Judge's order filed in Proposition 13 petition case

Proponents seeking to put a version of California's Proposition 13 into Nevada's constitution are asking the Nevada Supreme Court to issue an emergency stay on a decision that removed the question from the ballot.

But Carson City Clerk/Recorder Alan Glover said it's too late " the question has been removed by order of Secretary of State Ross Miller to comply with last week's decision by Senior Judge Charles McGee.

"It's my understanding all the clerks have gone to print on absentee ballots," said Glover.

We the People Nevada lawyer Joel Hansen asked for the stay to keep the question on the ballot pending their appeal of the decision last week. But no written order had been prepared at that point and the high court rejected it, giving him until 5 p.m. Monday to file a written decision from McGee with the court.

"Only a written order or judgment has any effect and, thus, only a written order or judgment may be appealed," wrote Justice Bill Maupin in his show cause order.

Hansen said they have now complied with that order and the written decision is now on file.

Hansen wants the issue to remain on the ballot during the appeal saying, if they win, ballots would have to be reprinted.

"We're to the printer," said Glover. "They programmed the election, everything's done."

He agreed with Hansen that, if the proponents convince the Supreme Court to overturn McGee's decision, the ballots would all have to be reprinted and the computers reprogrammed to again include the question.

"That's something you don't want do," he said adding that it would cost several hundred thousand dollars statewide.

He said his office is hoping to get the absentee ballots back from the printer by Wednesday.

"And as soon as we get them in, we'll mail them," he said.

Those ballots go to Americans overseas including all the troops.

Glover said his staff just finished proofing the sample ballots. He said an insert could be added to those, but not to the ballots themselves.

McGee ruled that at least 8,000 and possibly 11,800 signatures were invalid. Since petition circulators had a pad of less than 5,400, that left the initiative several thousand short of the 58,628 needed to qualify.

The initiative seeks to cut back Nevada's property tax rate and limits increases in taxes to no more than 1 percent a year. It also includes a number of other features contained in California's Prop-13, which has been in effect some 30 years.

It would replace the statutory cap on property tax increases put in place by the 2005 Legislature with a constitutional cap. The statutory cap is a maximum of 3 percent a year.

Former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle and her supporters have tried several times to get the question on the ballot but generally failed because they couldn't get enough signatures.

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