Power of the people

In other news last week involving initiative petitions (see above), the casino industry lost Round 2 in their fight to keep a gaming tax increase off the November ballot.

The gamers had carried the first round earlier this year when a judge ruled that the proposed ballot question -- which would raise the gaming tax 3 percentage points, or 44 percent, to generate as much as $400 million a year for the education bureaucracy -- violated a state law limiting petitions to a single subject.

But the Nevada State Education Association, which is sponsoring the petition drive, got up off the canvas, rewrote the measure and survived the next casino challenge when acting Judge Miriam Shearing ruled Thursday that the question could go forward with the new language.

The initiative is "neither confusing nor misleading," Judge Shearing wrote. "In interpreting initiatives, this court is required to make every effort to preserve the initiative power of the people. In other words, this court must interpret an initiative so as to preserve the power of the people to vote on it."

Regardless of whether piling higher taxes on the state's most productive industry is a good idea -- which it isn't -- this is a sensible ruling. Judge Shearing is correct when it comes to preserving the initiative power of the people, and the notion that the measure violates the "single subject" rule because it directs the new revenue to teacher salaries and the public schools makes little sense.

Would a school district construction bond measure be unconstitutional simply because it notes that the money raised will be used to build new campuses?

The teachers union now has until May 20 to collect 58,836 signatures in order to qualify the petition for the ballot this fall. If they succeed, voters would have to approve the proposal in both 2008 and 2010 before it became law.

But don't count out the gamers just yet. Bill Bible, president of the Nevada Resort Association, has previously said that his organization might appeal an unfavorable ruling from Judge Shearing to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Given that Mr. Bible and the casino moguls know voters might very well see them as a desirable target, it's highly unlikely the industry will abandon its effort to keep the proposal off the ballot.

We await the bell for Round 3.