Opponents are asking the FBI and Metropolitan Police Department to investigate the Tax and Spending Control initiative.

They took the action this week after the Clark County district attorney declined to conduct a criminal investigation and just before today's Nevada Supreme Court hearing on their efforts to kick the measure off the November ballot.

Opponents of TASC, which would amend the Nevada Constitution in order to limit increases in government spending, allege that circulators of the petition committed criminal fraud.

The group, Nevadans for Nevada, originally submitted evidence to the district attorney's office, but the office last week decided there wasn't enough there for a criminal case, District Attorney David Roger said Tuesday.

"I reviewed the case and sent it back with a letter saying they should submit it to a police agency for investigation," Roger said. "We don't have the resources to do an initial investigation. We rely on the police for that. It needed a lot of work."

To determine whether fraud occurred, authorities would have to interview subjects, collect and analyze documents and engage experts to examine handwriting samples, he said.

Danny Thompson, chairman of Nevadans for Nevada, which opposes TASC, said the information was forwarded to the FBI. Thompson said a copy would also be sent to the Metropolitan Police Department.

The evidence includes a sworn affidavit from a TASC circulator who said circulators gathered at a party at Lake Mead on Memorial Day and were told to copy petition signatures, said Thompson, who also is head of the state AFL-CIO.

The group has also provided examples of petitions it says are invalid, including cases where the same person signed more than once, where multiple names were in identical handwriting, where signers' addresses didn't match their names or where petitions weren't properly notarized.

"I think that's pretty good proof," Thompson said. "At the end of the day, there was fraud committed by the people collecting those signatures and it needs to be investigated. I believe it is being investigated."

The local office of the FBI could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.

TASC's most visible proponent, state Sen. Bob Beers, said the anti-TASC group was clearly flogging a lost cause with the fraud allegations.

"Their failure to pursue this through the proper channels and their persistence in publicizing it speaks volumes about the growing desperation of the opposition," said Beers, an unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate. "I'm not surprised the district attorney declined to take it up."

TASC was submitted to the secretary of state's office in July with more than 156,000 signatures, but Nevadans for Nevada claims a significant proportion of those were forged or invalid. The required number of signatures is 83,184.

Beers noted that Nevadans for Nevada originally said it would include the fraud claims in its lawsuit against the measure, then changed course in submitting materials to Roger's office.

The group's lawsuit focuses on the text of TASC rather than how it was circulated. Earlier this month, Carson City District Judge Bill Maddox ruled in favor of keeping the initiative on the ballot, but Nevadans for Nevada appealed.

Thompson indicated that the group's arguments will focus on the claim that TASC violates a Nevada law that says initiative petitions must "embrace but one subject."

"TASC clearly violates the single-subject law," Thompson said. "This is a 4,000-word addition to the constitution that would change local government expenditures, change the way we vote, change the rainy day fund. Clearly it's multiple subjects and cannot qualify for the ballot."

That argument is also made in a brief filed in the case by the Nevada Taxpayers Association earlier this week. The prominent economic advocacy group, seen as fiscally conservative, is not a party to the lawsuit but filed as a friend of the court.

Beers said Maddox's ruling on TASC was correct and should be upheld.

"It addresses a single topic, which is imposing fiscal responsibility on government," he said. "That's what the judge ruled."