I was already to lament the passing of Tuesday’s deadline for initiative petitions with no filings from any of the circulating sponsors… but I keep forgetting that, technically, there is no deadline.
Rick Weiland didn’t forget. As the sponsor of two circulating constitutional amendments to protect the ballot question process and approved ballot measures from Legislative sabotage, my friend Rick sued the state last year over its 2025 law (House Bill 1184) moving the initiative petition deadline back three months from the first Tuesday in (sunny, verdant) May to the first Tuesday in (deathly cold and grey) February. After hearing arguments in June and August, federal Judge Camela C. Theeler ruled in September that the February deadline, nine months before the election, violated petitioners’ constitutional rights just like the state’s previous November deadline, twelve months before the election.
The state has appealed, so Weiland’s case is pending at the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. But Judge Theeler’s injunction against enforcing the February deadline remains in force.
I keep forgetting that, when a judge suspends a law, the statute it amended, repealed, or replaced does not rush in to fill the vacuum. I mentioned this vacuum at the bottom of my analysis of Theeler’s decision in September, but I maintained the practical position that initiative petitioners should submit their petitions by May 5. But Weiland tells The Dakota Scout that since the Legislature failed to act amidst Judge Theeler’s injunction, the Secretary of State cannot enforce any submission deadline:
“We’re still collecting,” [Weiland] told The Dakota Scout.
…Weiland said the Legislature failed to set a new deadline date during the past legislative session.
“Theoretically, there’s no date because the Legislature failed to act,” he said [Jonathan Ellis, “Deadline for Citizen-Led Ballot Measures Expires, But One Group Continuing to Collect Signatures,” The Dakota Scout, 2026.05.06].
Funny: anti-initiative Speaker Jon Hansen created HB 1184 because he wanted an earlier deadline to squelch petition activity; his bad idea now has left South Dakota with no petition deadline!
O.K., I want every registered voter in South Dakota to drop everything, rush over to Rick’s house—or call or e-mail him to find out where his team is collecting signatures—and sign his petitions now, this week, not only because his two amendments—one requiring any change to the initiative and referendum process be approved by the voters, the other requiring that Legislative changes to approved ballot measures receive a three-fourths vote in the Legislature and a majority vote from the statewide electorate—are good amendments that South Dakota should have the chance to vote on this November, but also because I would love to see how this “no deadline!” theory works out in court.
Theoretically there may be no deadline, but practically, I suggest that Weiland has until August to collect and submit the 35,017 signatures needed on each petition to put these measures to a vote, since the Secretary of State has to print and ship ballots by September 16… not that Secretary Monae Johnson has sweated such legal deadlines so far this year. I wouldn’t mind if Weiland kept circulating through the summer and submitted a full petition right before Labor Day, but we can get the legal test of the deadline vacuum right now. Call Rick, sign the petitions, and let’s have fun at the polls and in court!
I’ve got a bunch of songs for Hansen to sing at his next performance. There all by that New Jersey boy who name I forget.
Yeah, I agree that there is no legal deadline thanks to the incompetence of the Legislature, but I would reach out to the SOS and negotiate a reasonable date that would present the least amount of difficulty for her office. It’s just respectful to do that, as well as it gives you some understanding if she is going to have to be sued to make her do her job. I would just revert to the old deadline, which seemed to work just fine.
Back before the late 1980s there was no set deadline. There was an unnecessary requirement that that the Legislature had a resposibility to place the matter on the ballot using a Joint Resolution. People generally thought they should get the petitions into the SOS a week or so before the Legialture adjourned, because it was unknown whether the Legislature would be required to have a special session just for a Joint Resolution. I remember a discussion about that when we had our nuclear waste initiative, and we just decided to get the signatures in before sine die.
I believe in deadlines that are reasonable. They must respect the various other deadlines and workloads at the SOS office, but also be respectful of the citizens’ rights, as well.
Seems like the fellows and gal whose opinions and decisions on matters like this actually matter disagree with the Messrs. H and Pay. It seems Mr. Weiland, he who has botched more measures, initiated, than most, has gone fully insane.
Probably from the honey biscuits at Josiah’s.
Stop messing up measures, Mr. Weiland.
My dear grudznick, I must disagree on the value of the essential Mr. Weiland: by taking the route of initiative — rather than the legislative corruptive process you often rail against — I would think we would agree that this a a far more pure way for We The People to form a more perfect Union without the mindlessness of partisanship postering.
Mr. Weiland plays the necessary role of political clown. It is only a shame when he has, like a blind squirrel, found a fine nut like the proposed Amendment labeled as “G”, he screws the pooch from the side.
Mr. Weiland is on the wrong side of issues 90% of the time, and he fails 90% of the time, so that means at least we, the real South Dakotans, only suffer his outcomes 1% of the time.
That makes Mr. Weiland irrelevant. His acorns will only harm when they land right in your salad and that is unlikely.
Like Donald, I agree there has to be some reasonable deadline. I’m less inclined to set a deadline based on respect for this Secretary of State, who, like Jason Gant, has shown herself incapable of executing certain basic tasks of election management.
But to protect citizens’ rights under Article 3 Section 1 while accommodating the practical business of reviewing petitions, I propose the Tuesday immediately after Labor Day as the practical deadline.
The deadline obviously can’t be Election Day or the day before, or any time after voting has begun. The SOS needs a few days before early voting begins to print and send ballots. Ballot prep time is negligible: the SOS knows what ballot measures are circulating and can type in and format that potential ballot question titles, AG explanations, and any fiscal notes well before petitions are submitted; after the submission deadline, the SOS just a few clicks of the mouse to delete from the master ballot document the measures that don’t qualify and apply the correct numbers. Petition validation can be fast, a few days at most. Technology is available that would allow the SOS to scan, count, and number every signature line and generate the random sample in minutes. Validating the 700-some signatures in the random sample is a hard day’s work by eye and hand, but if we moved to electronic petitioning, we could count and validate every signature instantly.
Even with manual validation, I contend we can take petitions until the Tuesday after Labor Day, two months before the election. We amend Jon Hansen’s stupid law about withdrawing signatures to set that deadline as the same as petition submission: once a petition is in, it’s locked, not withdrawals allowed. Signers would already have up to 22 months from the earliest petition circulation day to change their minds. We acknowledge the position taken by the state in its lawsuit against 2020 Amendment A and laid out clearly by Weiland in his current lawsuit against Hansen’s February deadline that legal action against a petition may extend well beyond Election Day and that we thus do not need to build in any time between the petition deadline and voting or the printing of ballots to allow litigation against submitted measures.
Tuesday after Labor Day, two months before the election, two weeks before early voting starts: that’s the practical deadline.
I think your proposed after Labor Day deadline is not reasonable given that election planning shouldn’t be done in haste. I’d rather give the SOS a reasonable time cushion. I recall we went along with May to allow the SOS to get through primary season without a lot of extra work. Granted, this was when they had to go through each signature one at a time until they got to the magic number. So, I could see moving the deadline to the end of July.