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How South Dakota progressives are using the ballot box to make big changes in a red state [1]

['Daily Kos Staff']

Date: 2023-08-16  

A trio of proposed constitutional amendments could bring historic changes to South Dakota in 2024, including one that would end the state's near-total ban on abortion. Another amendment would introduce the top-two primary to this dark red state, while a third would prevent the legislature from amending or repealing voter-approved ballot measures for seven years after passage.

The abortion proposal would partially invalidate a 2005 bill that made it a felony to seek or perform the procedure for any reason other than to save the life of the mother, a law that automatically went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. This amendment would specifically bar the state from imposing regulations on abortion access during the first trimester of pregnancy.

It also establishes that during the second trimester, "the State may regulate the pregnant woman's abortion decision and its effectuation only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman." For the final trimester, the state would be permitted to retain the status quo. We haven't seen any polling asking voters specifically about this proposal, but backers may face headwinds: Civiqs finds that 55% of the state's voters believe that abortion should be illegal all or most of the time, while 41% say the opposite.

History, however, also offers them some hope. Proponents argue that South Dakotans deserve a say in the state's abortion policies, which is exactly what happened in 2006 after the legislature passed a different law to immediately outlaw abortion in almost all situations. That bill, which the New York Times called "the nation's most sweeping state abortion ban," was an attempt to get the nation's highest court to reconsider Roe, but it never went into effect. Pro-choice advocates instead collected enough signatures to allow voters to approve or reject the law; they chose the latter option by a 56-44 margin. A similar measure also went down in defeat two years later by a comparable spread.

However, not all abortion rights groups are behind the new effort. The Mitchell Republic reported in May that the amendment did "not yet have the institutional backing of Planned Parenthood," while a recent Times article said the local Planned Parenthood affiliate "doesn't support the measure, believing it does not go far enough." Organizers have until May of next year to turn in just over 35,000 signatures, which represents 10% of the total number of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election, to qualify for the general election ballot. Any amendment that makes it before voters would need to win a simple majority to pass.

An unrelated measure, meanwhile, would change the way elections are held in the state by replacing partisan primaries with the top-two system that's in place in California and Washington. All candidates would run on one ballot and the two contenders with the most votes, regardless of party, would advance to the general election. The proposal would impact future races for governor, Congress, state legislature, and county-level posts.

The campaign to promote that amendment, South Dakota Open Primaries, argues that the top-two system would help elect more moderate options in a place where Republicans have won every statewide race since 2010. Tom Heinz, who serves on the campaign's board of directors, also told KELO in April that the current setup, where Republicans only allow people registered with their party to vote in their primaries, hurts independents like himself. (Democrats let unaffiliated voters cast a ballot in their nomination contests.) The head of the state GOP, meanwhile, declared to South Dakota Searchlight, "We are 110% opposed to the idea."

Finally, a third amendment would prevent the legislature from altering or repealing ballot measures that do not amend the constitution and are instead statutory in nature until they've been in force for at least seven years.

Legislators currently have the power to override statutory ballot measures as soon as voters approve them—and in fact they did just that in 2017, when they repealed an expansive voter-approved ethics reform law. And unlike in 2006, voters didn't get to have a say on what happened next because that repeal bill also declared ​​a "state of emergency," which allowed the rollback to take effect immediately and made it immune to a veto referendum.

South Dakota's amendment and ballot measure process gives progressives a chance to pass favorable policies in a state where Republicans have held a lock on the governorship since the 1978 elections―the longest-running gubernatorial winning streak for either party―and enjoy massive supermajorities in both the state House and Senate.

Notably, progressives passed an amendment to expand eligibility to Medicaid 56-44. That win came months after voters overwhelmingly rejected a GOP-crafted amendment that would have required many future constitutional amendments earn at least 60% of the vote. A 2018 amendment to make it harder to pass ballot measures related to taxes and spending also went down in defeat, though as we saw this month in Ohio, red state Republicans remain adamant about convincing voters to give up their own power.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/16/2187628/-How-South-Dakota-progressives-could-use-the-ballot-box-to-make-big-changes-in-a-red-state

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