AFFIDAVITS MAY DOOM INITIATIVES

CARSON CITY -- The legality of the initiative petition to raise the
minimum wage in Nevada by $1 is in doubt and there are questions about
three other initiatives to amend the Nevada Constitution, according to
the secretary of state's office.

Renee L. Parker, chief deputy secretary of state, on Tuesday asked
Attorney General Brian Sandoval for legal advice and suggested a suit
be filed to clear up the issues regarding signatures on the
minimum-wage petition.

Parker said there are 13,994 signatures in doubt on the petition to
boost the minimum wage to $6.15 an hour and to raise it annually
according to the cost of living. If those signatures were declared
invalid, the petition would fall 2,419 signatures short of qualifying
for the ballot.

Parker, in her letter to the attorney general, said Clark County Voter
Registrar Larry Lomax discovered a potential procedural deficiency in
the minimum wage petition circulated in Southern Nevada.

Some of the petitions lacked an affidavit from a petition signer,
attesting that the signatures on the petition were genuine.

It's a confusing point of law. Petition gatherers sign an affidavit
that says the gatherer witnessed the signatures and believes them to
be valid. Lomax said the law also asks that one of the people who
signed the petition do the same thing.

Lomax said he found the problem in initiatives involving the
legalization of marijuana, frivolous lawsuits and insurance rate
reductions, but he was unsure if it would put the signatures in
jeopardy of not qualifying.

"It's only a problem if it brings it down below the threshold," he
said.

Gail Tuzzolo, a spokeswoman for the minimum wage initiative, said she
has circulated petitions before and was never asked to meet this
standard before.

"I believe there's a couple on the ballot right now that were just
qualified that weren't put up to that standard," she said.

Tuzzolo said her group followed the instructions in Nevada statute and
from the Secretary of State.

"The requirement that we supposedly didn't follow was written in the
constitution," she said.

Tuzzolo, who said she has worked as a consultant to initiative drives
for more than eight years, said she used the same methods in the two
initiatives that aim to reduce insurance rates and cut back on
frivolous lawsuits.

But she said she has not yet been notified if those initiatives might
be in danger of qualifying.

In addition to the two insurance initiatives, another petition that
would allow adults to legally purchase up to one ounce of marijuana
also is scheduled to be verified by Friday.

Two initiatives already have qualified for the ballot. One would
require the Legislature to pass the education budget before other
budgets. The other would require the state to fund education at or
above the national average by 2012.

While Tuzzolo said she thinks the initiative is receiving unfair extra
scrutiny, she said she has "no reason to believe it's anything but
just someone interpreting it differently than everyone else."

The group, she said, will appeal the decision if the signatures are
thrown out, partly because of a prior U.S. Supreme Court case that she
said could serve as a precedent to keep the signatures.

"The law is clearly on our side," she said.

Parker said rulings from the Nevada Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme
Court put this issue in doubt. If the state follows the Nevada ruling,
the minimum wage petition would not have enough signatures to qualify
for the election ballot in November.

She said before declaring the petition insufficient, the attorney
general should provide legal advice, hopefully by Friday.

Lomax said the same issue affects the other petitions but the
verification of the signatures on those documents is not due until
July 9.

"This is a recurring issue affecting several petitions, and we have
received actual notice that we will face legal challenges regardless
of our determination on this issue," Parker said.

"Accordingly, we believe it would be in the best interests of the
citizens of Nevada to seek some sort of court resolution of this issue
because further delays could have an adverse impact on election
preparation and defending multiple legal challenges in various
jurisdictions risks the potential for inconsistent decisions, would be
time consuming and would substantially strain the resources of both
our offices."