Lawmakers voice support for bill to protect voter rights

Members of the Assembly Elections, Procedures and Ethics Committee voiced support Thursday for a bill to protect the public's right to put initiatives such as Fuji Park up for a vote.

The petition to protect Fuji Park and one in Reno attempting to block construction of the railroad trench project were kept off the ballot by local government legal challenges.

AB292 was introduced by Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, who said it was in response to those battles by local government against citizen petitions.

"To me, spending public money to challenge initiative petitions because local officials disagree with them is not a fair use of public funds," said Anderson, who is also a member of the committee. "The public should be able to present their petition and have a vote on it."

During the hearing, he was joined by Chairwoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, as well as at least two other members. She made it clear she doesn't think the Legislature ever intended government to be outside the will of the people.

Both the Reno and Carson City petitions were disqualified by the Nevada Supreme Court for the same reason -- they dealt with a specific administrative decisions, not a broad matter of public policy. The Nevada constitution leaves administrative decisions to government.

Supporters included the organizers of the SGI petition drive in Douglas County as well, even though they won their battle at the Supreme Court and stayed on the ballot. The petition to strictly limit growth in Douglas, however, was fought by the county government on the same grounds.

"It was and remains tyrannical for our local officials to take measures to thwart the right of the people to use the initiative process to legislate," said John Garvin, one of the organizers of SGI.

Randall Edwards, deputy Reno city attorney who defended the train-trench lawsuit, said the petition would have been unconstitutional and disqualified even if voters supported it. And Andrew List of the Nevada Association of Counties agreed, saying it makes no sense to allow something that will later be ruled unconstitutional on the ballot.

But Assemblyman Marcus Conklin joined Anderson in supporting the right of the people to petition on those kinds of issues. He questioned whether local officials would buck a strong public vote on any issue.

"After 70 percent of the people say this is a no go, you're going to turn around and say it's unconstitutional and do it anyway?" he said. "The city, as it stands now, is not interested in hearing the will of the people?"

Edwards said that wasn't the case.

Edwards said the legal problem is that the petition "specifically says what the city cannot do and specifically says where it cannot do it." He said, however, it could have been written in a legal way by dealing with a broad issue -- such as requiring a public vote on all public works projects in excess of $25 million instead of trying to specifically ban the train trench.

The committee took no action on the bill.