House passes bill requiring initiated amendments to get signatures from every district

PIERRE — The South Dakota House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would make it more difficult for citizens to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot.

A petition drive to force a vote on a constitutional amendment already requires signatures from registered voters equivalent to 10 percent of the votes cast in the last race for governor. The new bill would require at least 1/35th of the signatures to be from voters in each of the state’s 35 legislative districts.

That translates to about 1,000 signatures from each district.

The bill’s prime sponsor, Rep. Liz May, R-Kyle, wants proposed constitutional amendments to have support from more than just one part of the state.

“We’re going to allow all the districts to be represented in the petition process,” May said.

Sioux Falls Democrats spoke out in opposition to the bill.

Rep. Erin Healy said the bill “would be an administrative nightmare,” because it would require election officials to call the district of origin to verify that signatures came from that district.

Rep. Linda Duba also spoke against the bill.

“It’s very hard to gather signatures,” Duba said. “And when the ballot measure hits the ballot, every South Dakotan has a voice.”

But May said the barrier to entry that the bill would establish is a feature, not a bug.

“If this is a real, grassroots effort, I have no doubt they’ll get those signatures,” May said.

The bill now heads to the Senate.