How can you tell that the Tax and Spending Control initiative is in big trouble? Because its officials are asking a court to give them more time to collect the 83,156 signatures they need by June 20.

The TASC backers say they’re being harassed by Nevadans for Nevada, the AFL-CIO-backed group of “educators” who are shadowing TASC petition circulators, hoping to persuade potential signors to withhold their support by telling them about the havoc the TASC initiative would cause to state and city government. (Because of drafting errors, TASC would not apply to counties, school districts or special taxing districts.)

Nevadans for Nevada shout down TASCers, put their papers over TASC papers and even poured a soda on one petition, the TASC side claims. They’ll be in District Court Judge Sally Loehrer’s courtroom at 3 p.m. Thursday to ask for an injunction to stop the alleged harassment.

But that’s not all. They want six more weeks of signature gathering to make up for the time they’ve lost to the Nevadans for Nevada counter-drive. (That’s very interesting, since Nevadans for Nevada didn’t announce its formation until about two weeks ago.)

What this proves, unmistakably, is that TASC hasn’t been able to get the number of signatures it needs to qualify for the ballot. (The same situation happened two years ago, when a tax-repeal petition failed amid allegations of government harassment of petition circulators. But that measure was run by Failure King George Harris, so it wasn’t that surprising.)

We think harassment of petition circulators is wrong, whether done by government agents denying access to public property or by private agents physically intimidating people. If that’s gone on, and we don’t know that it has, it should be stopped.

But if Nevadans for Nevada is simply exercising its free speech rights, well, that’s perfectly legitimate. In fact, TASCers should learn to embrace the possibility that voters simply don’t want government cut in the way TASC would cut it, and that arguments against the initiative are so simple and persuasive that even the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce has come out against TASC.

In any case, no extra time should be given to petition circulators. If they didn’t have a good running start on the 83,156 signatures before last month — when Nevadans for Nevada started its counter-campaign in earnest — then it likely was voter apathy or incompetent management that resulted in the shortfall, not any alleged harassment.

But if Loehrer does decide to grant extra time, she should ensure that every incident of harassment is properly documented, and adjust deadlines on a case-by-case basis. Extra time didn’t help the Hapless Harris; it may not help the TASCers, but they shouldn’t get credit for generic claims of harassment.