Carson District Judge James Wilson issued an order Wednesday barring the Clark County Education Association’s two education funding petitions from the November ballot.
CCEA filed the statutory initiative petitions seeking to dramatically increase taxes to fund K-12 education.
One would have raised the Local School Support Tax on retail sales from 2.6 percent to 4.1 percent. That would bring the state’s total base sales tax to 8.35 percent.
The other would have raised the gaming percentage fee on Nevada’s largest casinos from 6.75 percent to 9.75 percent.
Between the two, the petitions would have pumped several hundred million into K-12. However, because of other changes by the Legislature in K-12 budgets, it wasn’t completely clear how much money would be generated.
But the teacher’s union reached a deal that prompted them to withdraw the petitions and prevent them from going to the ballot. The deal came after lawmakers in 2021 approved increasing total K-12 education funding by $500 million over the biennium.
Attorney General Aaron Ford said there was nothing in the Nevada Constitution to prevent withdrawal of a petition after filing. In fact, as Wilson pointed out in his order, NRS contains specific language permitting proponents to withdraw a petition.
But Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske said her reading of the statute says the secretary “shall” put petitions filed with her office on the ballot. She refused to pull the petitions.
In an eight-page order issued Wednesday, Wilson agreed with the request by both sides to withdraw the petitions from the November ballot.
He said the statute, NRS 295, must be “given its plain meaning,” and that he should not go beyond that language.
“Legislation is presumed constitutional absent a clear showing to the contrary,” he wrote, adding that a “party attacking a statute’s validity is faced with a formidable task.
“Every possible presumption will be made in favor of the constitutionality of a statute and courts will interfere only when the Constitution is clearly violated.”
He said NRS allows proponents of an initiative petition to withdraw it by submitting a notice of withdrawal to the Secretary of State no later than 90 days before the election. It provides notice of exactly how to do just that.
Once that is done, which was done by proponents in this case, Wilson said, “no further action may be taken on that petition.”
“The Secretary of State’s ministerial duty in this instance becomes clear: take no further action on these initiative petitions,” Wilson wrote.
He ordered that the secretary is prohibited from putting the two petitions on the November ballot.
