If you read the blog regularly, you’ll understand if I am keenly attentive to any measure that affects the ability of citizens to use petitions…
Tag: referendum
“It’s a bad day for the rule of law in South Dakota,” whimpers Representative Jon Hansen, as if, as Trumpists like to claim, a Constitutional exercise of checks and balances against overreach by one branch of government is really some extralegal coup.
The U.S. District Court ruling Friday overturning Hansen’s 2019 House Bill 1094 did make for a bad day, not for the rule of law, but for the unchecked rule of lawmakers like Hansen who crave absolute power and hold in contempt the voters and their First Amendment rights.
[I proceed now into heavy quoting of a legal ruling, which itself is rife with quotes within quotes and complicated legal citations. I omit the judge’s internal citations and simply put any text I take from the ruling in quote marks (for short passages) or blockquotes (for longer passages). To see whether the words come from Judge Kornmann or from cases he cited, please see his original document.]
Judge Charles Kornmann makes clear from the first page of his ruling in SD Voice v. Noem II that he acts with the utmost respect for the law and the proper place of the judiciary in evaluating it:
Governor Kristi Noem’s hempophobia appears to be contagious among legislators. New Noem Senate appointee Helene Duhamel (R-32/Rapid City) runs right down Noem’s irrational line against…
I return to the federal courthouse here in Aberdeen tomorrow to argue once again for your freedom of speech. At 10:30 a.m. CST, Judge Charles…
In good news, Worthington voters finally overcame some strong and self-destructive anti-immigrant sentiment to approve spending $38.7 million to build the classroom space necessary to…
America isn’t just a nation; it is an argument. The American Argument starts with the axiom, “All men are created equal.” The argument proceeds through…
It looks like I’ll see the Attorney General’s people in court again this year. In the “Report of Rule 26(f) Meeting” filed last week in…
After the Huron rain, between snack breaks (I haven’t had a corn dog yet, but Kevin let me eat some of his fries), secret whispers…
Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Scyller Borglum is offering something her primary opponent, incumbent Senator Marion Michael Rounds, has failed to produce in his five…
Noel Hamiel really outdoes himself in his latest guest column in the Rapid City Journal. The former legislator and newspaperman offers not one but two…