U.S. Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian is going to start circulating an initiative that would allow Nevada voters to decide whether to opt-out of the public option in the health-care bill that’s slowly forming on Capitol Hill. It hasn’t been entirely clear how the opt-out provision would work, but up until now, it’s been assumed that a state’s Legislature would be responsible for making that decision.

Four things here:

One, since it was U.S. Sen. Harry Reid who announced the opt-out plan as a compromise on the public option, we love the symbolism of Tarkanian’s initiative, if not the substance. It’s as if he’s saying “I’ve got your opt-out right here, Harry!”

Two, we wonder how far Tarkanian is going to take this thing. Seriously, in the age of the Internet, why not have votes on everything, via computer, to tell our elected representatives how to vote? Hell, why not have representation only with computers, thus avoid the expense of elections entirely? If we like direct democracy so much, that’s the way to go, right?

We elect people based on their platforms, personalities and record. Some people will vote for Reid next November because they agree with him on the issues, and they appreciate his position in government. Some will vote for Tarkanian (at least in the primary) because they like his stance on the issues, or disagree with Reid. But ultimately, we’re all electing a person to make these decisions for us, in a little thing called representative democracy. The initiative is supposed to be the last resort when government won’t listen, not the first option. Why not give the people we’ve already elected a chance to represent their constituents on the issue first? (See below for the answer.)

Three, we have faith that our Legislature will make the right call, and not opt-out of the public option. (In fact, we think the opt-out is a cop-out of the first order, although we understand Reid’s need to appeal to moderates.) Why would they opt-out and deny the hope of insurance coverage to thousands of Nevadans? That’s what we’re really talking about here, a vote to deny our fellow citizens the chance to go see a doctor without risking bankruptcy. What kind of a person would want to say no to that?

Fourth, and finally, we see what’s really going on here: Tarkanian is taking a page from the Jim Gibbons playbook! Don’t laugh, it’s true! Back in the 1990s, Gibbons campaigned for office along with a companion initiative, the Gibbons Tax Restraint Initiative, which requires a two-thirds vote in the Legislature to create or raise taxes. And then in 2004, he penned Education First, which requires the Legislature to pass the schools budget before any other spending plan.

Both initiatives were a success, even if Gibbons wasn’t always. (He lost a gubernatorial race to Democrat Bob Miller in 1994, the first time the tax initiative — known as Question 11 — was on the ballot. But he beat Democrat Thomas “Spike” Wilson in 1996, when the measure appeared for its constitutionally required second time. And Education First passed for the second time in 2006, as Gibbons defeated Democrat Dina Titus for governor.)

But initiatives are tricky things, and the government has intentionally made it very difficult for someone to change the law by gathering signatures and putting something on the ballot. The odds are even that a measure probably won’t even see the ballot after the court challenges that will inevitably be filed. But that is sometimes a good thing. In the end, there’s more than one way to hear vox populi.