Part of Republican lawyer Brian Murphy’s campaign to unseat Senator Jim Mehlhaff in District 24 is promising to protect citizens’ right to initiative and referendum. Murphy, who describes himself as a “constitutional conservative”, appears to recognize (a) that ballot measures are an essential part of constitutional checks and balances and (b) that his fellow South Dakota Republicans have been waging a years-long war on that vital check:
…citizens should be able to check their government. And we’ve seen slow Legislative creep in the past few years of the Legislature trying to make it harder for citizens to engage in the power to check the Legislature, and that to me is worrisome. I think that it’s worrisome for the citizens of South Dakota to know that the Legislature is trying to make it harder for citizens in this state to exercise a check of power against the Legislature [Brian Murphy, transcribed from audio in Zach Nelson, “Brian Murphy of Pierre Seeking District 24 Senate Seat,” KCCR Radio, 2025.12.11].
Gee, it sounds like Murphy has read a certain South Dakota Law Review paper from June 2025 in which former Democratic Senator Reynold Nesiba, aspiring lawyer Teagan McNary, and this liberal blogger documented that Legislative creep.
Oh, gee, Murphy has. When he launched his campaign on December 7, one of his annunciatory FB posts linked to that paper:
A very compelling law review Article from the USD Knudson School of law, Law Review. This highlights the attempts by the legislature to limit the Constitutional rights of South Dakota Citizens in the past few years. The findings are alarming to say the least. I will fight against any attempt by the legislature to limit the rights of our Citizens to enact laws as allowed by our state constitution [Brian Murphy District 24 Senate, FB campaign post, 2025.12.07].
Murphy notes that Senator Mehlhaff has supported that Legislative attack on initiative and referendum, including in his support for last year’s House Bill 1169, an unworkable signature-quota bill so egregious that Governor Larry Rhoden had to veto it to spare the state another losing lawsuit:
“I disagree with his record of voting to support bills like HB 1169 (2025),” Murphy said, noting he opposed similar legislation in both 2023 and 2025. “The bill was not constitutionally supported and, if signed into law, wouldn’t have withstood judicial review.” Murphy said he views these bills as part of a broader effort to limit citizen participation. “The disturbing trend from the legislature on these bills is to make it harder for citizen participation in legislative actions,” he said. “It would make it harder to engage the people’s veto against legislation that is available to us through initiated measures, and for the people to check the legislative branch of our government if they overreach” [Liz Quinn, “District 24 Candidate Profile: Brian Murphy,” Pierre Capital Journal, 2026.01.20].
Mehlhaff also supported 2025 HB 1184, the earlier deadline for initiative petitions, which Governor Rhoden let pass and which federal court has overturned.
It’s good to see that at least one Republican recognizes the nexus between fealty to the state constitution and respect for initiative and referendum. Let’s hope Murphy can get that message across to other Republicans and restore that respect in the South Dakota Legislature.
Young Mr. Mehlhaff, or perhaps his pa who carried much water for the GOP elephant, sure got your goat. Are you aware this Mr. Murphy fellow you favor is a mugwump, insaner than most, Mr. H?
Republican is simply another word for Earth hater no matter which orange god they choose.
About the only thing I disagree with Murphy’s comments you print above is that “legislative creep” against citizen participation in government has been going on “…for the past few years.” This war on the initiative and referendum could be called the Forty Year War on Citizen Ballot Measures.
This war started during the fight aagainst Chem-Nuclear’s nuclear waste dump, when the Legislature began to cave to the company’s plans, and citizens fought back with an initiative that gave citizens the final decisions on the matter. It was shortly after we won that fight that some in the Legislature began filing bills or joint resolutions about taking away that constitutional right. After a few sessions where such bills went down they tried a new tactic, filing bills to mess with the process to make it harder for citizens to use the system. At first these bills went nowhere, but gradually over years they figured out a way to pass some legislation to gum up the initiative process by front-loading it with unnecessary and unconstitutional bureaucracy. And almost every year since then they think up a new way to mess things up for citizens. Most of those bills originated from out-of-state bill mills and special interests who wanted to sideline citizen participation in government to make it easier for them to steamroll bad projects or bad ideas through state or local government.
The initiative and referendum is meant for citizens whether they come from the right, left or center. Most of the initiatives I was involved in during the 1980s and 1990s had leadership and support from all political ideologies. We purposely organized on a non-partisan basis.
When I lived in Pierre, we organized a local initiative to stop the huge hog operation near Pierre and the Oahe Reservoir. The operation was going to be built on land owned by a Democratic legislator, and was supported by Governor Mickelson, but a member of Mickelson’s cabinet would tell me that there was a lot of secret support for our initiative within Mickelson’s cabinet. We had left, right and center involved in that issue, and it won.
Back in those days, Mr. Pay, you and grudznick both know the Democrats were all about the pork.
Grudz hes a goo goo and under Trump there’s going to more of them.
Grudz, what I recall from that era was that small farmers had been hit hard by the farm crisis and small scale pork production was one way that farmers could save their farms or get back into farming and that new farmers could get into the business without having to have a lot of capital. These small pig farms also didn’t produce massive amounts of manure that couldn’t be adequately disposed on their own acreage. You probably remember Jerry Lammers as a legislator, but he slso headed the South Dakota Pork Producers, which at that time was controlled by the small hog farmers.. He and I ended up on the same side of the contested case hearings over the huge hog farm in Hughes County. I think we hadn’t agreed on much of anything else, but we came together on that issue.
This issue helped to elect Senator Jacquie Kelly and the defeat of Senator Homer Harding.