speak to their Legislators is antithetical to
Representative Government and citizen participation.
All lobbyists currently receive a packet containing all the laws, which
pertain to their participation in the Legislature.
The
bill also required, reports by lobbyists to include “a list of any
legislation” which the lobbyist opposed, urged passage, suggested an
amendment, or lobbied in any way during the previous month.
Is it the Legislature’s responsibility to track and monitor citizen
participation in the Legislative process? Eagle Forum was tracking over 300
bills. This requirement was
highly objectionable, unnecessary, burdensome and an interference with Free
Speech and the Right to Petition the Government for Redress of Grievances.
In
addition, the bill required reports by lobbyists even when the Legislature was
not in session and many other objectionable provisions, but the most
objectionable was a whole new set of onerous registration and reporting
requirements for people who wanted to talk to someone in the Executive Branch
of Government. The bill
defined a lobbyist as a person who “appears in person in a state building…
and who receives compensation for the communication.” We asked the question,
“Does that definition include someone who receives compensation from his own
business or from his employer when he testifies for or against a regulation, a
part of the administrative code, appears at an administrative hearing, or
defends himself in front of the so-called Ethics Commission?
Does it include someone who is paid, such as, the Executive Director or
paid staff of a political Party, non-profit organization, or church?”
I
was the only person who testified against this bill. I spoke to many members
of the committee personally. I lobbied against it every step of the way. I
have to admit I was devastated by the apparently total disconnect with most of
the Assemblymen on the Elections Committee and the foundational idea that
they represented the people and the people ought to be able to speak to them
uninhibited by government regulations. However,
God works in mysterious ways and our prayers were answered. As the bill went
forward at one step after another more of it was amended out—until it
died—the few remaining issues unable to be resolved between the Assembly and
the Senate. AMEN!
Nevada
Families Eagle Forum Newsletter is published 12 times a year. The Subscription
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The
Right to Petition Battles—Nevada Legislature 2007
Our
success can only truly be measured when we acknowledge the strong opposition
we encountered. We faced incredible opposition in maintaining the Right to
Petition from the Legislature itself, especially the Assembly which is
basically opposed to the Right to Petition because it takes away or checks
some of their Legislative Powers. (Of course, that was the objective of
Nevadans in placing the Petition process in our Constitution, to allow the
people to have their say.) In addition, we faced opposition from the Mining
Industry, especially the high-powered lobbyists because of an anti-mining
initiative, which passed in Montana. They
were understandably, trying to place severe restrictions and barriers on
petitioning. We also faced
considerable institutional opposition because of a report on “how to fix the
petition process” from the National Council of State Legislatures (NCSL).
One of the very well liked and respected Nevada Legislative Council
Bureau’s analysts participated in that report, which is simply a manual on
how to make it harder to petition. We
fought the conclusions and recommendations of that report on numerous
occasions.
Perhaps
this report would be more fully appreciated had the reader seen the original
bills. Some of them would have
placed enormous burdens even insurmountable burdens upon the right to
petition. Those most onerous
proposals were killed with no small effort.
I will relate only a few of those issues in this report.
Much credit goes to our lobbying team of Lynn Chapman, David Schumann,
John Wagner and Janine Hansen.
AB606:
“Petitioning Don’t Kill it, Just Regulate it to Death”--FAILED
AB606
would have required that each person or group of persons organized formally or
“informally” who advocates the passage or defeat of a constitutional
amendment or statewide initiative must register with the Secretary of State.
(Now tell me how does a group that is not organized formally even know
they are a group?) They must submit the name of each officer, employees and volunteers
of the group including their names, addresses and telephone numbers.
How many people do you think are going to volunteer to help on a
petition campaign knowing that their name, address and phone number will be
required to be submitted to the Secretary of State and then made available to
the public and their opponents. Does
this interfere with Free Speech, which is protected even if it is anonymous
according to the Supreme Court? Does
it interfere with the Right to Petition? The bill also required information on
any other organizations that the person or group was affiliated with and the
name, address and telephone number of each organization. A little invasive to
say the least! All good ways to
hamper any petition campaign.
The
bill prohibited petition organizers from paying petitioners by the signature,
which is the main and most effective way to pay them.
It required that petitioners be residents of Nevada. It created a
Ballot Review Board composed of the Secretary of State, Attorney General, and
3 county clerks, which could challenge the initiative’s or referendum’s
description of the effect in court. Well,
I don’t think many of the Legislators really believe in the right to
petition, so although they can’t get it out of the Constitution they were
trying to regulate it to death. This
bill passed the Assembly 42 to 0, but thankfully died in the Senate Elections
Committee.
