TIPPING THE SCALES

The 2004 election has been, without a doubt, the most litigated
political season ever in Nevada. If it's not people getting tossed off
the ballot, it's getting initiatives, referendums and constitutional
amendments put on. Seriously, there wasn't this much legal paperwork
when George W. Bush "won" the election over Al Gore.

The latest legal skirmish, however, will probably have the largest and
longest-lasting impact on policy in Nevada. Last week, U.S. District
Court Judge James Mahan struck down a pair of state constitutional
provisions; one requiring that a registered voter affirm those who
sign initiative petitions are also registered voters, and another
stipulating certain initiatives must bear signatures from 13 of
Nevada's 17 counties. (He was ruling in a lawsuit brought by a group
seeking to legalize up to 1 ounce of marijuana in Nevada, which failed
in part because it didn't qualify in 13 of 17 counties.)

The registered-voter affidavit thing simply doesn't make sense. If a
petition circulator is a registered voter, he can sign the affidavit.
If not, he's got to ask one of the people who signed the petition to
also certify his fellow signers are registered to vote. And how the
hell would that person know anyway?

Since county clerks verify signatures before measures are put on the
ballot -- and since they bounce measures that don't show enough valid
signatures -- the affidavit requirement served no useful purpose.

But the requirement to gather signatures in 13 of 17 counties does.
That purpose is to keep the state's population center from dominating
less populous areas.

Mahan's decision was absolutely correct. Requiring signatures from
sparsely populated rural counties gave residents there more clout than
dime-a-dozen voters in populous Clark County, in violation of the U.S.
Constitution's one-person, one-vote principle.

While there are ways to continue to give rural areas some say in the
affairs of state -- perhaps requiring a certain percentage of
signatures from each congressional district, as all congressional
districts are supposed to have a roughly equal number of people in the
state -- the current 13 of 17 counties scheme is out.

And that means more power for Southern Nevada, and less for Northern
Nevada.

Consider the marijuana initiative. Yes, it did get support in Northern
Nevada. But under Mahan's ruling, it wouldn't have to in the future.
Signature gatherers could do all of their work in Clark County, at
grocery stores, public libraries, government offices and political
rallies, never setting foot in any other county.

Of course, northerners would still get to vote on the matter, and
their votes would count equally with those from Southern Nevada. But
by then, the momentum is built, because the measure is already on the
ballot. And since the south has more people, the odds of success are
with us.

Suppose that Southern Nevadans wanted to take a big gulp of northern
water. They could get that on the ballot without ever asking anybody
in Nye, Lincoln, Lander, White Pine or Elko counties for permission.
Or what about holding annual sessions of the Legislature? The list
goes on.

The ruling isn't the only blow the north has suffered in political
clout this decade. After the 2000 census, Senate Majority Leader Bill
Raggio, R-Reno, the patron saint of the north in the Legislature,
pushed to add seats in the Senate and Assembly. More seats would allow
the balance between northern and southern lawmakers to remain at the
status quo.

Raggio lost. Seats in the north shifted south, and districts in the
rural parts of the state grew larger.

In a sense, it's how it should be. Power should reside where the
people do, and Southern Nevada has grown faster than anyone could have
imagined. Of all the downsides of growth -- traffic, demand for water,
pollution -- one upside is political power.

In a way, it's a mirror of Nevada's hated DoppelgSnger, California.
There, the southern part of the state rules in power, since most of
the lawmakers (and plenty of the political contributions) come from
the south. And people in the north hate it. Only in Nevada, Reno is a
poor substitute for San Francisco, Oakland and environs when it comes
to a counterbalance of population in the north.

Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of
Nevada, which was part of the lawsuit against the 13 of 17 rule, says
political considerations weren't part of his calculus. "If the state
wants to create a greater geographic balance of power, it can do so
without violating the one-person, one-vote principle," he says. But
keeping an unconstitutional rule alive for the sole purpose of
geographic balance is a bad idea, he says.

Nevada is growing up, and changes such as the ones wrought by Mahan's
ruling are part of the growing pains.

Now who wants to move the capitol to Las Vegas? Let's get an
initiative going on that right away...