Opinion ID: 2630289
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The LVCVA may participate in a court challenge to an initiative

Text: The proponents' cross-appeal in Docket Nos. 51509 and 51564 raises the issue of whether the LVCVA [6] was barred from participating in court actions challenging the initiatives by NRS 281A.520, which prohibits a public officer or employee from causing a government entity to incur an expense or make an expenditure to support or oppose... a ballot question. Based on this statute, the proponents argue, the LVCVA cannot incur any expense or make any expenditure to support or oppose the initiatives, and thus, its extensive participation in the underlying district court actions and these appeals was improper. The proponents maintain that this court's 2002 holding in Glover v. Concerned Citizens for Fuji Park, [7] permitting a local government to bring a court action challenging an initiative's placement on the ballot, was superseded by the Legislature's 2003 amendments to the governing statute. The LVCVA disputes the 2003 amendments' import and maintains that Glover controls the disposition in this case. Glover interpreted the predecessor of the current statute, former NRS 293.725, which provided The government of this state or a political subdivision of this state or an agency thereof shall not incur an expense or make an expenditure to support or oppose: 1. A ballot question. 2. A candidate. In Glover, we considered a district court order directing the Carson City Clerk to place an initiative on the ballot. [8] In resolving that matter, we necessarily addressed the initiative's proponents' argument that Carson City was barred by NRS 293.725 from challenging the initiative because it was spending money to oppose the initiative. [9] Carson City maintained that it was not opposing the ballot measure, but rather it was simply raising issues concerning the measure's constitutionality. [10] This court concluded that the statute was ambiguous and that the legislative history suggested that it should be interpreted narrowly to preclude only campaigning for or against a measure that had already been placed on the ballot. [11] Moreover, this court determined that nothing in the legislative history indicated that it should be applied to bar a government entity from challenging an initiative in court before it was placed on the ballot and that such an interpretation would lead to absurd results. [12] Accordingly, this court permitted Carson City to challenge the initiative. The following year, during the 2003 legislative session, a bill was introduced to amend NRS 293.725 to clarify that a certain type of pamphlet, brochure, or advertisement, featuring an incumbent candidate and touting the benefits of his or her agency or department, that was distributed within a certain time period before that incumbent's reelection date, was prohibited. [13] The language interpreted by this court in Glover was not modified. After some further amendments not pertinent to this case, NRS 293.725 was repealed, and its language was recodified in NRS Chapter 281 without any modification of the language construed by this court in Glover. [14] It is well settled that when the Legislature amends a statute without disturbing language previously interpreted by this court, it is presumed that the Legislature approved the interpretation. [15] Thus, here, the Legislature implicitly approved this court's holding in Glover and did not intend to prohibit a local government from challenging in court an initiative's placement on the ballot. Accordingly, the LVCVA was permitted to participate in the underlying district court actions and these appeals. [16]