NEVADA AG WANTS LAWSUIT ON MARIJUANA DISMISSED

Friday hearing: U.S. district judge to make decision if petition is
valid.

The Nevada attorney general's office has filed a motion asking the
U.S. District Court in Las Vegas to dismiss a lawsuit trying to place
a marijuana initiative petition on the November ballot.

The motion argues that a section of the Nevada Constitution defining
signature requirements for an initiative petition is valid and an
Idaho court decision against similar requirements doesn't apply.

U.S. District Judge James Mahan has issued a temporary order stopping
Secretary of State Dean Heller from further action on the petition to
let adults possess and use one ounce of marijuana. He'll hear oral
arguments Friday.

To qualify for Nevada's ballot, an initiative petition must have the
signatures of 10 percent of the voters in 13 of the state's 17 counties.

The Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana, the Marijuana Policy
Project and the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada are
challenging the 13-of-17 counties provision, and also the
disqualification of petition signatures obtained from people who
registered to vote at the same time.

Assistant Solicitor General Richard Linstrom and Senior Deputy
Attorney General Victoria T. Oldenburg said in their motion, filed
Friday, that the multiple counties provision is needed because 85
percent of Nevada voters are in just two counties.

"Because Clark County and Washoe County hold such a huge percentage of
Nevada's registered voters, a statewide initiative that is popular
with registered voters in Nevada's two largest counties could reach
the ballot without the support of any of Nevada's other 15 sparsely
populated counties," Linstrom and Oldenburg said.

If the 13-of-17-counties rule is struck down, they added, the two
major counties "could completely control the statewide initiative process."

The marijuana petition also was found to be defective and 17,872
signatures were not counted in Clark County because some of the
petition document affidavits were not signed by registered voters. In
line with a court ruling, those signatures were added back in, but the
petition was still 4,629 signatures short.