Gansert garners petition protests, but Rhoads bill has bigger teeth

So, to all of the Ron Paul Revolution guys whose toes I stepped on last time, I’ll offer an olive branch:  you are the most informed part of the electorate on subjects related to the Constitution. Probably by a mile. I admire your respect for the document, but I have no idea where you guys will come down on how easy it should be to petition to change state law or the Constitution.

I think it should be really, really tough to directly petition to change the law, and more so for the Constitution. Good and bad elected officials move through the system and do minor help or damage, but these documents have been a pretty steady rudder for a long time. Easy access to changing them scares the life out of me.  And here is the blatant shout-out to the Revolution: our state and our country would be better served if our elected officials followed both more closely. 

Speaking from that viewpoint, I just want to make sure I’m getting this one right.  There’s a big stink because the “triple the gaming tax” initiative didn’t make it through the legal hurdles and get on the ballot.

A summary of their arguments with a little Wally spice thrown in:  Assemblywoman Heidi Gansert, now Minority Leader, sponsors a bill that in the eyes of the 3x tax guys makes it too difficult to directly petition the people to change the law or the Constitution. State Senator Randolph Townsend, one of the only elected officials in Nevada who actually has experience in successfully using the citizen petition process, sponsors legislation in the upper house that mirrors the Gansert bill.

The evidently draconian bill asks for two things: stick to one subject on the petition, and give an accurate 200-word summary of what the petition does. The horror.

Adding insult to injury, two years later Sen. Dean Rhoads passes a bill that requires that you collect signatures from all 17 counties in Nevada if you want to change the Constitution under which all those rural folks live. You see, Senator Rhoads has a hidden reason for pulling a fast one like this: He represents his district like a loyal Doberman and sticks up for them when Southern Nevada pokes him in the eye.  This guy is an actual cowboy.  He doesn’t just wear the boots, it’s how he makes his living.  He represents mostly ranchers like himself and miners.

Maybe, just maybe he wanted to the folks in his end of the state to have a say in a petition that would, say, reallocate all of Nevada’s water resources county-by-county according to  population. Or he might have wanted them to be able to voice their opinion if an environmental group intended to collect signatures outside of a grocery store in a liberal area of Las Vegas for a petition that would outlaw mining on federal lands statewide. You see, Sen. Rhoads represents areas like Elko county, where the average per capita income is about $10,000 a year higher than in Clark County, because their mining jobs pay well. 

It isn’t impossible to get a petition on the ballot.  It’s just really difficult, as it should be.  The cheap shot that I’m not above taking is that the marijuana legalization folks managed to get their petition on under the new rules, but these guys couldn’t. I just wouldn’t gripe all that loudly when it could be said that you performed in a less organized manner than a bunch of stoned guys.

The irony of this is that Townsend and Gansert, two Reno legislators, sponsored this bill years before the 3x gaming tax petition. And guess what happens to Reno gaming if we triple the gaming tax rate?  Gone.  It would be too big of a hit to stay profitable with Indian gaming competition closer to San Francisco.  If you build it, they will come.  But if you over-tax them, they will run.

So either these legislators used a crystal ball and managed to be beholden to the Reno gaming industry looking two years into the future, or perhaps they just had the right call on this one. As far as serving their districts goes, history is proving them right.