So it turns out — in a development as unsurprising as the news that another Spears daughter is pregnant — the AFL-CIO is going to challenge ex-Assemblywoman Sharron Angle’s Petition to Wage War on Hardworking Public Employees. (That’s the short title, right?)

Well, why wouldn’t they? The petition, although re-written from an earlier version filed and then withdrawn in October, still has what the AFL-CIO considers a fatal constitutional flaw. Under the Proposition 13-style measure, property taxes would be capped at 2 percent per year until property is sold, at which time it would be reassessed.

Thus, contend union opponents, owners of identical houses next door to each other could be paying radically different property tax rates, which runs afoul of Article 10, Section 1(1) of the Nevada Constitution. ("The Legislature shall provide by law for a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation….")

Anyway, yet another has-been Reno Assembly member, one Don Gustavson, complains in the Review-Journal today that the big, bad union is standing in the way of Angle’s Petition to Enshrine Misanthropy in the State Constitution (what the hell is the name of that thing, anyway?). From the story:

"Don Gustavson, another former Reno assemblyman, complained that the constant legal challenges filed by ‘unions and groups with unlimited resources’ obstruct the right of people to petition for changes in taxation."

Yeah, it’s a bitch, this due process stuff.

But it seems to us that Gustavson probably doesn’t mind a challenge if it serves to thwart taxation. Like the gambling industry (and it’s unlimited resources) suing the Nevada State Education Association over its petition to raise the casino tax, for example. We didn’t hear Gustavson bitching and whining about that.

Unlike him, the teachers union knows that a lawsuit is just part of the process, something that has to be overcome on the road to making law by petition. Sure, anybody can write an initiative and try to change state law; but if there’s a serious constitutional problem with that proposed law, opponents have every right to go to court and block it. After all, if it’s legally flawed, it’s never going to become law anyway, right?

Besides, the AFL-CIO is right: On its face, the Angle Petition to Gut Schools, Police Stations, Firehouses, City Halls and Public Hospitals runs counter to Nevada’s founding document. She should peddle her anti-government snake oil somewhere else.