AJR1**
(Failed) which passed the 2005 Special Session and required petitions
to be gathered in every Congressional District (3 at this time) failed in
preference to SJR3 and SB549.
SJR3
(Passed) Constitutional Amendment on Petitioning
Senator
Dean Rhoads sponsored SJR3 which, as originally written, would have killed
petitioning, by requiring signature gathering in each of Nevada’s 42
Assembly Districts, In the end this bill became the Legislature’s vehicle to
remove the Constitution’s original requirement that signatures be gathered
in 13 of Nevada’s 17 counties. The
13 county rule was struck down by the US District Court for the District of
Nevada in Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana v Heller in 2004 and in
US Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit in 2006 in ACLU of Nevada v Lomax. The
Courts determined that the 13 county rule resulted in the signatures of voters
from small, rural counties carried more weight than signatures from large
counties. As passed, SJR 3 now
requires that an initiative petition be signed by registered voters equaling
at least 10 percent of the total number of voters who voted at the last
preceding general election. The
specific distribution requirements were placed in statute in SB549.
This method was preferred by the Elections Committee’s fearful that
any requirements they passed might be considered unconstitutional and struck
down. By going to statute they
can correct the problem without going through the lengthy Constitutional
Amendment process which requires two successive Legislatures to pass an
amendment followed by a vote of the people.
SJR3 has passed the first hurdle of this lengthy Constitutional
process, which is a minimum of 5
years.
SJR3
also incorporated an issued brought to the Legislature by former Assemblywoman
Sharron Angle and declared unconstitutional by the Nevada Supreme Court, which
removed the requirement that an affidavit stating that all the signatures
on each document page of the petition were the genuine signatures of
persons who are registered voters in the counties in which they reside
executed before a notary. This was a meaningless but time consuming
requirement. However, a new affidavit requirement was passed in AB604. (see
below)
SJR3,
in addition, brought the Nevada Constitution into compliance with the US
Supreme Court decisions, which removed
the 6-month residency requirement to vote, now replaced with a 30-day
requirement.
SB549
(Passed) is the statutory scheme passed by the Legislature to respond to the
13 county rule which was overturned by the courts.
The
original SB549 was horrendous and included gathering signatures in all 42
Assembly
Districts
and requiring petition gatherers to carry around voter registration lists and
verify that each person who wanted to sign a petition was registered to vote.
That would have required a wheelbarrow or truck in order to carry all of the
outdated voting lists. The original SB549, which was a companion bill to
Rhoad’s SJR3, was stopped in Committee, and the substitute bill follows. SB549
requires that signatures be gathered in all 17 counties.
The number of signatures required in each county is determined by
multiplying 10% of the voters who voted in the entire State at the last
preceding general election by the population percentage for that county.
“Population percentage for that county“ means the figure obtained by
dividing the population of the county by the total population of the state.
This formula is supposed to create a situation where each signature carries
relatively equally weight, thus complying with the Court decisions.
There are two reasons they used a statute instead of a Constitutional
Amendment: 1) It goes into effect immediately and 2) If the Court strikes it
down the Legislature can pass new requirements at the next session rather than
going through the long Constitutional Amendment Process. (I think the formula
will be struck down in the courts.) I
believe also, the Legislators feared that this process requiring signatures in
every county would be overturned in the courts.
However, it was much preferable to Rhoads plan to require signatures in
every Assembly District which is nearly an impossible task. The number of
required signatures as per SB549 is supposed to be similar to what they have
been in the past. We shall see.
In addition, if the statistical sampling of signatures are above 90% but below
100% the SOS may order a county clerk to examine every signature for
verification.
AB604
(Passed) contains a whole new list of financial and other reporting
requirements for petition advocates. It
requires every person or group formally or informally organized who advocates
the passage or defeat of a constitutional amendment or statewide ballot issue,
including during the petitioning, which receives or expends money in excess of
$10,000 report to the Secretary of State at certain specified dates and
report: a) each contribution in excess of $1000 (originally this was $100, but
we suggested it be raised to $1000 which was accepted).
b) Contributions from a contributor which exceed $1000, c) Each
expenditure in excess of $1000 during each reporting period, d) the total
amount of money the group has at the beginning of each period accounting for
all contributions received and expenditures made during each previous period.
