A second initiated amendment is afoot!
A new website, SDVoterProtection.info, which appears to have been published just yesterday, says that Roxanne Weber of Pierre and Nicholas Rasmussen of Sioux Falls are sponsoring the “South Dakota Voter Initiative Protection Amendment” (VIP) to give voters “a simple, clean, and effective way to preserve voter initiative efforts in this state.” The website is branded as “The Only Truly Grassroots Effort meant to protect the South Dakota Initiative Process in 2018.”
Those two lines appear to critique the Voter Protection and Anti-Corruption Act (VPAC) announced yesterday by Represent South Dakota. VIP deals only with protecting initiative and referendum from Legislative tinkering, while VPAC tackles initiative and referendum, campaign finance lobbying, and a statewide ethics commission.
Exact amendment text is not available on the VIP website; however, Weber and Rasmussen signal they will offer a half-page amendment.
If both measures circulate, voters will need to review the details of both measures closely and ask these questions:
- Does each measure offer positive, practical changes?
- Does having both measures on the ballot create confusion that could harm each measure’s chance of passage?
- If the measures conflict, which would be better to have on the ballot, the narrower or the broader?
- If both get on the ballot, and if both pass, and if they conflicting provisions, which one takes precedence?
Stay tuned—I’m working on getting text of the amendments so we can dig in to see what may be coming to petitions on your favorite street corner!
Still waiting for an initiative or amendment on redistricting.
Common sense seems to say that the two groups need to put their egos aside and come up with one coordinated proposal.
My feeling is the simpler the better.
I agree with Buckobear, simpler would be better. Perhaps the broader initiative could be edited to eliminate redundancy.