Attorney General Marty Jackley tries really hard on public radio to sound like he’s not a fervent enemy of the First Amendment and citizen initiatives as he defends the state’s so-far unsuccessful attempt to defend its nine-month deadline for initiative petitions in court:
…[W]e do have a proud history in South Dakota of having the ability of the people to amend our constitution or put a statute into law, and we need to protect that.
The challenge with this is — and I feel for both sides of the issue — the one is, if there is a challenge to a ballot measure or a constitutional amendment, the courts and the lawyers need time to sort out that challenge. But the more time that you give them to do that is the less time that [Rick] Weiland and the petitioners have to pass around their petition.
So you need to find a balance. The legislature has worked on trying to find that balance. And right now, it’s set at nine months, but there’s a 2-1 decision that says nine months isn’t going to work.
I appreciate what he’s saying. I agree with the concept that this is important and that people get to speak, but we got to figure out the process on how to do it. And typically, we let the legislature decide that process.
And, you know, I was in the room when there were conversations going and it really is, We need to give them enough time to challenge it, but we need to give those petition circulators enough time to circulate it. And so we’ve got to strike a balance.
If nothing else, it would be nice to have the federal court, when it issues a decision such as this, to give us more direction [Attorney General Marty Jackley, in Lori Walsh, “Dispute over Signature Gathering Continues, Despite Victory for Citizens Who Say Legislature Violated First Amendment,” SDPB, 2026.08.17].
Marty, Marty, Marty—the federal court gave you exactly the direction you seek five years ago:
In order to remain proportional and account for the difficulties and speech restrictions that come with petition filing deadlines long before the election, the First Amendment requires a filing deadline no earlier than six months before the election. Thus, a ballot initiative petition filing deadline in May would be sufficient to pass Constitutional muster [emphasis mine; Judge Charles B. Kornmann, Memorandum Opinion and Order, SD Voice v. Noem, Case No. 19-CV-01017-CBK, United States District Court, District of South Dakota, Northern Division, 2021.08.30, p. 9].
Six months, Marty. Six months. The Legislature heeded that direction in 2023. Your fellow Republican Jon Hansen chose to ignore that direction in 2025 and gamble on another court fight with the patently unconstitutional nine-month deadline in 2025 House Bill 1184 that you’ve been unable to defend in District Court and on appeal.
Initiative advocate Rick Weiland, the man who took the nine-month deadline to court, reminds us that both courts have found the rest of Jackley’s gentle response about seeking balance to be bunk:
LORI WALSH: …[Jackley] talked about the timeframe to legally challenge the signature process.
Is there a balance? What is the right amount of time? Which is why he was saying that he is appealing to ask for the full panel at the 8th Circuit to take another crack at this.
RICK WEILAND: Well, both District Judge [Camela] Theeler and the appeals court, 8th Circuit, have both said that their reasons for wanting to do that are, first of all, false. The whole push behind getting that bill through the legislature was We don’t have time to litigate and something’s going to be on the ballot. That it shouldn’t get there if it didn’t get there using the right process. And, you know, in both courts decided, Oh, wait a minute. Even if you litigate up to the election, there’s always an appeals process, so you don’t resolve it before the election.
And so I just thought that was a ruse on their part. It’s pretty unreasonable to take three months off the table — especially February, March, and April.
November, December, and January are pretty tough times to collect signatures. So there’s no reason to do this other than to force a fumble in the process so that we don’t have the time to collect the signatures to qualify a measure.
That’s what’s driving this whole thing. And there’s the history that proves that out [Rick Weiland, in Walsh, 2026.08.17].
Quit while you’re behind, Marty. Take your two losses on the nine-month deadline and Judge Kornmann’s clear statement in 2021 back to your friends in the Legislature and tell them they can avoid any more constitutional trouble by setting the initiative petition deadline no earlier than six months before the election.
Jackley lies here: “The legislature has worked on trying to find that balance.”
Yeah, the legislature worked hard back in the 1980s to set the deadline out of the Legislative session, but since then the legislature has worked hard to unbalance the system in favor of opponents of initiatives.
