Court Opinion

ID: 9788748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:17:14.603483+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:16.433735
License: Public Domain

Maupin, J.,
dissenting:
The rehearing petition in this matter should be granted, the writ of mandamus dissolved and the prior majority opinion vacated. First, the Nevada State Legislature completed its work without resort to the remedy afforded by this court in the writ. It ultimately complied with the Nevada Constitution as written by appropriating funds for the state educational system and creating the new revenue sources to pay for the appropriations by a two-thirds vote.1 Second, the perceived crisis the majority sought to address in the writ was averted by the legislative action just mentioned. Third, the majority now indicates that the original decision had discrete application to the limited circumstances of the 2003 legislative sessions; thus a need for precedent for future sessions does not exist. Accordingly, the entire matter is moot.
I most strongly take issue with the court’s comments on rehearing that the supermajority initiative was flawed from its inception and that the Nevada electorate twice approved it without an understanding that a stalemate between appropriations and taxes could eventuate. The initiative was vetted through two elections and we should not from this vantage point presume to say what the voters of this state knew or did not know. In any case, the potential for such a conflict was inherent in the proposal and the people of this state had every right to make it more onerous for the Legislature to create new revenue streams for the operation of government. Nothing in this constitutional construct prevents the Legislature *479from crafting a balanced budget and, as noted, the Legislature ultimately complied with the supermajority requirement.
We need look no further than the second paragraph of the Declaration of American Independence for sustenance in any judicial analysis of initiative petitions passed by a vote of the people:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, . . . [tjhat . . . governments are instituted . . . , deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ....
This court did not invalidate the tax initiative as somehow being unconstitutional. Having thus affirmed its basic validity, we must recognize that such initiatives, however inconvenient to the operatives of government they may be at times, represent the ultimate form of citizen consent to government. Accordingly, it is not for us, the supreme court of this state, to criticize the wisdom of a valid initiative embraced by an overwhelming majority of Nevadans.
I am therefore of the belief that we should, in response to the petition for rehearing, vacate the writ of mandamus and the prior opinion issued in aid of it.

 The Nevada State Constitution requires that the State Legislature appropriate sufficient funds to support and maintain the public school system; that it provide for sufficient revenues to balance the state budget; and that any increases in taxes to fund the state budget be approved by a supermajority of both houses of the legislature. See Nev. Const. art. 11, § 6; id. art. 9, § 2(1); id. art. 4, § 18(2). The writ, as noted by the majority on rehearing, allowed the 2003 Legislature, in special session, to create new funding sources by a simple majority rather than a supermajority to resolve an impasse in arriving at a balanced budget that existed as of July 10, 2003.