Lawmakers rightly kill anti-democracy bill for many of the wrong reasons

Sometimes lawmakers do the right thing, but for the wrong reasons. A case in point would be the defeat of House Joint Resolution 5001 early Friday morning by the House State Affairs Committee.

HJR 5001, sponsored by Rep. Fred Deutsch, R-Florence, would require that backers of a defeated constitutional amendment wait one general election cycle before submitting that amendment to voters again. Deutsch calls it a “respect the will of the people resolution.”

Deutsch’s example for the committee was the fact that voters have handled the recreational marijuana issue in two straight elections. It was approved once by voters but then nullified in a court case. Brought back to voters in the next election, it went down in defeat. Deutsch said not long after the last election, marijuana backers were talking about bringing the issue back in the next election.

Deutsch was the only one to speak in favor of the bill. There was no opposition testimony, but members of the committee had a few questions and comments. 

One provision of Deutsch’s resolution is that the attorney general would decide if a new constitutional amendment was “substantially similar” to the previous, defeated constitutional amendment. Rep. Roger Chase, R-Huron, had a tough time with that verbiage. 

Rep. Taylor Rehfeldt, R-Sioux Falls, was concerned that the timeline for challenges wasn’t spelled out in the resolution.

Rep. Oren Lesmeister, D-Parade, wondered if there should be a “trigger” that allowed the rule not to apply to a constitutional amendment that was defeated in a close election. 

Committee Chairman Will Mortenson, R-Pierre, wondered why it was the attorney general and not the secretary of state, who is responsible for elections, making the determination if the amendments were substantially similar. 

Only one of the committee members seemed to hone in on the resolution’s biggest flaw. After more than 20 minutes of testimony and questions, Rep. Becky Drury, R-Rapid City, said she would oppose the resolution because it “impedes people’s right to go out to try to change the law.” 

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

Deutsch said he was only using the two votes on the recreational marijuana issue as an example. Well, if anything, it’s an example of persistence. It’s no easy chore to get a constitutional amendment or an initiated measure on the ballot. (In one media report, Deutsch said that if the resolution on constitutional amendments was a hit, he would whip up another one that dealt with initiated measures.)

If people are, as Deutsch says, tired of voting on recreational marijuana, then they have every right not to sign the petitions that would get it on the ballot again and, if it makes it to the next general election, they can snub that particular portion of their ballot if that’s their choice.

However, it’s the height of hypocrisy for any lawmaker to propose a resolution that makes it tougher for citizens to get a measure on the general election ballot. It’s hypocritical because lawmakers have the easiest possible path toward getting an amendment on the ballot. All Deutsch would have to do, to get HJR 5001 on the ballot, is convince a majority of the lawmakers in the House and Senate. Citizens would have to collect thousands of signatures that are then the subject of vetting by the Secretary of State’s Office. 

It’s also odd for Deutsch to maintain that voters may be tired of casting their ballots for or against marijuana, as if going to the polls every election cycle is that great an imposition. Lawmakers, it seems, never tire of voting. There’s a rule in the Legislature that allows bills defeated in committee to still be debated on the House or Senate floor. There’s a rule that allows a bill defeated on the House or Senate floor to be brought back to life for another vote. 

The rules lawmakers live by make sure that they get to vote early and often on the laws proposed in each session. If they can vote that much, it’s disingenuous to assume that voters will get weary when they have to cast their ballots more than twice in a row on the same ballot issue. 

On a 10-2 vote, the House State Affairs Committee voted to send Deutsch’s resolution to the 41st day of the session, a procedural move used to kill legislation. That was the right outcome, though most of the committee members seemed to cast their ballots for the wrong reasons.