Key piece of initiative process removed

Nevada's rural counties will almost certainly be the losers in a federal judge's decision to invalidate the rule on initiative petitions requiring signatures in 13 of the state's 17 counties.

The ruling wasn't unexpected and, in fact, was probably inevitable. The requirement simply wasn't going to pass constitutional muster.

Here's the upshot: Petition circulators who want to change the state's laws to legalize marijuana, for example, now may never have to leave Clark County to collect enough signatures to get the issue on the ballot. And once it's on the ballot, there'll be little need to win anywhere but Clark County.

To qualify for this year's ballot, an initiative petition needed the signatures of 51,337 registered voters, which amounts to 10 percent of the turnout in the previous general election. The law thrown out by Judge James Mahan had also required initiatives to get enough signatures in 13 counties - spreading out the effort so that it had to have some support in most areas of the state.

As the American Civil Liberties Union argued, however, that threshold gave more weight to signatures in rural counties than those in urban counties. The "one man, one vote" concept has prevailed in all such tests of geographical distribution.

In few places, however, is the population so out of whack with the geography as in Nevada. Clark and Washoe counties have 87 percent of the state's total population, and in the 2002 general election accounted for 82 percent of all the votes cast.

By sheer numbers, they should control the state's political destiny. But we still think there's something to be said for protecting the interests of the residents of Esmeralda County, population 1,116.

We have two recommendations:

First, petition circulators should attempt to honor the spirit of that law by making an effort to gather signatures across the state. As unlikely (and cost-ineffective) as this seems, it might be politically smart.

Second, the Nevada Legislature must look at raising the bar on initiative petitions. We much appreciate the power of the public to bring matters to a vote, but Judge Mahan has gutted one of the critical safeguards of the process. It may be necessary to require 15 or 20 percent of the previous election's turnout.