TASC has enough signatures to make November ballot

Supporters of the Tax and Spending Control initiative Tuesday filed 150,990 names to put the proposed amendment before Nevada voters in November.

That is nearly double the 83,184 needed to qualify for the ballot despite the fact author Bob Beers has been saying for the past week it would be very close.

TASC Chair former state senator Ann O'Connell of Las Vegas also predicted the number of names would be close to the minimum required as recently as Monday.

Beers said he was being unduly conservative. He said TASC has signers from every Nevada county although the vast majority are from Clark where the effort was headquartered.

Even as they filed signatures with the various county clerks, representatives of public employee and teachers' unions who oppose the amendment were calling a press conference this afternoon charging there are some serious problems with the TASC petitions and their signatures.

The AFL-CIO and other major public employee groups are expected to sue to keep TASC off the ballot.

TASC is modeled after the Colorado constitutional amendment and would limit the growth of government to no more than population plus inflation. Colorado voters last year put their version, called TABOR, on hold because of serious financial problems in that state.

TASC would apply to every level of government in Nevada, requiring a vote of the people to raise any tax, fee, license or other charge above population plus inflation.

In addition, Don Chairez said his proposed property owner's bill of rights would also be filed today. Chairez could not be reached earlier but left a message this morning saying they had more than 136,000 signatures for that amendment.

Three other initiatives failed to receive enough signers to qualify.

Sharron Angle, author of the remaining initiative " a Nevada version of Proposition 13 " could not be reached.

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