Nevada Tax and Spending Control Initiative (2006)

Not on Ballot
This measure was not put on an election ballot

The Nevada Tax and Spending Control Initiative, also known as TASC, was an initiative that aimed to appear on the November 2006 ballot in Nevada.

The TASC initiative was a spending cap initiative modeled after the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. It was one of the 2006 ballot initiatives supported by Americans for Limited Government.

A union-backed group called Nevadans for Nevada opposed the measure. The opposition included a petition blocking campaign that resulted in a series of lawsuits, the end result of which was that Nevadans for Nevada agreed to a judicially-ordered agreement that put restraints on the techniques they could legally use to discourage people from signing the petition.

Lawsuit and aftermath

As the result of a private lawsuit filed by its opponents after the Nevada Secretary of State had certified that the initiative was eligible to appear on the ballot, the Nevada Supreme Court threw the measure off the ballot because of a technical error in wording.

Influential Nevada opinion pundit David Damore wrote in March 2008:

"The successful removal of the TASC proposal from the ballot during the last election cycle on the grounds that its sponsors circulated different versions of the proposal when collecting the requisite signatures opened the floodgates for various interests to use the courts as means to preemptively challenge proposed initiatives that threaten their comfortable hold over the status quo."

Support and opposition

An August 2006 poll by the Las Vegas Review-Journal showed 54% support for the TASC initiative, and also that support was weakening in "the wake of a concerted campaign against the measure by the AFL-CIO in Nevada."

External links

• Affidavits of petitioners about blocking
• TASC response to Nevadans for Nevada complaint