Pam Cole left her job as executive director of the South Dakota Democratic Party last month. But she didn’t leave campaigning for progress in South Dakota. Dakotans for Health announced yesterday that Cole has signed on to direct their grassroots organizing effort to put Medicaid expansion on the 2022 ballot:
Dakotans for Health, an emerging group of public officials, caregivers, health care advocates, and concerned citizens supporting the expansion of Medicaid announced today that former South Dakota state senator and Democratic Party Executive Director Pam Cole will join their citizen-led effort.
Grassroots organizers, in collaboration with Dakotans For Health, are hopeful they will obtain the nearly 65,000 signatures needed to place a Medicaid expansion measure on the 2022 ballot as an amendment to the state’s constitution. Cole plans to enlist the help of volunteers statewide in the organization’s efforts.
“This critical grassroots effort is the most immediate and direct way of helping people in our state. We all know someone that falls between the cracks and doesn’t have adequate health insurance or healthcare coverage,” stated Cole.
…“A healthy population is a productive population.” stated Cole. “Our interest is to help break down barriers to people’s success. So many of our fellow citizens struggle mentally, physically, or suffer from addictions and need assistance to tackle these issues. This is not a partisan issue, but a solution to a problem that has badly affected many South Dakotans” [Dakotans for Health, press release, 2021.03.02].
Dakotans for Health has been circulating initiative petitions since December. The hospital lobby quickly drafted and submitted copycat initiatives when Dakotans for Health got to work on its petitions. The hospital lobby received the required Attorney General’s statements for its measures on February 1, but according to the Secretary of State’s ballot question webpage, the hospital lobby has not yet submitted a final petition for the Secretary’s approval.
Hmmm… the hospital lobby made a big press splash December announcing it had poached the support of South Dakota Farmers Union away from the Dakotans for Health initiatives to their own largely similar measures. Already months behind Dakotans for Health in collecting signatures, they can afford to lose no time in dispatching circulators to collect signatures in pandemic-safe fashion by November 8. The hospital lobby could have used February to start collecting signatures in house, from its own captive signer pool of doctors and nurses and other conveniently gathered healthcare employees. Why wait? Has the hospital lobby seen that Dakotans for Health is picking up momentum with its regular web events and now the hiring of an experienced and well-connected grassroots organizer and quietly decided that Dakotans for Health have the situation under control and that they don’t need to throw their competing and redundant measures into the mix? Or is SDAHO chief Tim Rave too busy lobbying his old Republican pals in Pierre to pay attention to launching a citizen initiative drive? (The latter I could understand: Republicans like Rave have a lot more experience in hampering the initiative process than in making it work.)
Pam Cole and Dakotans for Health need not worry about a petition that doesn’t exist yet. They have their own real live petition, on the streets, taking signatures, making the people’s voice heard. Do the people’s work, Pam, rally those circulators, and get those signatures!
You do realize that Republicans won’t give up their bake sales for health initiative. It involves a more community based response. The die hard trumpies among them just want to have people die, it’s in their maskless freedom loving nature.
The Hospital Association should join with the grassroots citizens, and the leaders of the grassroots effort should be talking with the Hospital Association to get them on board. Give everyone a seat at the table.
As we SHOULD have learned from our past – even if all the hard work and voting of the people of the state want and approve this – the legislature and the governor can and WILL either reject it outright – or gut it via legislation to “correct the error” of the peoples’ voice.
I hate to have to keep harping on it, but passing this simple, one sentence constitutional amendment MUST be the priority above all else. The rest of it is pointless whack-(one party)mole “entertainment”, a circus, and nothing more.
Consent of the Governed Act:
“Any initiated act or Constitutional Amendment passed by a direct vote of the people, shall not be nullified or altered or amended in any way by any means other to a direct vote of the people.”
Richard, I never supported cutting the Legislature out totally, but, given their absolute hostility to We, the People, it might be the best thing. With respect to initiated Constitutional Amendments, any amendment to the amendment, or any repeal would require a vote by the people, so that would not need to be a part of your proposal. Regarding initiated legislation, there would be a conflict with another part of the Constitution which provides that legislators can bring any measure. So, you could modify the current Constitutional language:
“This section shall not be construed so as to deprive the Legislature or any member thereof of the right to propose any measure.”
The simplest way to do this is to add the following at the end of that sentence:
“However, the Legislature or any member thereof may not propose, consider or pass any measure to repeal or amend any part of any measure passed by a vote of the electors.”
If you wanted to be really mean you could make this amendment retroactive so as to put back in place the nuclear waste vote initiative and other good measures the Legislature has screwed with or repealed:
“This measure shall be deemed retroactive to January 1, 1986.”
If “We, the people” didn’t keep helping to hoodwinkthe ignorant masses among us, there would be no need to amend measures initiated by big, dark, out-of-state money.
Donald, indeed, all the horses appear to want to get to the same place; they should all get together and pull the same wagon in the same direction… and we have a wagon right in front of us, all loaded up and on the way.
Richard, would you accept a time limit on that amendment?
Cory, as in for 20 years? Sure. I also like Donald’s proposed modifications. But I am entirely opposed to making this into a vehicle for ANY purpose other to restricting the legislatures ability to meddle with the peoples’ will as expressed at the polls.
As a demonstration to the legislature of how ridiculous their meddling is becoming, I might consider proposing a constitutional amendment requiring a 95% vote in both houses in favor of enacting ANY legislation for ANY purpose and requiring legislative acts to be distributed in their entirety to every registered voter of record before they may be voted on or become law, AND expanding the governor’s veto power over passed legislation to be unlimited, and impossible to over-ride by less to 100% of the legislature. I’m sure it wouldn’t meet the new 60% threshold, but it at least sends them a message.
grudz – the “ignorant masses among us” ARE we the people. This is the part of political reality you “conservatives” are unwilling to recognize as resident among YOUR segment of the populace as equally as it is among any other.
Grudz, Yeah, it would all be better if, you know, only certain people would just mind their own business. We don’t need anyone messing up what “You, the Elite” dish up to eat for yourself. You used to drop a few crumbs onto the floor for “We, your Subjects,” but now you’ve decided you want it all to yourselves. No need to vote, is there? We’re just ” Dumb Masses” to “You, the Elite.”
Yeah, I have some problems with democracy, too. I mean any system that gets us Donald Trump as President and Kristi Noem as Governor is flawed. It is self-correcting, though, if you allow democracy to work. But one party, yours, doesn’t want that, do they? As long as the elite can cheat their way to democracy, they’re all for it. When the masses prove themselves to be less corrupt than the elite, that’s when the elite decide the masses have had enough to say, and you take away their rights.
Mr. Pay, I’m not sure how far you have fallen, but it is odd that you of all fellows would think grudznick is rubbing elbows with the elite. I am an ordinary fellow, gravy and taters in the morning and beers at night with some pretzels. Nice beers and fancy mustard into which the pretzels are dipped, of course. I mean, what sort of barbarian do you think grudznick is?
As one of the masses, Grudz, let me inform you: we don’t have the money to eat your greasy, empty calorie breakfasts every day. We find more nutritious foods, and don’t settle for the crumbs that drop off your table. We also vote in every election, and we love to vote on issues which you elitists want to prevent at all costs. Without the initiative, South Dakota would be awash in New Jersey garbage and nuclear waste. And we would have been buried much more quickly in the favorite food of the elitists: pig poop. Pip poop, Grudz. You think that’s gravy? Better think again.