NEVADA SUPREME COURT: Property tax cap dies on the vine - News

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Sep. 24, 2008
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

NEVADA SUPREME COURT: Property tax cap dies on the vine

After court rejects last-ditch effort, Miller says 'it's over' for this election

By SEAN WHALEY
REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU

CARSON CITY -- In what is expected to be the death blow to the effort to put a measure before voters to cap property tax increases, the Nevada Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a request to disqualify the judge who ruled the measure ineligible for the ballot.

The high court also rejected a request for a stay of senior Judge Charles McGee's order from earlier this month that disqualified the California-style Proposition 13 measure from the Nevada ballot.

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Secretary of State Ross Miller said there may be other legal avenues for the proponents of the measure to pursue, but that it is too late for this election cycle.

"This is the end," he said. "It's over as far as this election is concerned."

Absentee ballots have been printed and will be mailed out by Thursday, Miller said.

"We applaud the Supreme Court for again quickly resolving an election-related issue and allowing us to finalize the ballot," he said.

Although he initially approved the tax cap measure for the ballot back in August, Miller said the decision by McGee was the right one and the Supreme Court was right to reject the motions filed by attorney Joel Hansen on behalf of former Reno Assemblywoman Sharron Angle.

The requirements for affidavits that had to be submitted with the signatures to get the measure on the ballot clearly were not followed, he said.

The failure of the measure means that none of the constitutional amendments proposed by citizens this year will make it to the voters. Some were withdrawn and others, like Angle's measure, were successfully challenged in court by opponents.

Angle could not be reached for comment. It was her third attempt to get the constitutional amendment on the Nevada ballot.

McGee ruled from the bench after a two-day hearing in Virginia City, saying some of the affidavits required with the petition signatures were flawed and so invalidated the tax cap measure. McGee said there were "exponentially more petitions" containing deficiencies than necessary to disqualify the measure from the ballot.

Angle then asked the Supreme Court to disqualify McGee and order a new hearing based on the fact that McGee's wife was an employee with the Washoe County School District, which he did not disclose. The challenge to the Angle petition was brought by the Nevada State Education Association.

The Supreme Court noted that McGee's wife was no longer working for the district other than as a part-time consultant and said the motion lacked merit.

Hansen also sought a stay of the order keeping the measure off the ballot while an appeal was considered. Among the issues Hansen wanted to raise included the suggestion that the affidavit requirements were unconstitutional.

But the Supreme Court, noting that it recently upheld the constitutionality of the affidavit requirements in recent successful challenges to other proposed ballot measures, said the argument was unlikely to be successful on appeal.

The court also agreed with McGee that the affidavits as submitted with the signatures in Clark County did not appear to meet the state constitutional requirements and said Angle was unlikely to be victorious in this challenge either.

Lynn Warne, president of the teachers association, praised the ruling.

"It just confirms what we've said all along," she said. "There were some serious deficiencies in their signature gathering.

Hansen argued that any mistakes were minor and the petitioners substantially complied with the affidavit requirements, which is the standard set by the Nevada Supreme Court for initiative petitions in a decision issued last week on a different petition challenge. The question should remain on the ballot, he said.

Angle's proposed constitutional amendment wanted to limit property tax increases to 2 percent per year for all property.

The Legislature enacted its own caps in 2005, limiting increases on owner-occupied homes to 3 percent and other property to 8 percent. The legislative caps will remain in effect.

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Please enter your name Name: Please enter your email Email: Please enter a comment COMMENTS : (word count limit is 300) You have reached the maximum number of words allowed Current Word Count: Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background. urnuts wrote on September 24, 2008 06:07 PM: The Justices on the Nevada Supreme Court are all against the people of Nevada. Every one of them are hookers for the Unions. Let's vote the whores out of office. They will get it in the end by the uprising of the citizens. Let's hang them. Vegas Vic wrote on September 24, 2008 03:04 PM: Jim, Angle didn't circulate ALL the petitions that were proposed and ALL of them got shot down. Not every petition had "rule violations" as you put it. DR J wrote on September 24, 2008 10:43 AM: Thank you teacher's union lobby for helping kill this and keeping our taxes high. skepticalyptica wrote on September 24, 2008 09:51 AM: Democracy is dead. The only hope is for reurrection. Kinda like the late 18th century. ths wrote on September 24, 2008 07:12 AM: I agree let it go to a vote, but I am concerned about 'The ignorance of the masses'. A tax cap looks good at first glance but for much of the population that does not own or does own but wants to buy up in the future this tax cap proposal could reduce the buying options. Under this proposal the house would be reassessed when sold which could mean thousands of dollars more in taxes then under the current tax cap set by the legislatures. Also writing tax code into the state constitution has gotten us into this financial mess. Talk to CA and the minority now support PROP 13 and there are movements to get the votes to overturn it. That is because in the long run it could actually cost the mass population more especially when you have a tax cap already that is only 1% difference. Jim wrote on September 24, 2008 07:06 AM: The courts didn't silence the "voice of the people," nor did any "special interest group." Nor was it a simple failure by Sharron Angle's people to comply with the rules. What doomed the initiative was the admission by Angle's people that they deliberately chose not to comply with the rules because many circulators feared they would be prosecuted for perjury if they did so. Angle still does not seem to understand that, and I notice that the RJ makes no mention of it in this article. Until Ms. Angle decides to comply with the law, her initiative will never be on the ballot. So blame her if you must blame someone. JM wrote on September 24, 2008 06:53 AM: The NEA and Nevada State Supreme Court intend to make sure this proposition never comes to a vote due to its likelihood of passage. Voter wrote on September 24, 2008 06:19 AM: I for one would like to see this get to a vote of the people. Not the courts or special interest groups. The people who block this everytime are afraid to let it get to the people. Why? Let us vote on it. If it fails, ok, If it passes, Ok. But we at least get to decide what is right for us. Its called choice. Vegas Vic wrote on September 24, 2008 03:02 AM: So here we have it. Once again, every initiative signed by voters has been terminated by court actions. The special interest groups against the initiatives succeeded in again silencing the "voices" of all the registered voters who took the effort to sign them.