Laws governing the initiative process in South Dakota

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Contents

In South Dakota, citizens can use the initiative process to:

How the process begins

First, sponsors must submit any initiated measure or constitutional amendment in text to the director of the Legislative Research Council who will within 15 days provide written comments on the measure to the sponsors and the South Dakota Secretary of State. The sponsors of the initiative need not make any changes based on what the Legislative Research Council recommends. (See ballot title.)

The full text of any petition to be circulated to put a question on the general election ballot complete with names and addresses of the petition sponsors must be filed with the Secretary of State prior to circulation for signatures. No signatures obtained before that filing date will be counted.

All sections of any completed ballot question petition shall be filed simultaneously together with a sworn affidavit prescribed by the State Board of Elections signed by two-thirds of the sponsors.

Details and regulations

Deadlines

Initiative language can be submitted at any time. The maximum allowable time for circulation is one year. For 2010 initiated constitutional amendments, the deadline for submitting signatures is November 2, 2009. For 2010 initiated statutes, the deadline for submitting signatures is April 6, 2010.

See also: Petition drive deadlines, 2010.

Distribution requirement

South Dakota does not have a geographic distribution requirement.

Residency requirements

Main article: Residency requirements for petition circulators

Individuals circulating petitions in South Dakota must be residents of South Dakota.

Signature requirements

Main article: South Dakota signature requirements

Signatures are tied to the number of voters who cast a vote for the office of governor in the state's most recent gubernatorial election. In 2006, this was 335,534 voters.[1]. For statutes, the required number of signatures is 5% of the total vote for governor in the last gubernatorial election, or 16,776 for 2008. For amendments, the required number of signatures is 10%, or 33,553.

Verification process

Each signature is verified until reaching the minimum number of valid signatures needed to qualify an issue for the ballot, at which time no further signatures are scrutinized.

Single-subject rule

South Dakota does not have a single-subject rule.

Legislative tampering

Main article: Legislative tampering

The legislature can both repeal and amend statute initiatives.

New restrictions on circulators

A new law was enacted in 2007 pertaining to paid circulators. According to this law, circulators for statewide initiatives cannot be employed based on a per-signature payment method. Instead the law is as follows:

  1. Paying an hourly wage or salary is acceptable.
  2. Establishing either express or implied minimum signature requirements for the petition circulator is allowed.
  3. Terminating the employment of circulators that fail to meet productivity requirements is allowed.
  4. Paying bonuses based on longevity and productivity is allowed. [2]

Proposed reforms, 2009

Members of the South Dakota State Legislature want to change laws governing the initiative process in South Dakota to require additional donor disclosure. One new law, SB180, would apply that when organizations give more than $10,000 to a ballot measure committee, someone from the organization would have to file a signed statement with election officials swearing that the money wasn't raised for the purpose of influencing the ballot question, or file a full report as a ballot committee. A second bill defines "treasury funds" as "funds of an organization that were not raised or collected from any other source for the purpose of influencing a ballot question."[3]

External links

References

  1. ↑ South Dakota gubernatorial election results, 2006, on Wikipedia
  2. ↑ Pay Per Signatures Blog
  3. ↑ Aberdeen News, "Campaign spending laws need fixing", February 11, 2009
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