Was it just us, or did that Review-Journal editorial on the single-subject law make any sense to anybody?

(If you don’t know, the Legislature passed a law in 2005 that says initiative petitions must be limited to a single subject. It was a reaction to a pair of trial-lawyer sponsored initiatives in 2004 that claimed to be fighting high aut0-insurance rates and frivilous lawsuits, but really would have erased medical malpractice liability caps.)

The R-J rightly denounced the trial-lawyer ploy — which, by the way, voters saw through and rejected at the polls. And it rightly denounced the fact that the state Supreme Court has used the single-subject rule to creatively edit some initiatives, including one filed by attorney Kermitt Waters focused on eminent domain reforms. The net effect was to water down that initiative.
So now, Waters has a petition to repeal the single-subject law, which this time around has torpedoed at least three petitions aimed at raising the gambling tax. (Two of those were authored by Waters; a second try by the Nevada State Education Association is in the pipeline.)

Alas, the R-J says no. “Mr. Waters is right to be suspicious. But the solution is not to throw out the wise ’single subject’ reform, entirely. Instead, the Legislature must promptly clarify the limited intent of the statute, making it clear the judges — whether through stupidity or in service to ulterior motives — have gotten it wrong.”

Excuse us, the Legislature? State lawmakers are among the biggest opponents of the direct democracy afforded by the initiative petition process. (They hate the competition.) And their members are lousy with those who have a direct conflict of interest, in that they do the bidding of big business (like casinos or banks) that want to make passing an initiative as difficult as possible, so that only they can do it.

Casino moguls like Sheldon Adelson, for example, can afford to hire signature gatherers and overcome procedural roadblocks for his petition to try to divert convention authority money. But regular people (say, those who want to legalize marijuana, raise the gambling tax or impose a business income tax) are put at a decided disadvantage.

Now, we at Various Things & Stuff don’t generally support government by initiative, since so many things can go wrong. Witness the chaos that’s been created by the anti-smoking Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act. But sometimes, when the Legislature has ignored the people (as they did with anti-smoking advocates, for years) it’s the only way to get something done.

The single-subject law has been interpreted in a way that makes circulating all but the most basic initiatives impossible. It’s a choke point for democracy, and, let’s be honest, it was intended to be. The voters have shown they can root out the good from the bad, and aren’t likely to be dissuaded by shiny trinkets. It’s time to get rid of the single-subject law.

So, Mr. Waters, where can we sign your repeal petition?