South Dakota voters arent particularly fond of ballot measures that seek to change the state constitution. Theyre even less enamored of attempts to mess with the way that their constitution can be changed. That history of failure doesnt keep legislators from trying.
The latest attempt is House Joint Resolution 5003 sponsored by Rep. John Hughes, a Sioux Falls Republican. Currently, constitutional amendments placed on the general election ballot are passed with 50% of the vote plus one. Hughes seeks to raise that benchmark to 60% of the vote.
The resolution has passed its first two hurdles, getting approval from the House State Affairs Committee on an 11-2 vote and passing the full House on a vote of 61-5.
According to Hughes, because South Dakota has a 50% plus one threshold, We are a target for being used as a laboratory for the emergence of new values and new ideas that many, many, many South Dakotans do not share.
Often during the testimony about HJR 5003, there were complaints about the millions of dollars dumped into South Dakota elections by out-of-state interests. It sounds naive to think that big-money interests would stay away from South Dakota elections if the threshold for passing a constitutional amendment were raised to 60% of the vote.
Many of South Dakotas current crop of legislators werent around in 2017 when their brethren in the Legislature made quick work of dismantling Initiated Measure 22, an anti-corruption bill endorsed with 51% of the vote. IM 22 may have been as unworkable as it was unconstitutional, but instead of letting the courts decide on its demise, lawmakers acted fast to do the job themselves.
Their eagerness to enact some parts of the initiated measure and ignore other parts led some people particularly those people who are interested in getting their ideas on the ballot to believe that the Legislature was circumventing the will of the people. The Legislatures fast action on an initiated measure made constitutional amendments, which cant be messed with by lawmakers once the voters approve, all the more compelling for people who want to raise issues that the Legislature wont tackle.
Resolutions like the one Hughes is backing dont have a good track record with voters. In 2018, the mysteriously named Amendment X sought to raise the approval threshold on constitutional amendments to 55%. It garnered only 46% of the vote. In 2022, Amendment C sought to raise the requirement to three-fifths of the vote if the amendment in question required an increase in taxes or fees or the appropriation of $10 million over five fiscal years. Voters didnt like that one either, with 67% of them voting against it.
Often during the discussion about HJR 5003, Hughes and the committee members asserted that voters are suffering from ballot fatigue. Their suffering will only get worse in 2026 when, besides ballot issues, voters will be faced with choices for governor, U.S. representative, state constitutional offices and the Legislature. The ballot fatigue argument leads to the realization that lawmakers are irony-impaired.
Prior to voting to put HJR 5003 on the ballot, members of the committee approved HJR 5001, a constitutional amendment that would ease South Dakotas escape from paying for expanded Medicaid. Theres also a joint resolution in the Senate seeking to put yet another constitutional amendment of the ballot. If lawmakers themselves werent so eager to change the constitution, South Dakotas ballots would be shorter.
In 2024, two of the constitutional amendments originated with lawmakers a work requirement for Medicaid and a neutering of the language used in the constitution to get ride of male pronouns. The language amendment failed. Voters approved of the Medicaid work requirement, but if Hughes effort was in effect, it would have failed since it got only 56% of the vote.
South Dakota finds itself at a veritable Bermuda Triangle of election factors that attract out-of-state influence. Its a state where its relatively easy to get on the ballot, media costs are cheap by national standards and campaign finance laws are hard to enact ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that political spending is a form of free speech.
In the end, theres not much that the Legislature can do to keep away out-of-state interests and their fat wallets. But lawmakers can help out voters by curbing their baser instinct to continually use their power to put even more constitutional amendments on the ballot.
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