FEDERAL COURT RULING HURTS NEVADA MARIJUANA, ANTI-TAX PETITIONERS

A federal appeals court on Wednesday blocked a move for a November
vote on whether to legalize small amounts of marijuana in Nevada. The
ruling also hurt petitioners seeking a public vote on a record $833
million tax increase.

A divided 3-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
upheld U.S. District Judge Jim Mahan's recent finding that
petition-signers had to be deemed valid registered voters on the same
day they signed and not later on.

The Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana, trying to legalize
possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana by adults, had hoped for a
favorable ruling that would have more than made up for a shortage of
some 1,900 signatures on its proposed ballot petition. The group
needed a minimum of 51,337 names.

Backers of the "Ax the Tax" petition to repeal the $833 million tax
increase approved by state lawmakers in 2003 had supported the
marijuana petitioners, figuring a favorable ruling would also help
them meet the minimum signature requirement.

In upholding Mahan's finding that people who signed such petitions had
to be registered voters, the circuit court said the restriction on the
petition-signers doesn't limit free speech but instead limits "the
power of persons not registered to vote to change the laws passed by
the voters' duly elected representatives."

"A registration form that has not been mailed or delivered is
distinct in a relevant and meaningful way from one that has been
mailed or delivered" to election officials, U.S. District Judges T.G.
Nelson and Andrew Kleinfeld held.

U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson dissented, saying he believed
the registration requirement was unconstitutional.

Pregerson said petition circulators effectively would be blocked from
registering people to vote and getting them to sign petitions during
evenings or on Sundays or holidays because the registration forms
couldn't be postmarked or delivered to election officials on the same
day.

"The interests in protecting meaningful political discourse on
weekends, evenings and holidays; in counting otherwise valid
signatures; and in promoting the initiative petitioning process
outweigh the hardship to the state in placing the initiative on the
ballot," Pregerson wrote.

Jennifer Knight of marijuana legalization group and Gary Peck of the
Nevada American Civil Liberties Union said a decision will be made
this week on whether to seek an 11-judge "en banc" review by the
circuit court.

"If this ruling stands, Nevada will not be a very voter-friendly
state," Knight added. "Voters' rights have been thwarted by this."
"It's a shame that the state went to such lengths to disenfranchise
voters," Peck said, adding the circuit court majority failed to deal
with the merits of a case that's "profoundly important."

George Harris of the "Ax the Tax" group said he had thought the
circuit court might rule differently but added, "It didn't come out
that way, which is surprising because you're still talking about
disenfranchising voters here."

Harris said his group still may get a break from the secretary of
state's office, which is considering an appeal from an earlier
decision that went against the tax referendum.