As I said last time, I want to go over the ballot questions for Nevada on the 2018 ballot. This is probably of limited utility elsewhere, but these ballot questions are worth reviewing as general examples of how the ballot is used to post policy to voters. This is especially important because as I noticed in 2016, the ballot questions are phrased very generically as to what is being proposed, and even though the sample ballot sent in the mail gives a lot of Pro and Con arguments for each ballot question, these also are fairly generic when they are not slanted towards one opinion or the other. Thus in my efforts to examine each question for myself before voting, I usually relied more on other sources, especially ballotpedia.org.
Nevada Question 1 (aka ‘Marsy’s Law’)
“Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended to: (1) remove existng provisions that require the Legislature to provide certain statutory rights for crime victms; and (2) adopt in their place certain expressly stated constitutional rights that crime victms may assert throughout the criminal or juvenile justice process?”
While it isn’t referred to as “Marsy’s Law” on the ballot, Question 1 is based on legislation called “Marsy’s Law” in California and taken up as ballot initiatives in other states besides Nevada. It refers to Marsy Nicholas, whose ex-boyfriend killed her after he was released from prison after assaulting her and her family had not been made aware of his release on bail.
The fact that the text of the question was adopted from another state’s bill is one reason that the “No” lobby on Question 1 gives for opposing the legislation. I myself was leery of the phrasing that the amendment will “remove existing provisions” that already provide for statutory rights for victims. However, on Ballotpedia, the actual text of the measure is reviewed including the parts where it actually amends the Nevada Constitution. It would add a Section 23 to the Nevada Constitution, specifically asserting: “Each person who is the victim of a crime has the following rights”. These include “(to) be reasonably protected from the defendant and persons acting on behalf of the defendant”, “(to) have the safety of the victim and the victim’s family considered as a factor in fixing the amount of bail and release conditions for the defendant” and “(to) prevent the disclosure of confidential information or records to the defendant which could be used to locate or harass the victim or the victim’s family.” It goes on in this manner, but the text is intended to replace Section 8, Article 1 of the state Constitution, which states that victims of crime are to be informed of the status of a criminal deposition “only upon written request”. Thus, the burden is not on the victim (or plaintiff) to prove need in these cases, and there is an acknowledgement that defendants can attempt to intimidate victims in criminal cases.
Thus I ended up voting YES on Question 1, albeit with some reservation. Still, this is another example of where you really need to research the fine print in order to make an informed choice.
Nevada Question 2
“Shall the Sales and Use Tax Act of 1955 be amended to provide an exemption from the taxes imposed by this Act on the gross receipts from the sale and the storage, use or other consumption of feminine hygiene products?”
A libertarian would still question whether we really need taxes at all. I would like to try funding government by Kickstarter. Or, as the hippies once suggested, a bake sale. But as long as we do need taxes to fund government, the burden should not fall primarily on consumers and end-users who have the least disposable income. But that’s what Nevada does with sales taxes. Question 2 is meant to modify Nevada’s Sales and Use Tax Act to add onto the existing list of tax exemptions “feminine hygiene product” which is interpreted to include tampons and sanitary napkins.
I voted YES to add this tax exemption. Incidentally, the Bernie Sanders-founded Our Revolution announced itself in favor of the initiative. Which proves that libertarians and “progressives” can agree on one thing: It is not progressive to nickel and dime the average person to fuel government, and if government is going to go bankrupt unless we charge women extra for tampons, there really needs to be better budgeting.
Nevada Question 3
“Shall Article 1 of the Nevada Constitution be amended to require the Legislature to provide by law for the establishment of an open, competitive retail electric energy market that prohibits the granting of monopolies and exclusive franchises for the generation of electricity?”
This is a ballot initiative that was first proposed in 2016 and by procedure needs to be approved by vote a second time after passing. I mentioned in 2016 why I voted YES, and my reasons haven’t changed. For one thing, if the consumer protection agency (Public Utilities Commission) charged with monitoring the state monopoly energy company (NV Energy) acts more in favor of that company than the consumer, and generally discourages efforts to create cleaner energy sources outside the provisions of NV Energy, then it’s not acting in any “public interest.”
This year, there has been a LOT more advertising, especially on TV, for the “No” vote, largely on the point that the text of Question 3. According to Ballotpedia, the “Yes on 3” political action committee had raised $33.26 million. The “No on 3” committee has raised $66.13 million. “The top contributor to the committee was NV Energy, which provided 99.99 of the committee’s total funds.”
It’s a good thing NV Energy was able to finance their position almost single-handedly. It makes it seem like no one else was supporting it.
