The big-money Republicans trying to stop Amendment W are stepping all over their crony Senator Jim Bolin’s messaging for Amendment X.
Amendment W is Initiated Measure 22 Version 2.0, the Anti-Corruption and Voter Protection Act brought in response to the Legislature’s repeal of the similar measure South Dakota voters passed in 2016. It writes tougher campaign finance limits, lobbying restrictions, a statewide ethics commission, and restrictions on the Legislature’s ability to mess with ballot measures into the state constitution. Amendment X makes it harder to amend the state constitution by raising the popular vote threshold needed to pass them from simple majority to 55%.
Senator Bolin tells us we need X because right now we can amend out constitution “willy-nilly.” But in another dreary press release to which the lazy Republican spin blog adds no analysis, the anti-W folks say that we don’t dare vote for W because amending it later would be too hard:
“Pass it and you’re stuck with it, unless you can pass another statewide vote to change Amendment W again,” said David Owen, Chairman for No on W Committee. “Voters should be aware of the following facts”:
The Legislature cannot change the Constitution.
The Governor cannot change or veto the constitutional amendments.
Even the Supreme Court cannot change the Constitution.
There are two ways to change South Dakota’s Constitution:
- The Legislature can vote to put an amendment on the ballot, OR
- Citizen groups can circulate petitions, and if they gather enough valid signatures (equal to 10 percent of the number of votes cast for Governor in the most recent election), the amendment is placed on the ballot.
Either way, it takes a statewide vote to make the change.
For this reason, it will take a statewide vote to fix Amendment W when any of its eight pages prove to have unintended consequences [David Owen’s Amendment W Is Wrong ballot question committee, press release, Dakota War College, 2018.09.28].
David Owen makes it sound like getting a majority of South Dakotans to vote for a change to the state constitution is a herculean effort. David Owen is right. But all of his verbage here proves that X is wrong. He doesn’t actually establish that anything is wrong with W—notice that he can only appeal to “unintended consequences,” which is code for, “Can’t think of anything right now, but Republicans are easily scared by imaginary fears, so let’s go with that!”
Owen contends that W would conflict with and perhaps annul X:
Amendment X is also on the ballot this November, and if passed will put into the Constitution a requirement that future constitutional amendments can only be approved with 55 percent or more of the votes in a statewide election.
Amendment W on the other hand says amendments (or laws or rules) changing the initiative process can pass with a majority vote in a statewide election. Because Amendment W declares that it has control over all other provisions of the constitution, regardless of when they were approved – future amendments pertaining to the initiative process will not need 55 percent of the vote regardless of how many people vote for Amendment X [Owen, 2-18.09.28].
Owen concludes from that conflict that the logical course is to vote No on W. But one could just as logically conclude that we could avoid the W/X conflict by voting No on X. Given that Owen’s anti-W argument refutes the logic behind X, it is more logical to reject X.
Funny, I always thought Willy Nilly was Jim Bolin’s real English name. The gent is always the trickster just like his bill. X does not mark the spot.
I understand the unintended consequences argument, but so should Owen. Amendment W is the unintended consequence of the elite and the Republicans taking an arrogant position to gut what the voters had earlier decided on an earlier effort to stop the corruption of the elite. Here’s how Owen, G. Marky, and the rest of the elite should have behaved: (1) allow the previous initiative to go into effect, (2) document any problems/issues that need to be corrected, (3) speak to sponsors about whether those were intended or unintended consequences, (4) propose a solution to any unintended consequence jointly with sponsors, if possible. Because they acted arrogantly toward the voters and were threatening to do so again on any other efforts, the amendment process was the only way. If Owen, the elite and corrupt legislators have behaved differently, Amendment W would not be needed. Because they behaved the way they did, they proved it is needed.
It’s really not that hard to work around unintended consequences, Mr. Owen, but you have to stop being arrogant and intent on protecting corruption. I researched the solid waste initiative in 1990. That initiative dealt with solid waste landfills. A few years later the DENR came to me with a concern that the wording could affect coal power plant ash pits. Now, I would have loved to have given them a hard time on this, but I said that the research I did applied only to solid waste landfills, not coal ash pits, so I would have no objection to clarifying that. And the bill was put in. Just a little respect and communication is all it takes.
Yes, it may take a little more time to correct any unintended consequence with a Constitutional Amendment, but we’ve seen that the Legislature can find an excuse to make these votes happen very quickly if they want. In 1985, they put the Dakota Compact on the ballot for a vote in a matter of three months.
The existence of Amendment X just only makes me mad. Every single legislator associated with it, at all, needs to be voted out of office yesterday.
There are zero reasons to support this crap. People should be completely offended by it. Non-voters should VOTE because of it, and heads need to spin.
There is NOTHING that symbolizes what is so deeply wrong with South Dakota state government more than Amendment X being on our 2018 ballot.
X and the arrogant anti W politicians are intent on running the state government in ways that only benefit themselves! They love corruption and how certain privileged people profit from it! Unless they somehow end up dead!
Adam and CLCJM have nicely summarized my thinking too. I’d like to quote just one line by Adam.
“There are zero reasons to support this crap.” 😁
I think folks should make a poster of that quoted line for campaign purposes.
Amendment X
THERE ARE ZERO REASONS TO SUPPORT THIS CRAP!
I think it would be a highly effective lawn sign, bumper sticker, window decal, etc. Doncha think? 😆😆😆😆😆