Ballot questions
It’s hard to get stoked about repealing medical marijuana
One feature of South Dakota’s citizen ballot initiative process is that it values effort over expertise. Consider the case of Travis Ismay. The Newell man would like the 2024 election to include a ballot initiative repealing the legality of the state’s medical marijuana program. Ismay is full of praise for the Legislative Research Council and […]
Ohio voters are deciding if it’s too easy to pass ballot measures. Other states are watching.
CLEVELAND — Ohioans over the last century have used the state’s ballot initiative process to pass constitutional amendments that raised the minimum wage, integrated the National Guard and removed the phrase “white male” from the constitution’s list of voter eligibility requirements. Now, lawmakers want to make it much tougher for an initiative to be approved. […]
Amendment is clumsy way to keep Legislature from manhandling voter initiatives
South Dakota’s legislative process is haunted by the ghost of Initiated Measure 22. Endorsed by a little more than 51% of voters in 2016, the anti-corruption measure was quickly dismantled in the next legislative session. Since then, lawmakers have lived with a reputation for dismissing the will of the people. Derailing IM 22 has had […]
Legislative term limits punish success, rob voters of power
State Sen. Brent Hoffman would be pleased if, in the next election, voters would tell him that his days in the Legislature are numbered. Hoffman, a Republican from Sioux Falls, is the moving force behind an initiated constitutional amendment that would set term limits for state legislators at eight years in the House and eight […]
Ballot petition efforts alive and well, despite the Legislature
Despite the attempts by some legislators to quash the will of the people, ballot petition drives in South Dakota seem to be thriving. Well before the next election in 2024, the secretary of state’s website already lists four measures that are circulating for petition signatures. These include constitutional amendments for open primaries, abortion rights and […]
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 […]
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 […]