JUDGE TO DECIDE FATES OF THREE PETITIONS

CARSON CITY -- District Judge Bill Maddox will decide in a Feb. 7
nonadversarial hearing how many signatures three previously rejected
petitions need to qualify for consideration by the 2005 Legislature.

Tom Sargent, a spokesman for Attorney General Brian Sandoval, said the
office is using a little-known law that obligates the District Court to
look at a recent Sandoval opinion that forced the secretary of state to
throw out two anti-smoking petitions and one that calls for legalization of
an ounce of marijuana.

"It is equivalent to judicial review," Sargent said. "We are not going to
review our opinion, but the court will render a judgment that clarifies the
situation. By doing this, we can avoid a lot of motions' filing and get
straight to a ruling by the court."

The step makes unnecessary a Monday request by the Marijuana Policy Project
that Secretary of State Dean Heller reverse his Dec. 19 decision, Sargent said.

The project and the American Civil Liberties Union asked Heller to change
his decision that the marijuana and anti-smoking petitions did not secure
enough signatures to trigger a legal requirement that the 2005 Legislature
consider enacting them. Sandoval is Heller's legal adviser.

None of the three petitions was signed by at least 83,156 residents, the
minimum the attorney general's office decided was needed to force the
Legislature to consider adopting them during the 2005 session.

If the petition-collecting groups prevail and the Legislature rejects their
petitions, then all three would be placed before voters in the 2006 election.

The three groups acted on advice from Heller's office and voting registrars
that they needed only 51,337 signatures to qualify. Each petition exceeded
that total.

Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the marijuana project, said his group still
plans to file a lawsuit in federal court by Friday if Heller does not
reverse his decision.

Robert Crowell, a Carson City lawyer who represents the Smoke-Free Kids
organization, said he supports the nonadversarial hearing before Maddox.

Under the state constitution, petitions must secure a total number of
signatures equivalent to at least 10 percent of the voters in the "last
preceding general election." A record 831,563 voters cast ballots in the
Nov. 2 general election. The petitions were turned in days after the election.

Petition circulators began collecting signatures last summer under the
impression they needed 51,337 signatures, based on 10 percent of the voter
total in the 2002 general election when 513,370 people voted.