Saturday, July 10, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

INSURANCE RATES: Only one petition approved

Initiatives about minimum wage, marijuana, lawsuits lack signatures

CARSON CITY -- Three of four initiative petitions canvassed this week by county voting registrars do not have enough signatures to qualify for spots on the November ballot, because of a decision Friday nullifying thousands of signatures, sources said.

While the secretary of state's office will not release information on the actual petition signature counts until Monday, several sources said the initiatives to legalize an ounce of marijuana and throw out frivolous lawsuits are short on signatures.

Secretary of State Dean Heller on Friday said only that the petition to raise the minimum wage by $1 an hour did not secure enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. He said the petition fell 2,618 signatures below the necessary 51,337 signatures.

Heller said he was advised by Attorney General Brian Sandoval to reject 13,994 additional signatures because circulators did not secure required affidavits from some of the registered voters who signed petitions.

The same affidavit problem exists with the three other petitions whose signature counts will be released Monday.

Sources said the petition to legalize an ounce of marijuana for adults will fall 13,500 signatures short of the requirement, while the one to stop frivolous lawsuits is 1,500 signatures short.

But a petition to let voters roll back insurance rates by 20 percent has about 2,000 more signatures than needed, sources said.

That petition also contains language that critics contend is designed to lift the $350,000 cap on damages patients can collect in medical malpractice lawsuits.

Gail Tuzzolo, a consultant to the AFL-CIO, which circulated the minimum wage petition, said her group will seek a restraining order and file litigation Monday in court in Carson City that challenges the findings.

She said the union and its petition circulators fully complied with Heller's petition instructions and state laws on affidavits needed on petitions.

"This has been an effort led by Republicans and big insurance companies who don't want wages raised and insurance rates reduced," she said. "The irony is the initiative they wanted off the ballot the most, the insurance rate reduction one, is going to be on because so many members of the public signed it."

The Review-Journal obtained a letter that Joe W. Brown, a Las Vegas lawyer with the Jones Vargas firm, sent to county clerks and voting registrars in which he informed them of legal details about petition affidavits.

In the letter, he said he represents Nevadans Against Fraud and Higher Insurance Costs and asked clerks to rule petitions to stop frivolous lawsuits and roll back insurance rates are invalid because of affidavit deficiencies.

"Should your office disagree with our position, we would request at a minimum that you report our concerns and positions with your certificate of results to Secretary Heller's office," Brown states.

Brown, a Republican national committeeman for Nevada, did not return a call for an interview.

Both Scott Craigie, a consultant to Keep Our Doctors, and Billy Rogers, who operates the Southwest Group that circulated the four petitions, expect to join the AFL-CIO litigation.

"I expect the physicians and the coalition we are working with will participate in the litigation," Craigie said.

Two other petitions already have been placed on the November statewide ballot. One would require the Legislature to fund education before any other part of the budget, and the other would require the Legislature to fund public education to the national average.