Nevada Question 4
“Shall Article 10 of the Nevada Constitution be amended to require the Legislature to provide by law for the exemption of durable medical equipment, oxygen delivery equipment, and mobility enhancing equipment prescribed for use by a licensed health care provider from any tax upon the sale, storage, use, or consumption of tangible personal property?”
This is another ballot initiative that had been approved in 2016 and needs to go for another pass. As in 2016, I voted YES. Similar to Question 2, I do not see why taxes in this state or any other have to fall on those who are least able to pay. Such objections as there are to this ballot question hinge on the point that the text requires a constitutional amendment that is not spelled out (unlike Question 1). One will note that similar objections were raised against Question 3 (the initiative to remove the energy monopoly) but there were no serious campaigns against Question 4 in 2016, nor are there any PACs set up to oppose it now. The fact that the same constitutional objection applies to both Question 3 and Question 4, but one is encountering much more, and much wealthier, opposition, should tell you something about Nevada establishment priorities.
Nevada Question 5
“Shall Chapter 293 of the Nevada Revised Statutes be amended to establish a system that will automatically register an eligible person to vote, or update that person’s existing Nevada voter registration information, at the time the person applies to the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles for the issuance or renewal of any type of driver’s license or identification card, or makes a request to change the address on such a license or identification card, unless the person affirmatively declines in writing?”
From my knowledge, once you are registered to vote in Nevada, the state actually makes it pretty easy to go to the polls – for one thing, they mail you a voter guide which you can take to your polls to check against registration. Thus, if you’ve already been registered, they set up the system to work with you, not against you, as opposed to some places I could mention. Measures such as Nevada Question 5 are supported mainly by the Democratic Party after they lost enough elections to realize that they couldn’t take voters for granted. Republicans generally oppose such measures in favor of a default “opt-in” system in which the citizen has to take the initiative to confirm a right to vote by registering. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. Moderate Republican Governor Brian Sandoval had vetoed the initiative when it was first proposed, saying “IP1 advances a worthy goal by encouraging more eligible Nevadans to register to vote. However, such a result must partner with sound policy. IP1 fails this test because it extinguishes a fundamental, individual choice—the right of eligible voters to decide for themselves whether they desire to apply to register to vote—forfeiting this basic decision to state government. … the core freedom of deciding whether one wishes to initiate voter registration belongs to the individual, not the government. ”
Philosophically, I’m inclined to agree. Still, if we assert that a thing is a right rather than a privilege, we shouldn’t have to “opt in” to it, because that creates the opportunity for government to put barriers in the path of the ostensible right. This is why the Miranda rule says “You have the right to remain silent.” You do not need to opt in to it, and it is the government’s responsibility to confirm that this right is protected unless one decides to “opt out” by speaking to law enforcement after being informed of one’s rights in the matter. All the more odd that this is the “conservative” position being that the philosophical Right has always asserted the premise of “negative rights” that are inherent and cannot be restricted without cause.
There is also the strictly pragmatic matter that I referred to last time, namely that you’re not going to have any checks on abusive government unless Republicans are flushed out of power, and if you can’t even elect Democrats they sure as hell aren’t going to let in Libertarians or anyone else. So I ended up voting YES on 5. Still, it’s worth noting that the more likely a given state is to need such legislation, the less likely it is to pass it.
Nevada Question 6
“Shall Article 4 of the Nevada Constitution be amended to require, beginning in calendar year 2022, that all providers of electric utility services who sell electricity to retail customers for consumption in Nevada generate or acquire incrementally larger percentages of electricity from renewable energy resources so that by calendar year 2030 not less than 50 percent of the total amount of electricity sold by each provider to its retail customers in Nevada comes from renewable energy resources?”
This measure mandates that energy companies derive an increasing percentage of their energy production from renewable resources. It is technically not related to Question 3 and could apply to “all providers of electric utility services” whether they are provided by a monopoly or multiple companies.
Again though, it’s telling that Question 6 hasn’t attracted nearly as much negative attention or campaigning as Question 3. I ended up voting NO on Question 6, though I could just as easily have gone the other way. I agree with “fiscal conservatives” who think that mandates are difficult to implement and sometimes counterproductive. However, we have seen that most “fiscal conservatives” don’t care much about budgets when they’re in the majority. With regard to the ecology and climate change, other parts of the world may be worried about a world where the temperature is 100 degrees at midnight. In Nevada, we’re already there. And again, I think that the history of NV Energy has demonstrated that we’re not going to get that far on an ecology “mandate” if there’s only one company in charge of energy. That is, if you want the state to “invest” more in renewable energy, that will be more likely if you vote Yes on 3 to provide market competition, as opposed to voting Yes on 6 and No on 3, in which case progress is determined by the monopoly whose “juice” is more political than electrical.