Democratic candidate for U.S. House Nikki Gronli says her Republican opponent’s enthusiasm for shutting down your First Amendment rights should direct your vote to her. Gronli refers to Attorney General Marty Jackley’s dogged appeal of the initiative-petition-deadline case that he has lost before two federal courts:
South Dakota is the birthplace of the ballot initiative process. It was pivotal in women gaining the right to vote. We have a long history of respecting citizen democracy.
This isn’t about whether Marty Jackley agrees with a particular ballot question. It’s about whether South Dakotans have a fair opportunity to gather signatures and put an issue before their fellow voters. This is yet another attempt at silencing South Dakotans.
The court found that moving the deadline from May to February burdens citizens exercising their First Amendment rights. Instead of accepting that decision, Marty Jackley is asking the full appeals court to reconsider it.
Our democracy works best when voters, not politicians, decide what belongs on the ballot. South Dakota needs leaders who trust its citizens enough to let them have their say [Nikki Gronli, campaign press release, 2026.08.14].
I’m glad to hear Gronli living up to the Democratic brand and defending direct democracy. We ought to be hearing every Democrat on the ballot talking about how she or he will defend and expand South Dakotans’ right to put laws to a direct vote of the people. We ought to hear gubernatorial candidate Dan Ahlers offer a package of reforms to strip away all the unnecessary bureaucracy and paperwork that Republicans have piled onto the initiative and referendum process to price grassroots groups out of petition drives. We ought to hear Secretary of State candidate Terrence Davis talk about how he’ll make sure citizens get immediate updates and reliable guidance on ballot measures (alas, Davis doesn’t mention this core duty in his Ballotpedia survey responses or anywhere that I can find on his campaign website).
And it would be awesome to have a Democratic candidate for Attorney General talk about ending the Republican war on initiative and referendum and exerting the power of the office of South Dakota’s top lawyer to protect citizens’ First Amendment rights, not curtail them… but gosh darn it, Democrats don’t have a candidate for that powerful office.
CO’s AG is currently suing Google and Meta for purposely addicting children to their online platforms. But standing on the neck of voter rights is important, too I suppose.
Republicans have as much at stake as Democrats on this issue. In every ballot issue I was involved with in the 1980s and 1990s Republicans were leaders in groups affiliated with the initiative drives. The initial opponents of surface gold mining in the Hills were Republicans, and they were the principle funders of the mining initiative drives. With the various ballot issues on nuclear waste and waste dumping and corporate hog farming, Republicans were always strongly involved. In fact Republicans were just as active in that petition drive as Democrats. When we brought a local initiative to stop the large corporate hog farm in Hughes County, it was a Republican rancher from Blunt who convinced this Democrat to get involved in the issue.In the recent referral on the carbon pipelines bill Republicans were as or more involved in the issue as Democrats.
Yes, Republican leadership and the lobbyists who own them have often been afraid of the people, and have sought to overly complicate the initiative process in order to discourage its use. But grassroots Republicans have a good understanding that the initiative and referendum serve as a check on arrogant politicians of whatever party who are bought off by special interests.
It is worth noting that the initiative and referendum were not “pivotal in women gaining the right to vote”, as Gronli asserts. Those are two separate issues. Every suffrage amendment that made the ballot was put there by a vote of the legislature with the amendment originating from the legislature. Constitutional amendment by initiative was not created until 1972.