How many times can I open a story with, “Mickelson attacks initiative?” Well, at least once more:
Speaker G. Mark Mickelson (R-13/Sioux Falls) continues his war on the people’s right to initiate laws and amendments with House Bill 1201, which would clutter the ballot by requiring the publication of the following information next to every initiated law or amendment above your Yes/No bubbles:
- Name and county of residence of the person(s) who sponsored the initiative petition;
- Total pay the sponsor(s) received to sponsor, campaign for, or lobby for the initiative;
- Total signatures collected personally by the sponsor.
Point #1 opens the door toward ad hominem: Mickelson knows that when South Dakotans get to vote on policy instead of people, they lean toward Democratic policies. He’d much rather tie people’s names to initiatives on the ballot to make the debate about people instead of policy.
Point #2 would certainly have thrilled me in 2016, when we could have put Lisa Furlong’s pay for fronting for the deceptive payday lenders and their fake 18% rate cap. But that information is not publicly available under any existing statute. Campaign finance law does not require the itemization of ballot question committee expenditures; Mickelson thus has no way to compel the publication of the information he demands.
Besides, even if Mickelson could compel that information, the Secretary has to print ballots in August; any information printed in August would miss any payments received by the sponsor in September, October, and November. Point #2 would reward crafty committees who would delay compensation for sponsors until after the ballots have been printed.
Point #3 demands extra paperwork of the Secretary of State for no clear gain in knowledge about the sponsor’s sincerity or dedication or the merits of the initiative. The Secretary would have to comb the petitions to find how many sheets have the sponsor’s name as circulator, then tally the signatures on each page. But what would that number tell us? Suppose one sponsor personally collects 2,000 signatures out of 15,000 total on her initiative petition, while another sponsor collects 100 signatures out of 25,000 total on his petition. Did the first sponsor really work twenty times harder or care twenty times more about her petition? Did the second sponsor actually work harder recruiting more volunteer circulators in more towns around the state, reviewing petitions for valid signatures, and handling the other administrative necessities of an effective campaign? And does how hard any sponsor worked on any aspect of the petition drive tell us anything about the merits of the initiated measure itself?
Once again, Speaker Mickelson is just jerking our chains, creating more useless paperwork and co-opting state resources to make political arguments against initiatives that Mickelson and other interested parties should make on their own dime. Vote NO on HB 1201.
He continues to attack from the wrong direction, kind of like Custer. We know what happened to Custer. His own ego and stupidity got himself massacred. G. Custer Marky needs to look at the corruption in Pierre, and clean that up. It would be nice if he spent one tenth the time he’s wasting on stupid ideas to actual improve the Legislature. You would automatically have a reduction in the use of the initiative and referendum, if that’s what he’s concerned about, if the Legislature wasn’t so corrupt. I suspect, however, G. Marky is most concerned about continuing his corrupt behavior.
G. Marky needs to show us the way. Since he didn’t put that information on his initiatives when he had the chance, he should simply withdraw them.
If G. Marky’s dad were still around, he’d call him into the study, pull down his pants and whip him with a belt. It’s possible that Tim Goodwin is, as I have maintained, the stupidest member of the legislature, but there has never been a stupider House Speaker.
Perhaps we should require petition circulators to demonstrate their commitment to their cause with a law requiring them to use only a passenger train, horse-and-buggy or their own two feet to travel around collecting signatures. Such a method would be familiar to the South Dakotans who approved citizen initiative in the first place.
Helpful to note that Rep. Mickelson will have at least one measure, for which he is the sponsor, appear on the 2018 ballot.
Plus, if the Secretary of State was concerned about a 2018 effective date for HB1005 (which tells you exactly what to print on the ballot), I wonder what her office’s stance will be with this measure, which asks for a much greater amount of detailed information to be collected accurately.
If G. Marky wants to get serious, he could propose something real. Repeal much of the bureaucracy that’s been added on since 2000, then add some helpful provisions to improve the process:
1) training for circulators through a 1-2 hour web-based seminar provided by the SOS office.
2) require a badge for circulators.
3) badges would indicate two categories: citizen volunteer circulator and paid circulator.
4) those trained over the SOS website, and who paid a small fee, would have an official badge, similar to lobbyists’ badges.
This would be useful not just for circulators of ballot measures, but for candidates and their petition circulators. There could also be a code of conduct for circulators, and extend legal protections for circulators and signers from harassment that are similar to those for voters.
Circulators are the first defense against fraud. Leaving petitions out for people to sign, as G. Marky did, is an invitation to fraud. He should have known better. Having training and ethical expectations is the the best way to make the process better and more trusted.