SIGNATURE DRIVES AID PETITIONS

Professional Canvassers Pound Pavement, Target Registered Voters

Clipboard under her arm, Jill Glass walks past red rose bushes and
then firmly knocks on the front door in a middle-class neighborhood in
northeastern Reno.

Using her palm pilot, she examines the county voter registration list
and determines this is the home of a man named Lehman. Both he and his
wife are registered voters. She hopes they will sign her initiative
petition to allow Nevadans to vote this November to cut auto and
homeowner insurance rates by 20 percent.

But up to now, Glass has not been lucky. No one answered the door at
five straight homes. After that, a woman slammed the door in her face.
Another, tending to her flowers, refused to sign. Without being asked,
she injected it was none of Glass' business how she would vote. Glass
remained polite and apologized for interrupting her gardening.

The things petition circulators hate, in order, are rottweilers, pit
bulls, mean people and slammed front doors, said Sarah Jaffa, the
leader of the Southwest Group's signature drives in Northern Nevada.

"You can't take it home with you," Jaffa said. "You are going to have
doors slammed in your face. Don't take it personally. Most people are
nice."

A good petition circulator collects 60 to 70 signatures a day -- the
best, about 100, Jaffa said.

There will be no days off for them between now and the June 15
deadline for circulating initiative petitions. The Southwest Group
also has signature collectors canvassing the streets in Las Vegas,
where the company is based.

Glass exceeds her expectations at the Lehman residence. The owner and
his wife have been drinking cocktails with a neighbor. They are
laughing when they answer the door.

Glass emphasizes she only wants their help in putting the petition on
the ballot, not their vote. All three sign.

Lehman gives Glass his e-mail address and agrees to place a yard sign
supporting the insurance rollback initiative in his front yard.

Billy Rogers, president of Southwest Group, said the use of 21st
century technology like palm pilots and cell phones is why his
canvassers will collect enough signatures to qualify the four
petitions they are paid to circulate.

Any advantage they can gain is important in this Year of the Petition
in Nevada. A record 12 petitions have been circulating in recent
months. Eight still are alive. A ninth, to outlaw smoking in all
public places but bars and casinos, has until November to qualify.

Two years ago, five petitions were circulated, and two -- one to
legalize possession of 3 ounces or less of marijuana and the other to
reduce doctors' liability in malpractice lawsuits -- received enough
signatures to qualify. Nevadans defeated the marijuana initiative. The
doctors initiative will appear on election ballots in November.

In 1993-94, 11 petitions were circulated. None qualified for a spot on
the election ballot. Since then, about one out of every five has
received enough signatures to qualify.

Assemblyman Sharron Angle, R-Reno, blames an "unresponsive
Legislature" as the primary reason why people have turned to
initiative petitioning to change the laws.

"At last year's Legislature people saw legislators are unresponsive to
them," she said. "They have finally figured it out. They want
something done, or they will do it themselves."

"That is the beauty of the initiative," Rogers added. "People can
enact their own laws and constitutional amendments."

His company's palm pilots contain records of every registered voter in
the counties where his circulators work. They know the voter's age and
political party. Southwest Group vans carry circulators to selected
neighborhoods, pick them up for lunch breaks and bring them home when
it is dark.

Team captains scour voter maps, determine where voters live and send
in circulators. They don't bother with areas where few people are
registered.

They avoid the Department of Motor Vehicles, shopping center parking
lots and any confrontation. Solicitors generally are well-groomed
young people who dress conservatively. Running shoes are a necessity,
as is Gatorade.

"It is pretty revolutionary," said Rogers about his form of
petitioning. "I think it is unique in ballot qualifying. We don't just
collect signatures, but we enlist their support in the campaigns."

With the palm pilot, he can guarantee his clients that 100 percent of
the people signing petitions are registered voters. When solicitors go
to the DMV, more than a third of those who sign petitions are not
registered and, therefore, ineligible under state law to have their
signature count, Rogers said.

Largely with the help of volunteers, Angle is circulating a petition
that would cap property taxes at 2001 levels and allow only for a 2
percent annual increase.

But Rogers and Rick Arnold, who operates Carson City-based National
Voter Outreach, declares it nearly impossible in this era to secure
enough signatures without the help of a professional gathering
organization.

Rogers won't say how much he charges, but he said he is taking some
initiatives on at discount rates because he supports the cause.

But Arnold and George Harris, the chairman of Nevadans for Sound
Government, contend people need to spend at least $250,000 to get the
required number of signatures.

Harris blames a lack of funding for his organization's inability to
gather enough signatures for the 'Axe The Taxes' referendum petition
that would allow Nevadans to vote to repeal the $833 million in tax
increases approved last year by the Legislature. He said he raised
about $107,000 in his campaign, about the same as what Angle expects
to raise.

If it were easy to qualify a petition, Jaffa said, the November ballot
would be crowded with frivolous petition questions.

Nevadans for Sound Government has gone to court for a time extension
to gather additional signatures. They contend solicitors have been
harassed by managers of government building and threatened with arrest
so many times they quit out of fear. Petitioners were arrested while
collecting signatures at a Reno bus station and on the UNLV campus.

That doesn't have to happen, Rogers said.

"What I tell people is to be courteous," he said. "If you are nice to
people and don't pester and badger them, they likely will sign. When a
police officer asks you to do something, do it. Then you won't have
any problems."

"We notify government offices well in advance," Arnold said. "We try
to avoid controversy. We aren't out there to argue the issues."

Harris defends his solicitors, maintaining they are just as courteous
as gatherers for professional signature organizations.

"We have never had a complaint filed against them or have someone say
they are rude. I guess if you don't have a quarter million dollars,
you are supposed to shut up? "

The petition-gathering campaign depends on volunteers and people he
pays $1 per signature. He admits he cannot compete with the
professionals.

Through Arnold's organization, the Nevada State Education Association
pays as much as $2.25 per signature for its Nevadans for the National
Average petition. They want voters to approve a constitutional
amendment to force the Legislature to fund public education at a rate
at least equivalent to the national average.

"It seems like it would be easy to get signatures, but it isn't," said
Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons, R-Reno. "We couldn't do it just with
volunteers. That would be a nightmare."

Volunteers start off enthusiastic, gather signatures from their
friends, but then it becomes work, Gibbons said.

She uses volunteers and the services of National Voter Outreach for
her Education First initiative. If voters back the plan, the
Legislature must approve funding for public education before other
parts of the budget.

Gibbons said she already has more than 70,000 signatures for her
petition, far above the 51,337 requirement.

But Nevada law has a secondary requirement. Petitioners must collect
at least enough signatures in 13 of the state's 17 counties equivalent
to 10 percent of the voters at the last general election.

That means petition gathers cannot just concentrate on heavily
populated Las Vegas or Reno. They must go into rural Nevada.

Rogers' name might be familiar because two years ago he ran the
Marijuana Policy Project's drive to legalize up to 3 ounces of
marijuana for adult Nevadans. Only 39 percent of the voters supported
that effort.

Despite the loss, Rogers remained in Nevada and founded the Southwest
Group. He does political consulting, campaign management and has
gathered signatures for eight petitions in three states.

As she rode in the van to the next block of homes, Jaffa said that
gathering signatures really is fun, at least when you are young,
single and willing to live out of suitcases.

"It's the essence of democracy," Jaffa said. "Every day is Super Bowl
Sunday."