Candidate Angle files challenge of petition rules

LAS VEGAS - U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle has filed a federal lawsuit challenging a Nevada state law that she says limits her ability to collect signatures for an initiative to cap property taxes.

The Republican former Reno assemblywoman and two ballot advocacy groups filed a 12-page lawsuit Monday asking a U.S. District Court judge in Las Vegas to declare initiative regulations passed by the Nevada Legislature in 2007 unconstitutional and invalid.

The lawsuit names Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller as a defendant. It seeks an injunction blocking enforcement of the law requiring petition gatherers to sign affidavits under penalty of perjury verifying the validity of signatures they collect.

"Circulators are 'chilled' and afraid of signing these affidavits," the lawsuit says, "because they might unknowingly allow individuals to sign who are not registered voters in Nevada."

"Statistically, over 25 percent of the signatures gathered will be from individuals who are not validly registered," the lawsuit says. "There is no practical way to verify the voter's status while working in the field."

Matthew Griffin, deputy Nevada secretary of state for elections, said Tuesday the state had not yet been served with a copy of the lawsuit. He said the state attorney general would respond once state lawyers review the case.

Plaintiffs are Angle, an antitax conservative seeking the GOP nomination to run against Democratic Sen. Harry Reid; a Nevada ballot advocacy group that Angle heads called We the People; and a Virginia-based foundation called Citizens in Charge that helped finance Nevada property tax initiatives in 2006 and 2008. The groups plan another initiative push in 2010, according to the lawsuit.

The group cites a criminal prosecution of a Citizens in Charge petition circulator in Oklahoma.

"These plaintiffs are afraid that the same thing can happen to them here," the lawsuit says.

Kermitt Walters, a Las Vegas attorney representing the plaintiffs, did not immediately respond Tuesday to a message seeking comment.

Angle has tried for years to get a property tax cap into the Nevada Constitution to prevent the Legislature from revoking it.

The suit notes We the People met problems trying to qualify property tax initiatives for the ballot in 2004, 2006 and 2008.

In 2008, Angle circulated an initiative petition last year and gathered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot before the Nevada State Education Association filed suit. A state judge ruled there were defects in the proposed measure and blocked it from the ballot.