Evidently eager for more beatings in court, the state yesterday filed its notice of appeal to the Eighth Circuit over its loss this summer over 2025 House Bill 1184, Speaker Jon Hansen’s (R-25/Dell Rapids) ill-fated February deadline for initiative petitions. Hansen wanted to take three months of election-year petition circulation time to give him and his fellow enemies of democracy more time to investigate and invalidate petition signatures. Judge Camela C. Theeler ruled this month that Hansen’s move violates South Dakotans’ First Amendment rights and enjoined enforcement of HB 1184, thus (we assume) defaulting the deadline for submitting initiative petitions back to the previous deadline of the first Tuesday in May, six months before the general election.
The state’s case was pretty weak; it seems as likely that they will lose their appeal before the Eighth Circuit just like they did the last time they tried to defend a pre-May petition deadline.
Maybe the appeal is political: maybe Attorney General Marty Jackley figures another defeat at the federal appeals level will only heap disgrace on the legislator who keeps landing the state in court for bruising defeats, Speaker Jon Hansen, whose legal education ought to make him better at picking battles. Maybe Jackley and his GOP establishment enjoy piling up judicial black marks against boat-rocking Hansen.
Of course, the last time the state appealed a petition deadline loss, the Eighth Circuit took a year and a half to get around to ruling. The gubernatorial primary in which Hansen is challenging front-runner Dusty Johnson and Trumpist rightwinger Toby Doeden is only eight months away. Plus, the only people who will notice the state’s and Jon Hansen’s defeat in federal court are the handful of election nerds who revel in the minutiae of initiative and referendum law.
So really, I can only imagine the state is being stubborn, trying to put off the final costly verdict until well after next year’s primary and general elections to stave off even the faintest blowback they’ll get from the keenest observers on their flimsy respect for the First Amendment.