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Sioux Falls Voters Decide Ballot Measures on Term Limits, LGBT Discrimination

Not only do Sioux Falls voters get to pick city councilors and school board members tomorrow, but they also get to vote on some municipal ballot measures. What fun!

Amendments A and D make slight changes to local term limits, allowing councilors and mayors who come on board more than halfway through a vacating officials term to run for two full consecutive terms after that partial term service. Amendments A & D apply the same thinking as the 22nd Amendment does to the Presidency. I don’t mind these two changes, but on principle I would prefer to eliminate term limits altogether. In a democracy, we already have term limits for every office—they’re called elections. Term limits unfairly restrict the liberty of voters to choose whomever they want to represent them in government.

Amendment F updates city language on favoritism and discrimination. It changes the word “handicap” to “disability” to “use more modern terminology.” More substantially, Amendment F adds “sexual orientation” to the classes Sioux Falls protects from discrimination. If Sioux Falls voters pass that decent change, perhaps it will provoke retrogressive conservatives seeking to replace quitting Senator David Omdahl and his ilk to campaign on discriminatory legislation à la North Carolina to trump municipal ordinances and authorize discrimination against homosexuals under the guise of religious liberty. Sioux Falls voters, go ahead and pass Amendment F, and let’s dare Legislative candidates to stand up for what’s right!

11 Comments

  1. Porter Lansing 2016-04-11 13:06

    A question rarely asked is: What’s so bad about “correct” speech? I was raised to be “correct” in what I said, to use language that doesn’t wound or demean unless specifically intended to. Soft words soothe, harsh ones enflame. Sioux Falls should send needlessly pre-judgmental terms of speech to that place where many ethnic slurs and racial labels have gone before: the garbage.

  2. Bill Dithmer 2016-04-11 13:46

    Porter Lansing, you talk pretty high and mighty for someone with the morals of pig. Do you remember saying this?

    ” That pole-barn you call a business is a disgrace to your dead brother Carson and so are you. Someday, I’ll drop by and piss in the indoor sewer that someone’s conning your half-blind ass into believing is a swimming pool … you know, there on Highway Cc outside of Gilman. PS … What’s in the dome? Weed garden?”

    Of course we know now how little there is to fear from a pussy like yourself. Really you thought you could come down and beat on me? Well get after it candy ass.

    Cory you can delete all you want but those post never go away.

    The Blindman

  3. Don Coyote 2016-04-11 14:03

    Aristotle wrote of term limits in “The Politics” stating that good government involved all citizens “ruling and being ruled in turn”. The great Roman Republic Consul Cicero was not only in favor of “rotation” in office but also in sortition (a drawing of lots from a qualified pool of candidates). “So the man who obeys should have the hope that one day he will command and he who commands should reflect that in a short time he will have to obey”.

    Since I get to vote tomorrow, I’m voting against both of the changes to the term limits (A & D) as well as the politically correct and superfluous Amendment F and Amendment E (too much of a violation of the separation of powers principle between the council and mayor)

  4. Jenny 2016-04-11 14:49

    We’re not surprised with the way you’re voting Don. ‘Pubs have to live up to their anti-LGBT notoriety.

  5. Robin Friday 2016-04-11 14:53

    Question on SF’s Amendment F. Would the measure prohibit discrimination against transgender as well as homosexual orientation? Does “sexual orientation” include transgender? Just wondering what the intent is.

  6. Kris 2016-04-11 17:26

    dude liv n let liv! love not hate! gotta get these holey rollers out!

  7. Anne Beal 2016-04-13 00:54

    I have issues with municipal ordinances, period. Curfews for minors, for example, so if the kid is out late outside of city limits he can’t go home until morning?
    And backyard chickens, let’s say you live outside city limits, you have chickens, and then the city annexes your property and says you can’t have them.
    Sidewalks: if you are inside city limits you have to maintain them. Your neighbors next door, just outside the limits, don’t.
    It was a leash law for cats that was the last straw for me. Sold the house and bought a farm. Couldn’t take it any more. City life totally sucks because of municipal ordinances.

  8. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-04-13 19:10

    Robin, my apologies for not getting back to you sooner. Amendment F simply adds the phrase “sexual orientation” to the city’s non-discrimination rules. As Don indicates, that would tell me that LGB makes the protected class, but T does not.

    By the way, Amendment F passed 76% to 24%. The two measures tempering term limits also passed, though not by as great a margin. Sioux Falls voters disagree with Don on both issues, but they more passionately disagree with cranky conservatives on LGB (T?) equality than on term limits. Legislative candidates, take note!

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