By a narrow 7–5 vote, House State Affairs yesterday approved an amended House Bill 1095, making Representative Rebecca Reimer’s (R-26BChamberlain) proposal to reduce candidates’ time to circulate nominating petitions.
In not-bad news, the committee amended HB 1095 to change the petition deadline from Reimer’s original second proposal of the second Tuesday in March to the third Tuesday in March. That’s still earlier than the current deadline of the last Tuesday in March, meaning candidates will lose a week or two of circulating time, depending on the calendar. But at least we’re moving HB 1095 in the right direction.
In surprising news, legislators—or at least Rep. Reimer and seven of the twelve House State Affairs members present yesterday—are still giving up time they need and deserve after Session to collect signatures to get on the ballot. Evidently they are buying the argument that local election officials need an extra week to process petitions and prepare ballots:
A variety of county and municipal officials testified in favor, including Hughes County finance officer Thomas Oliva, Lincoln County Auditor Sheri Lund, a South Dakota Municipal League lobbyist, and municipal officials from Spearfish and Philip who said they were speaking on their own behalf.
…Republican Rep. Jessica Bahmuller of Alexandria called for the committee to recommend the bill’s passage. She spoke from personal experience. “As a finance officer, elections are stressful,” Bahmuller said. “I think it will make it easier for our finance officers, our auditors and our school business officers.”
…Democratic Rep. Erin Healy of Sioux Falls said no one is happy about being forced to vote on changing the deadline. Calling it “a compromise we must make,” she said, “I will be supporting this not because I want to but because I feel we have to” [Bob Mercer, “Candidates Could Lose Week to Gather Signatures,” KELO-TV, 2026.02.02].
Nuts to that—county auditors have been able to process petitions just fine until now in the last week of March and first week of April. We don’t have an influx of candidates or an increase in signatures to process. City and school officials still validate their own petitions. Sure, all of these election officials have to hustle to get ballots ready, but democracy and broader participation of people running for office is worth a little hustle.
In bad and good news, Rep. Reimer requested and got an amendment striking her December 1, 2026, enactment date and replacing it with an emergency clause. This is bad news because HB 1095 would now affect candidates in this year’s election cycle, candidates who have already started their campaigns under the assumption that the current deadline of the last Tuesday in March. If the House and Senate don’t take fast action, HB 1095 might not reach the Governor until March, and the Governor could quite easily take his time getting around to signing it. Candidates could be circulating under current law in March, expecting that they would have until March 31 to submit their signed petitions, and then Governor Larry Rhoden could sign HB 1095 on March 17, which would be the new deadline, causing two weeks of circulation time to which candidates are legally entitled to suddenly disappear. Changing election rules during an election year is confusing and uncool.
But the emergency clause is good news because it will require a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate to pass. If the 7–5 split in committee yesterday reflects the broader opinion of reducing candidates’ time to collect signatures and get on the ballot, HB 1095 won’t survive.
In shocking news, the vocal defender of petitioning at yesterday’s hearing was committee member and Speaker of the House Jon Hansen (R-25/Dell Rapids), who for once acknowledged a practical truth about petition circulation:
Speaking against it was Republican Rep. Jon Hansen of Dell Rapids, who is the House speaker. He said the third-Tuesday deadline would be unfair to current candidates. “A lot of circulation does happen in that final week, frankly,” he said. “This one in particular I just can’t get behind” [Mercer, 2026.02.02].
Boy, that sure doesn’t sound like the Jon Hansen who tried to take three months of signature-gathering away from ballot question petitioners and force their last week to take place in the depths of winter. This is the same Jon Hansen who told a federal judge last summer that earlier petition deadlines are good because they give the petitioners more time to appeal rejections of their petitions in court.
But I’ll take my friends of petitions and ballot access wherever and whenever I can get ’em. Hansen got four fellow right-wingers to vote against HB 1095—he had five votes plus his, enough to tank the bill, but Rep. Brandei Schaefbauer (R-3/Aberdeen) switched her vote from nay to yea, allowing the bill to go to the full House.