Petitions in 2024, meanwhile, are already becoming something of an endangered species. 

One petition, which sought to place reproductive freedom and abortion rights into the Nevada Constitution, was successfully challenged in district court; it’s currently facing an appeal. The same group that filed that petition has since filed another petition, one solely designed to focus on abortion rights. It too will almost certainly be challenged in court.

Another petition, which seeks to amend the Nevada Constitution to require voters to provide either photo or numerical identification before voting, is also being challenged in court. A similar petition filed by the same group was one of the unlucky 13 petitions that failed to qualify for Nevada’s ballots.

Then there are the petitions that seek to place redistricting in the hands of an independent commission instead of the Legislature. Both initiatives are, once again, being challenged in court — once again, that is, since an initiative similar to the two was challenged in court before it failed to gather enough signatures in 2020 and 2022.

Finally, there’s the petition to repeal public funding of the Oakland A’s stadium. It, like the reproductive freedom and abortion rights petition, was also successfully challenged in district court. Whether that decision will be challenged on appeal, or whether the petition will be refiled with different language, or both remains to be seen.

For a petition to successfully pass legal and constitutional muster in this state, it must raise enough tax money to fund itself, stick to a single subject and describe the effect of its passage in fewer than 200 words. 

These requirements, however, produce a logical paradox right out of the gate. Unless the purpose of the petition is solely to raise a tax, wouldn’t a proposal to raise a tax and a proposal to spend the resulting revenue count as two separate subjects? Separating the subject of income from expenses is, after all, the basis of double-entry bookkeeping.

Even ignoring that, every petition, by its nature, seeks to make some noticeable change in public policy through either statute or constitutional language. Each change, in turn, must require some expenditure of some bureaucrat’s time to enact — someone, after all, must be paid to update the Nevada Law Library. Consequently, given a sufficiently legalistically detailed interpretation of the constitutional prohibition against petitions that “require the expenditure of money” without raising a tax large enough to fund its expenses, any petition that fails to include a tax increase can be potentially challenged in court.

For example, the first abortion rights petition presented for the 2024 election was successfully challenged, in part, because it failed to fund the creation of a board responsible for the petition’s enforcement. Never mind that the petition never mentioned the creation or existence of such a board. 

A similar line of attack, meanwhile, is being used against the voter identification petition (who pays for replacing the state’s existing signature verification system with a voter identification system?) and the petition establishing an independent redistricting commission (who pays for the commission’s salaries and office supplies?).

Even if a petition explicitly attempts to fund itself, that doesn’t mean the petition becomes immune from attack. Challengers can dispute the adequacy of the funding by claiming the petition either underestimates the resources required to enact its measures, overstates the resources collected by its funding mechanism, or both.

Additionally, there are still the other two requirements to still consider (and challenge) — does the petition stick to a single subject and does it adequately describe its effects?

Given that most petitions wildly exceed 200 words in length, it’s functionally impossible to completely describe the effect of a petition upon passage and even a well-written description seldom has space to delve into second-order consequences. 

Put everything together and a relatively simple petition — such as one that hypothetically seeks to repaint all red bike sheds in Nevada blue — can quickly run into challenges. 

Did the petition generate its budget numbers by assuming every existing red bike shed will be painted blue? Then challenge the petition on the grounds that it undercounted the number of bike sheds that need to be painted because it failed to account for the possibility that some bike sheds may be subsequently painted red, and thus require repainting to blue, in the future. Or argue that the petition underestimated the cost of paint because it didn’t budget for enough coats or didn’t budget for an acceptably high quality of paint.

What about the single subject rule? If there’s no existing legal definition of “bike shed” in Nevada Revised Statutes and one isn’t specified in the petition, argue that, by proposing to repaint an undefined structure, the petition is actually proposing to repaint all possible structures. Or argue that, by failing to adequately limit or define “red” or “blue,” the language of the petition implies pink, tomato, cardinal, ruby, crimson, burgundy and vermilion bike sheds (all separate subjects, surely) will also be repainted blue.

What about the description of the petition’s passage? Does it tell potential petition signers what kind of paint will be used and how much of it will be applied to the repainted bike sheds? Does it accurately describe the repainted bike shed’s effect on visibility, crime and property values? Does it describe the implied creation of a board or commission of bike shed paint evaluators, who will presumably be tasked with identifying which bike sheds are red?

You get the idea. Now imagine what a challenger can accomplish if they’re willing to pay someone with actual legal training $375-$500 per hour to draft reams of opposition.

The petition to cap consumer loan interest rates at 36 percent is, of course, no simple petition to repaint bike sheds. It ambitiously seeks to create a new chapter in the Nevada Revised Statutes, add and remove language in other statutes and opts the state out of portions of a major piece of federal banking law. You don’t have to be clairvoyant to know that this petition, like every other petition filed over the past couple of election cycles, will be challenged in court, irrespective of its actual merits or drawbacks.

To begin with, this petition, like most every other petition filed with the secretary of state’s office, does not fund its enforcement. Though the petition does propose various financial remedies for violating its provisions, the funds raised from the remedies are delivered to the borrower, not to the enforcement agency. In fact, despite proposing a new chapter in state statutes, no agency is specified within the chapter to enforce its provisions.

Does the petition stick to a single subject? It doesn’t just restrict interest rates — it also raises the limits on wages and savings balances that are protected from garnishments and seizures. Though the petition arguably limits its application to the subject of consumer loans, interest rates and garnishment protections may be challenged as separate subjects.

Finally, there’s the description of effect which, though concisely written, has to summarize nearly two dozen pages of financial regulation into 200 words. Despite that challenge, the description of effect might paradoxically do a clearer job of describing the effect of the petition than the petition does itself. 

Reading the petition’s statutory language, payday loans and lenders are specifically mentioned 12 times — no other type of loan or lender is mentioned this frequently. Were one to skim the petition’s statutory language, they might be forgiven if they assume the petition’s interest rate and wage garnishment limitations would primarily apply to payday loans. The petition’s description of effect, by contrast, concisely and accurately states that the petition’s proposed protections and limitations would apply to all consumer loans, not just payday loans.

So, am I saying this is a bad petition? Am I saying you shouldn’t sign it if offered to? Am I saying you shouldn’t vote for it? Do I think it’s a good idea to cap interest rates for consumer loans issued to Nevadans? Do I think protections against wage and savings garnishments be raised? Do I have opinions on which loans should enjoy these protections and which loans shouldn’t?

Yes, probably. 

Given how difficult it is for a petition to legally qualify, however, my opinions on those matters are even more purely academic than usual. Nevada’s voters will certainly never get a chance to answer those questions for themselves — at least, not on a ballot.

Perhaps you might be interested in submitting an op-ed instead?

David Colborne ran for public office twice. He is now an IT manager, the father of two sons, and a weekly opinion columnist for The Nevada Independent. You can follow him on Mastodon @[email protected], on Bluesky @davidcolborne.bsky.social, on Threads @davidcolbornenv or email him at [email protected].