In addition, it requires that the report be signed under penalty of perjury
and requires each group to appoint and keep a resident agent.
Each
group must file a statement of organization with the SOS and include the name,
the purpose, the names and addresses of officers and who the group is
affiliated or retained by for the purpose of advocating for or against a
petition issue or ballot measure.
If
the group provides compensation to people who circulate petitions is must also
provide the number of persons receiving compensation and the total amount of
compensation received.
All
of these requirements are new. However,
the proposed requirements were much worse and incredibly onerous. Although
we opposed these new requirements, which interfere with free speech we are
very happy that the far worse proposals did not pass.
For instance, we got the $1000 reporting requirement instead of $100
and the bill maintains a $10,000 threshold for reporting instead of $100 like
campaigns. The original proposals
included disclosing the names, addresses and phone numbers of every
volunteer of a petition campaign, as well as every paid petitioner.
AB604
also creates a new affidavit requirement that each circulator affix to each
document of a petition 1) that he personally circulated the document, 2) the
number of signatures on it, 3) that the signatures were affixed in his
presence, 4) that each signer had an opportunity before signing to reach the
full text (a ridiculous requirement—anybody who has petitioned knows that
nobody wants to read the full text). It
also forbids the giving of compensation of any kind to a person in exchange
for signing the petition (this was making a law for a problem that does not
exist except in the minds of some Legislators). I guess we can breath a sigh
of relief that a vast list of incredibly onerous requirements bit the dust!
One
positive requirement in AB604 provides that the Legislative Counsel may
provide technical suggestions regarding petitions for initiative or
referendum.
And
finally, AB604 requires that local governments who place issues on the ballot
include a description of the anticipated financial effect and include that in
the sample ballot, also that local governments determine if local
non-government initiatives or referendums will have a fiscal impact on the
government and then prepare a description of the anticipated financial effect
and post this info on their website. This could possibly be misused by the
government to oppose initiatives that they don’t like.
SB78
(Passed) creates a new category D felony for certain offenses regarding
signature gathering. Perhaps
they didn’t have enough people to fill up the prisons, so SB78 makes it a
category D felony to willfully sign the name of another person whether living
or deceased, or of a fictitious person to any petition.
Each false signature constitutes a separate offense. This is another
case of creating a penalty for almost non-existent offences.
Another portion concerned me the most and I had prolonged testimony exchange between Senator Raggio, Vice-Chairman of the Senate Elections Committee about just exactly what this means. If you have ever been involved in a petition campaign you may have filled in the dates or the county on a petition page, which people just overlooked.
SB78
continued from inside:
Now, you have to be worried that this might constitute a felony offense. SB78
says “a person shall not willfully add to, revise or alter any petition with
the intent to falsify the name or any information concerning age, citizenship
or residence of another person who signs the petition.
Each individual alteration is a separate offense for category D felony.
In
addition, other category D felonies include knowingly filing a petition that
contains any false or wrongful signature, and signing his own name to any
petition, willfully subscribing to any false statement concerning his age,
citizenship residence or other qualification.
This bill was initiated by the Senate Elections Committee which is
usually much more willing to protect the petition process. This
bill makes each petition campaign subject to false accusations or set- ups by
the opposition, possibly subjecting them to felony charges.
The prolonged discussion on the record with Raggio, hopefully will lay
out some Legislative History that will protect petitioners and the campaign
from inadvertent or innocent mistakes. However,
it could be misused by the unions to harass campaigns which they oppose.
SB230
(Passed) is
a change proposed by former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle.
It just makes petitioning easier.
Now the petition form requires a signer to print his first name
followed by his last name and then his signature.
Previously, signers had to print their last name first making it
logistically much easier. It also
includes an unrelated item, which changes the submission date for
Constitutional Amendments from the third Tuesday in June to the third Tuesday
in May. This change was initiated
by the County Clerks for their convenience and takes away a month of
petition time on Constitutional amendments.
AB322
(Passed) was
Assemblywoman Gansert’s bill. It
extends the reporting requirements of petitions campaigns who receive in
excess of $10,000 to groups who advocate the passage or defeat of a ballot
measure. It provides that if a petition is amended that the amended copy must
be placed on file with the SOS. It
also provides that a petition may be challenged in the First Judicial District
Court on the basis that it violates the single subject rule only within 30
days, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
If the description of the effect of a petition is successfully
challenged and amended in compliance with court order it may not
be further challenged.
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