Budget Watch Nevada

Not even a year has passed since his election, but is it time for Secretary of State Miller to resign?

According to conservative political watchdog Janine Hanson of Nevada Families Eagle Forum, “The Secretary of State Ross Miller is promoting AB606 & 604, which severely interfere with the Constitutional right to petition. It is because of his support that these two terrible bills may pass. AB606 turns the SOS into the Speech Police for petitioning, creating a very anti-petition climate.”

Yours truly has worked exhaustively on a few petition drives, and I’m here to tell you it is very difficult to qualify for the ballot. The last thing we need is Ross Miller making it even more difficult for YOU to have YOUR VOICE heard in Nevada politics.

Here’s the note I sent to the SOS-NV comment line; you might consider doing the same.

“Mr. Miller should not be involving himself with changing the political aspects of the ballot petition process. He can weigh in on small technicalities, but to get behind legislation that would INCREASE HIS POWER in deciding what is and isn’t “free speech” is unconscionable and a clear conflict of interest.”

“Miller should recuse himself and his staff from any testimony on AB604 and AB606 in regards to who can gather signatures and what they can be paid, and determining what people “think they heard” about petition language before signing. Any such regulation is hostile to free speech and to the people’s right to participate in the legislative process.”

The biggest joke of all in this legislation (AB606) is a new section that a person collecting signatures “shall not intentionally misrepresent the contents of a petition or the effect that such a petition would have if enacted into law.” (Emphasis added by me)

Do you see the sick irony and hypocrisy? Politicians and elected officials are CONSTANTLY misrepresenting the effect that their legislation will have on the populace. That’s what they do. They obfuscate, misrepresent, twist, and spin the facts into feel-good sound bites. But if YOU DO IT, there is hell to pay.