Beers tax petition will undergo another rewrite

The Tax And Spending Control initiative petition will undergo yet another rewrite before State Sen. Bob Beers and other supporters can collect signatures to put it on the ballot.

Carson District Judge Bill Maddox ruled Thursday the 200-word description of what the proposed amendment would do incorrectly describes what the amendment would do and must be rewritten.

State law requires the 200-word description on each ballot question to spell out what the measure will do. The AFL-CIO sued, charging the description on the initiative is incomplete, inaccurate and misleading to voters who probably won't read the lengthy amendment, let alone accurately interpret its legal provisions.

"I will make a finding at this time that it does not fully and accurately reflect the intent of the initiative," he said.

But Maddox said this rewrite won't require supporters to restart the legal clock allowing for more delays in circulating the petition. Secretary of State's Chief Deputy Renee Parker said the challenge process would be restarted if the proposed amendment is changed again but that the description of what the amendment would do isn't actually part of that language.

The other two times Beers and his backers had to refile their petition, it was because of changes in the actual language of the proposed amendment designed to clamp down on increases in governmental spending in Nevada. Those changes were made when supporters discovered errors and omissions in writing the amendment.

Maddox ordered the AFL-CIO office to submit changes in the description to initiative supporters by Tuesday. Supporters must incorporate those changes, along with recommendations from the Secretary of State's office, into a new description by Thursday.

He said he would hold another hearing to hammer out an agreement between the three on the language on March 3 and issue an order March 6.

"The point of this exercise for them is to delay until we don't have time to gather the signatures," said Beers after the ruling.

He said supporters will be flexible in changing the description because he believes the amendment will win enough signatures as long as people understand its core purpose: To limit the growth of government spending at every level.

Danny Thompson, of the AFL-CIO, said the group sued because the description is deliberately deceptive. He said the purpose of the lawsuit is "to get him to tell the truth about what it does."

Paul More, representing the union, told the court the description says TASC would regulate spending by all levels of government, but that the actual petition language doesn't include school districts or improvement districts. He said it tells voters they have ultimate authority to increase taxes and fees for any specific purpose, but that the actual amendment would let just one quarter of either the Assembly or Senate block a public vote on any tax proposal.

He said it doesn't spell out that voters would have to approve any and all tax and fee increases right down to the smallest changes at the local level - even items such as the lease-purchase of a copying machine.

And, he said, the description promises excess revenue would be refunded to taxpayers when, in fact, the money would go back to those who own the most expensive cars and to businesses that paid the state's modified business tax, not to those who don't own a vehicle and not to all taxpayers.

He said those and other problems with the description are misleading and must be corrected.

Lawyer John Griffin, working for the initiative, urged Maddox to look beyond to the people's right to exercise their power over government through the petition process. He said unnecessary delays by opponents would unfairly deprive the people of the right to vote on TASC.

This lawsuit deals only with the challenge to the 200-word description, which will appear only on the petitions asking voters to put the proposal on the ballot. The explanation of the initiative on the actual ballot will be written and approved in a different process that requires the Secretary of State's office to sign off on its accuracy.

To get on the ballot, supporters must collect more than 83,000 signatures from registered Nevada voters.

-- Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.