If you read the blog regularly, you’ll understand if I am keenly attentive to any measure that affects the ability of citizens to use petitions to put matters to a vote, even in small ways.
Representative David Johnson (R-33/Rapid City) has his eyes on the skies this Session. He is prime-sponsoring four bills dealing with aviation. In addition to his bill cracking down on snoopy drones, Johnson has a longer bill, House Bill 1066, revising and repealing various aviation laws. The 30 sections appear largely technical and innocuous, like moving the $5,000,000 liability cap for municipal airports from SDCL Title 50 (Aviation) to Title 9 (Municipal Government).
But tucked away in Section 8 is this little nugget for election nerds:
Section 8. That § 50-7-7 be AMENDED:
50-7-7. Statement of intention to establish airport–Protest by voters–Submission to vote.
If the question of establishing a county airport has not previously been approved by a majority vote of the voters at an election at which the question was submitted, then any county desiring to establish and construct an airport shall state in the next published report of the county’s proceedings the county’s intention to establish and construct the airport stating the maximum amount which might be required to do so. If within sixty days from the publication a protest signed by fifteen percent of the voters of the county voting for Governor at the last general election for Governor be filed with the county commissioners, then no action may be taken until the question has been submitted to a vote of the people and sixty percent of those voting shall vote in favor thereof. The question to be so submitted shall be, “Shall the county expend an amount not to exceed $________ to establish and construct an airport?” [2020 HB 1066, Section 8, as introduced 2020.01.17]
Section 8 moves one prepositional phrase in the statute allowing county voters to refer establishing a county airport to a public vote. (If we are to believe Wikipedia, there are four county airports in South Dakota: Harding, Clark, Custer, and Lincoln.) Referrers have to get signatures from a number of county voters equal 15% of those who showed up to vote for Governor the last time around. HB 1066 changes the wording setting that threshold from “fifteen percent of the voters of the county voting for Governor at the last general election” to “fifteen percent of the voters of the county voting at the last general election for Governor.”
Two words move—do they change the meaning?
I like words, and I’ve made a spreadsheet, so I’m going to argue, yes!
In the current language, “for Governor” clearly modifies “voting,” meaning we look at the last general election, count how many people voted for governor, multiply by 15%, (round to the next highest integer), and go get that many signatures to refer a county airport to a vote.
In Johnson’s HB 1066 Section 8, “for Governor” now may be read to modify “the last general election.” A county auditor could reasonably read the new word order as this formula: look up the last election for Governor, count how many people cast ballots, take 15% (and round up). The number of voters we use to calculate the signature threshold no longer appears tied to strictly to the gubernatorial vote; it may be read as all ballots cast at that mid-term election, regardless of whether they marked the Governor’s line.
From the perspective of legislative intent, if that change in wording doesn’t change the meaning of the statute, why amend in the first place? Words have meaning, and so do amendments, right?
HB 1066 thus wold likely increase the number of signatures anti-airporters would have to collect to put a county airport to vote… by a tiny bit. Total turnout is almost always greater than the vote in one any one line of the ballot—somebody somewhere for some reason will skip voting for governor but mark other races and issues. In 2018, the hot Noem-Sutton-Evans race kept that dropoff from overall turnout low, with just 0.68% of the 341,048 participating voters leaving Governor blank. In the sleepier 2014 Daugaard-Wismer-Myers contest, that dropoff was steeper, with 1.73% of 282,291 voters leaving Governor blank. Those percentages translate into an average increase in the number of signatures one would need in each county for an airport protest referendum petition by 6 (under the 2018’s low gubernatorial undervote) to 12 (under 2014’s relatively high gubernatorial undervote).
Like I said, I have a spreadsheet. Here’s a breakdown of how much HB 1066 Section 8 would increase signature requirements for airport referrals in each county, based on 2018 results, alongside what would have happened using 2014 results:
Our sparsest counties would each need just one more person to get cranky about a new county airport to have a vote. If Minnehaha County wanted to put in an airport down in the southwest corner by the bend in Highway 19 so Turner County CAFO owners could make their pigs fly (aerial hog delivery—maybe that could be Governor Noem’s Next Big Thing), Minnehaha airport protestors would need 55 more votes, up from 10,528 to a new HB 1066 Section 8 threshold of 10,583.
Representative David Johnson hasn’t stood out in the Republican war on voter rights (although he did vote for last year’s unconstitutional HB 1094, the petition circulator registry and badging, so we need to keep an eye on him). If this one debatable section amidst 30 aviation law updates is part of the Republican effort to nickel-and-dime ballot measures to death, this minor increase in signatures for one very specific (and rare!) kind of county referendum is one of the nickeliest, or maybe penniest, of those efforts.
But if I were on House Transportation, I’d ask why HB 1066 Section 8 changes that wording, and if I didn’t get a good reason that assures me we’re not unnecessarily raising that petition signature count, I’d move to strike Section 8 and renumber accordingly.
Drone hog waste disposal?
The word on the streets is that young Mr. Johnson, a tree fellow here from Rapid, is in cahoots with the Council on Legislatures to rewrite many law bills in a different format and the Council has much ineptitude causing many unforeseen problems. After all, why would Mr. Johnson be interested in messing with airport elections unless he’s got his eyes on doing something down there at the Custer County Airport?
Assuming they aren’t intending to make any change in the signature requirements, shouldn’t you just defer to what is the easiest to understand? So, in cases where there are serial prepositional phrases, I think journalistic style and form would following this rule: who, what, when, where.
So I would go with the current language:
…voting FOR Governor AT the last general election.
Consider how to construct a lede in a hard news story:
“Two adults and five children died late this afternoon when a homemade bomb exploded in downtown Aberdeen.”
Who: Two adults and five children
What: Died
When: late this afternoon
Where: downtown Aberdeen.
Sure, you can construct the lede differently if you want to stress the bombing, rather than the people. You might do that in a followup story, but the WHO and WHAT are most important in the first story.
I agree, Donald—the current language is clearer. Changing the language opens up the possibility for dispute over the meaning.