By Doug Goodman, Sondra Cosgrove and Vivian Leal

By not extending the use of his declared emergency authority, Governor Sisolak has (we perceive) willfully, and for partisan reasons, prevented voters from exercising their unconditional power to propose amendments to the state Constitution.

Article 19 of the Nevada State Constitution states: “..the people reserve to themselves the power  to propose, by initiative petition, statutes and amendments to statutes and amendments to this Constitution, and to enact or reject them at the polls.” 

Nevada Revised Statute 414.060 gives the governor the power and authority to override state regulations in the event of a declared emergency. On March 13, 2020 Governor Sisolak used that authority to impose various directives to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Nov. 4, 2019, Fair Maps Nevada submitted a proposed amendment to the Nevada Constitution with the purpose to end the potential for gerrymandering congressional and state legislative districts every 10 years by proposing the creation of an independent commission to create fair districts openly and with public input.

On November 26, 2019, Reverend Leonard Jackson, represented by Mr. Kevin Benson, a Carson City attorney affiliated with powerful factions of the Democratic Party, filed suit in state District Court challenging the statement of effect as written. Reverend Jackson was the formal plaintiff, but actions like this are usually not taken without the direct backing of more powerful and/or influential persons, those with the resources to fund a potential legal battle. We do not know who was really behind this suit. 

On Dec. 12, 2019 District Court Judge James Russell ruled in favor of Reverend Jackson (see final order dated January 2, 2020) directing both he and Fair Maps Nevada to submit language revising the description of effect to meet legal requirements. While Reverend Jackson failed to submit the requested revision, Fair Maps Nevada did. Judge Russell agreed to the revised language and on January 4, 2020, Fair Maps Nevada filed a revised petition with the Nevada secretary of state. 

Changing the description of effect was not Reverend Jackson’s true desire. Even though he was victorious in District Court, he continued to file appeals. His (or his sponsors’) true motive was to prevent the initiative from reaching the voters. Then COVID-19 hit.

Nevada Revised Statute 295 lays out the requirements for collecting signatures on an initiative petition. Signatures, under this statute are required to be collected in person, witnessed by the signature gatherer. The gatherer must then attest by notarized signature that they witnessed each signature. However, Governor Sisolak’s directives under his declared state of emergency made these activities impossible.

Driven by a desire to keep Nevadans safe and prevent the spread of COVID-19 and to ensure the state constitutional right of the voters to change the Constitution was protected, Fair Maps Nevada proposed a solution. By having the governor use his already enacted authority to deviate from state regulations during an emergency, Fair Maps proposed allowing voters to sign the petition electronically through the state’s voter registration database. This was not a unique solution as the secretary of state was implementing electronic signature verification for the mail ballots cast in the June primaries. By using the voter registration database, county election officials would not have to spend the time AFTER the petition deadline to verify a signatory’s voter registration status since only registered voters can log in to the voter database. Thus, the concern of non-registered persons signing the initiative would be effortlessly eliminated. 

Back to Reverend Jackson-- he continued his bogus legal challenges as the signature collection deadline rapidly approached in an effort to run out the clock. Fair Maps Nevada was forced to file suit in federal court against the secretary of state to extend the deadline to August. At the same time, they asked the court to direct electronic signatures be used (which the governor of Colorado has just legally done in his state via an executive order.

On May 29, federal District Court Judge Miranda Du ruled in favor of Fair Maps Nevada extending the deadline.  But she stated she did not have the authority to direct Secretary Cegavske to allow for electronic signatures. On Wednesday, The Hill reported that Sisolak’s office said issuing an executive order to allow for electronic signatures is “not appropriate because this exact request has already been made in Federal District Court in Nevada and denied,” and to do so would involve setting state laws aside.”

This is false on one hand and contradictory on the other.  Judge Du never denied the request for electronic signatures from the governor; she only stated that the decision either way was not in her jurisdiction. 

Moreover, the governor does indeed have the authority to set aside state law and has actively been doing so since declaring a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Because of the legal challenges, launched  intentionally  to prevent the voters of Nevada from exercising state constitutional power expressly given to them to amend the state Constitution and because the state’s governor has apparently failed to act to protect it, Fair Maps Nevada will not be able to collect the necessary signatures by the court-set, and county election official agreed to deadline of Aug. 3. 

We have one question to ask all those who labored and spent large sums to prevent a fair democracy initiative from being considered by Nevadans on the November ballot as the state Constitution provides for: Why?

Doug Goodman is Founder and Executive Director, Nevadans for Election Reform; Sondra Cosgrove is Chair, Fair Maps Nevada and Vivian Leal is a member of Indivisible Northern Nevada Fair Democracy Team.