Two days left in session'speak out for Nevada's initiative process now

A.J.R. 5 and S.B. 224—two proposed measures that would drastically restrict Nevada's citizen initiative process—will soon face a vote in their conference committees, and the Nevada legislative session ends at midnight on June 6. What happens in the next 50-odd hours will greatly affect the future of Nevadans' right to direct democracy, and we need you to tell the committee members to vote to keep the initiative process free and fair by opposing these two unreasonable measures.

Fight the Assembly version of A.J.R. 5, which would increase the number of signatures required for a statewide initiative to qualify for the ballot from 10% of the votes cast in the previous general election to 15% for a statutory initiative and 20% for a constitutional initiative. It would also require that petitioners meet these new quotas in each of Nevada's three congressional districts. Finally, it would ban an initiative from being placed on the ballot for three years if it did not muster 45% of the vote in the previous election.

Please act now, because if the provisions of the Assembly version of A.J.R. 5 had been in place a few years ago, the initiative to tax and regulate marijuana would not be on the 2006 ballot.

Oppose the harsh measures in S.B. 224, which contains several new sections that would require nonprofits that wish to support an initiative to register with the Nevada Secretary of State before engaging in any activities in support of that initiative. There is a proposal to post the names, telephone numbers, and addresses of a nonprofit's officers on the Web site of the Secretary of State.

Please do not let the committees adopt rules intended to chill participation in the initiative process.

Don't let our progress slide away in the last hours of the session.