The first bill affecting initiative and referendum is in the hopper, and surprisingly, it is not an attack on direct democracy. Instead, Republican (!) Senator Mike Rohl (R-1/Aberdeen) offers the seemingly friendly (!) Senate Bill 5 to require that every ballot question include a disclosure on the ballot that states whether it came from citizens or the Legislature.
Think of SB 5 as country-of-origin labeling for laws. You ought to know whether your beef comes from America or Argentina; you ought to know whether your laws come from citizen effort or the Legislative sausage grinder.
This measure might not make much difference in how voters would mark their ballots. Labeling 2024’s abortion rights initiative as a citizen-led effort probably wouldn’t have flipped any votes. But labeling Legislative proposals as such on the ballot would help check the bogus claim Republicans make that citizens put too many issues on the ballot, which Republicans then morph into silly claims of voter fatigue, which Republicans use to justify their ongoing effort to take away citizens’ right to initiate and refer laws.
Republican (!) Senator Rohl has some reasonable co-sponsors on SB 5, including rookie Senator Amber Hulse (R-30/Rapid City), who did good work last year in promoting the helpful 2025 SB 91 to reform petition requirements for initiatives, and rookie Senator Erik Muckey (D-15/Sioux Falls), who as a Democrat we should be able to count on to defend direct democracy from the predations of the Legislative majority.
Fine, but I think we should do the same for bills and Constitutional amendments supposedly proposed by legislators.
Does anyone think that legislators are sitting there all by their lonesome drafting and proposing bills? Hell, no ,they don’t.
Most bills come almost ready made from bill mills or special interests or lobbyists or, in rare instances, citizens. Then the legislator takes those bills to the LRC, where they might change a few words. Then the so-called, but misnamed “prime sponsor” gets the lobbyist to find some co-sponsors. Citizens ought to know where bills actually come from. Legislators should be required to disclose all this on the bill.
For example, “House Bill XXXX came from a discussion with YYYYY YYYYYY, lobbyist for ZZZZZZZZ, who developed a proposed bill draft and present to several legiislators.”
There are a lot of out-of-state bill mills now that develop model legislation. Those bill mill bills should be properly labeled.
Mr. Pay is mostly righter than right, although some in the legislatures come with a quarter-witted idea and ask the Council of Research for the Legislatures to put the meat in the bones for them. This is where the heinousness come in, or many in the Councils have hidden agendas they attach to the back of the idea.
The worst law bills are modeled from the national council on legislatures. In the hands of the ignorant those models become dangerous toys.
A legislature guy goes into a bar in Pierre that has a snooker table. He talks to the bartender. Later that same bartender talks to the owner about an idea he had. The fired up citizen\owner commits to a signature team, you get the idea. I like that bar by the way.
“Whose idea was it?” Hmmm… a bill requiring ALEC labels on legislation would be fun to debate! Could we at least get thepress and committee members to ask sponsors that question?