Last summer, the state Chamber of Commerce called for allowing ongoing multi-issue ballot question committees. Senator Terri Haverly (R-35/Rapid City) has responded to that call with Senate Bill 128.
Right now, if you want to form a group to support or oppose a ballot measure (initiated law, initiated constitutional amendment, or referred law), you have to organize a ballot question committee. If your group wants to collect money and campaign on two ballot measures, your group has to organize two separate committees. That “separateness” may be a complete legal fiction, as it was in 2015 when I created two committees—”SD Voice” to refer and kill David Novstrup’s youth minimum wage cut and “South Dakotans for Fair Elections” to refer and kill the Legislature’s Incumbent Protection Plan—which in practice were identical—i.e., both consisted of me and the friends I recruited to circulate both petitions. The same absurd paperwork arose among the groups interested in the 2016 payday lending cap: they had to organize “separate” committees to campaign for the legitimate grassroots 36% rate cap and to campaign against the competing fake 18% rate cap that one rich out-of-state payday lender threw on the ballot.
SB 128 puts an end to that foolishness and allows a person like me or an entity like the Chamber of Commerce to form one committee that raises money and campaigns on multiple ballot questions. SB 128 also ends the universal termination requirement, imposed in 2016, that envisions ballot question committees forming solely to address one ballot question in one election cycle. SB 128 thus would allow an organization interested in initiative and referendum, like the Chamber, or TakeItBack.org, or the Chiesman Center for Democracy, to form a ballot question committee and use that same organization in multiple election cycles to campaign for or against various ballot questions.
The only problem with SB 128 and multi-issue committees is keeping track of who donates what to which ballot question. Consider the 2017 petition season. New Approach South Dakota formed separate committees for each of its three proposed initiatives: assisted suicide, recreational marijuana, and medical cannabis. Speaker G. Mark Mickelson (R-13/Sioux Falls) contributed to the medical cannabis drive. His contribution is thus reported on the New Approach medical cannabis committee report. Under SB 128, New Approach would have been able to form just one committee, which would have reported contributions received for all three petition drives in one year-end filing. Anyone reading that unified committee filing would not know whether Mickelson supported medical cannabis, recreational marijuana, assisted suicide, or all three issues.
To preserve transparency and to ensure that donors are not painted as supporters of issues they do not favor, Senator Haverly and Senate State Affairs (which has yet to schedule SB 128 for a hearing) should add a provision requiring a multi-question committee to identify which question or questions attracted their donors’ money. Otherwise, SB 128 is reasonable legislation that makes it a little easier for citizens and entities to participate in ballot question campaigns.
Hi Cory, great reporting! I think the Sec of State already has a solution to the problem of not being about to track money for ongoing committees over multiple cycles. I recently had my House of Rep Committee switched to Senate. I just called them and them opened some fields. I think it may be a matter of adding a field for which RL, IM, CA, et al the committee is trying to affect. Then yearly reporting as usual.
When I was involved in the Surface Mining Initiative Fund, the group decided to take on the fight against large-scale solid waste landfills at the same time we had our second initiative on the surface mining issue. We collected money and put it into one fund. We received considerable financial support for our mining initiatives, much of it from Republican sources. The Republican sources tended to be medical professionals or business folks with developments or second homes in the area of the mines. They were not particularly interested in the solid waste issue, as it didn’t impact their particular special interests. Early on we honored our contributors check marks as to which campaign they wanted us to put their money to use. There came a point where we had some polling data that showed we were likely to lose on the mining issue, and it was closer than we thought on the dump issue. We had a dilemma at that point about how to divvy out the money for the last 2-3 week advertising push. We dumped nearly all of our advertising into the dump issue, thus diverting money that our supporters had given us for the mining initiative to use for the dump issue. It was not a very ethical thing to do, but it was legal at the time, and we took advantage of it, I’m ashamed to say.
I feel changing the law back risks this sort of unethical maneuvering. What you are going to end up with is your money being collected for this or that purpose, then diverted to something you might not favor. It’s like Daugaard and Mickelson’s use of their slush funds being directed to an initiative. That should be outlawed, too. I like the law the way it is now. It’s more in keeping with the original constitutional intent of the initiative. They didn’t want political machines or politicians, in-state or out-of-state, taking over the people’s lawmaking.
Donald, would the multi-issue committee correct itself? Suppose the Chamber forms a multi-question committee to tackle ballot issues this year under SB 128. Suppose the Chamber tackles four issues out of six on the ballot. If there is a donor who’s really keen about making sure his/her money goes only to fight Amendment W and not to meddle in other issues, couldn’t that donor just say, “Sorry, Chamber, I’m only giving my money to the other committee that is focusing on W”? Or could SB 128 open the door to the possibility that multi-question committees would be the only players in the field?
The answer to the last question is “yes.” It wouldn’t just be a possibility. That is what would happen. Everything the chamber has done in the last 20 years on initiative and referendum has been to bring about political machine politics to the initiative and referendum. It probably was not their original intent. They wanted to kill the initiative and referendum by bureaucratizing it to the point that regular folk couldn’t use it. Well, people will adapt, and that has meant ever more sophisticated political organizations are needed. That requires money. Now the Chamber has figured out that even they can’t do it without a huge slush fund. It’s funny because this is what all their lobbying from the 2000s on has brought them.
The solution is easy. One ballot committee, one ballot measure, reduce the bureaucracy, no AG in the process, shorter timelines. Let the people decide, not the political machines.
Donald, can we counter the Chamber machine with pro-initiative organizations like TakeItBack.org… and with more specific reporting requirements for those multi-question ongoing committees?