Back in the 1980s the legislature enacted a change in how initiatives were brought to the ballot. That change, including a first-ever deadline had buy-in from all stakeholders—the Legislature,of course, but also the Secretary of State, the Governor, and most importantly sponsors of initiatives and lobbyists representing interest groups or companies who had opposed or were opposing initiatives. Everyone agreed that the system almost broke down in 1984 and was being stressed as people brought very controversial matters to the ballot through that decade. The deadline in that bill was suggested by Alice Kundert, the Secretary of State. It was set at a time outside the legislative session but before the June primary period. That was agreed by all as the best deadline. It was practical for the SOS. It was accepted by the Legislature as something that would unclutter the Legislative session. And sponsors of initiatives and lobbyist opponents of initiatives all agreed the deadline would work for them to protect First Amendment rights. That legislation passed with input and support from all sides of this issue.
Then we have this from Jackley: “And, you know, I was in the room when there were conversations going and it really is, We need to give them enough time to challenge it, but we need to give those petition circulators enough time to circulate it. And so we’ve got to strike a balance.”
He was in the room with whom? It would be nice if Jackley disclosed with whom this conversation was occurring. See, there was no buy-in with this change by any side of this issue but the opponents of initiatives. The bill was sponsored by a known opponent of the initiative with a history of voting for anti-initiative legislation. Did Jackley ask that people from all sides get into that room and see if, perhaps, the deadline should be extended, not shortened? Did he ask whether some of the unnecessary up-front bureaucracy that has been added constricts the time citizens have to circulate petitions could be repealed? Did he offer to seek repeal of the unnecessary Attorney General Explanation?
I have nothing to add to the excellent points that Cory and Don just made–Jackley is too smart not to know better… As Donald Trump likes to say to end some of his diatribes: Sad.
Initiatives are bad, they are very bad. Mr. Jackley knows this. His right to free speech and to be in the room will not be impinged. There is no law against being in the room.
$20 says Marty would just love to dispatch a condemned handcuffed inmate with a shotgun blast to the abdomen just like someone did for Rich Benda.
Grudz is correct. Jackley has every right to secret himself in a room with the billionaires and the crooks who want to put even more hurdles in the way of citizens using their Constitutional rights to petition for redress of grievances. And other people have the right to point that out, Grudz.
Jackley should disclose who the hell he was meeting with that gave him the impression that screwing the public out of their constitutional rights is a good idea. Are any of these people contributing to his campaign? Maybe he should stop hanging around with such people, or at least be a leader and get everyone, not just people who are going to contribute to his campaign, in a room to discuss whether constitutional rights should be abridged. He should withdraw his suit, pronto, and give back any campaign contributions from these folks.
yes it’s hard to get petitions signed in the winter. That’s because the only people here in the winter are the people who actually live here year ’round.
Can’t imagine why we would want to give them more power over what goes on here, as opposed to the folks who only show up when the overnight temperature is above 55 F.
and it’s so nice the state lets them all start voting on September 18th, so they can all cast ballots before they head south for 7 or 8 months. They might even get to vote and get out of here before the first frost.
It kinda goes without sayin’ but I will say it anyway: these same voters have no stake in a lot of mundane things like public education and snow removal. But by all means, make it easier for them to sign petitions and vote.
In the 1980s before they switched the deadline to mid-spring, we collected signatures at basketball games, the Stock Show, the Farm show, etc. A few people went bar hopping to collect signatures. Pens would freeze, and so would we, but you do what you have to do. We were youngish adults, so we didn’t mind freezing our asses off to show up at events like that. But, the older folks (like I am now) would beg off when it got too cold.
But the thing is there has been a lot of unnecessary up-front bureaucracy added to the initiative process since the early 2000s, with all sorts of deadlines for the bureaucrats to do their job of squeezing a lot of time out the ability to get out with your petition and collect signatures. All that stuff eats up the time you have for circulating your petitions. And that was the plan. Do the up front bureaucracy to squeeze the time and now we have the Legislature squeezing the ending deadline. And that’s how you end the First Amendment rights of citizens. The government squeezes your rights into an impossible time framework, and pretty soon you don’t have any rights. And assh*les like Jackley and his billionaire supporters get to pat themselves on the back as head to the bar and toast their success in stripping people of their rights.
By the way, we also collected signatures at the State Capitol Building during legislative sessions. I think that pissed them off more than anything.