The House saved South Dakota from another costly courtroom defeat yesterday, voting 28–38 to kill House Bill 1087, Rep. Travis Ismay’s (R-28B/Vale) patently unconstitutional proposal to outlaw paying people to circulate ballot question petitions.
Opponents issued the same warning I did the moment I read Ismay’s doomed proposal: pass a ban on paid petition circulators (and not even all circulators, just people promoting ballot questions, demonstrating clear viewpoint discrimination!), and the state will get sued and lose:
Rep. Mark Roby, R-Watertown, said South Dakota would be sued over HB 1087 and lose. He pointed to Supreme Court cases that took up the legality of payments for petition circulation and ruled it to be protected First Amendment speech.
Rep. Erik Muckey, D-Sioux Falls, said passing a bill bound to cost taxpayers an untold amount of money for a losing cause is bad policy.
“That’s just fiscally irresponsible use of our state taxpayer dollars,” Muckey said [John Hult, “Bill to Ban Paid Petitioning Fails in South Dakota House of Representatives,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.01.27].
The yeas were mostly Constitution-ignoring yahoos and petition-haters like Rep. Al Novstrup (R-3/Aberdeen) and Speaker Jon Hansen (R-25/Dell Rapids). Speaker Hansen at least should know better, since he is a lawyer and has testified in two federal trials that have seen two of his anti-initiative laws shot down for violating the First Amendment.
HB 1087 is the first and so far only bill attacking the right to initiative and referendum to bubble up in this year’s Session. But let’s keep our eyes open for attacks on direct democracy: lawmakers have until Wednesday, February 4, to throw bills into the hopper; committees get until February 5. Other bills pertaining to petitions, like HB 1095 and SB 33, could easily be amended or hoghoused to attack initiative and referendum.