2024 SD ballot question status check: Abortion, open primaries, food sales tax and more

The countdown is on.

The 2024 general election is about a year out, and South Dakota’s ballot could be a long one: There are 15 potential ballot questions listed on the Secretary of State’s Office website.

One question is already set to be on the ballot. Petitions for about half of the other questions are circulating, while the rest have not yet cleared all the hurdles to begin circulation.

Petitioners have six months to meet the filing deadline of May 7. Initiated measures and referred law petitions need 17,508 signatures from South Dakota registered voters to get on the ballot, while an initiated constitutional amendment needs 35,017 signatures.

The general election is Nov. 5, 2024.

Pronoun measure set for ballot

Update references to officeholders in the state constitution: The Legislature placed this measure on the ballot, and it’s the only measure guaranteed to appear on the 2024 ballot so far. Introduced by Sen. Erin Tobin, R-Winner, and accompanying another bill that made similar changes to state laws, the constitutional amendment would remove presumed “he/his” pronouns from the state constitution.

Gov. Kristi Noem issued a press release on the topic last winter.

“Every little girl in South Dakota should realize that she can grow up to do whatever she wants to do — to be whoever she wants to be,” Noem said. “We are fixing our laws and South Dakota Constitution so that they reflect the fact that women and men can both attain offices like governor.”

Petitions in circulation

Establishing open primaries: The constitutional amendment would establish top-two primaries for governor, Congress, state legislative and county races. All candidates for an office would run in one primary, regardless of their party affiliation.

Currently, South Dakota has separate party primaries. Independent and no-party-affiliation voters (nearly 150,000 South Dakotans) can vote in Democratic primaries but not Republican primaries.

If the open primaries measure passes, South Dakota would join California and Washington as states with a “top two” open primary format on a common ballot. Louisiana has a common ballot, and a candidate who reaches 50% wins the office; if nobody reaches 50%, the top two vote-getters advance to another round of voting. Nebraska legislators run without a party designation. Another 16 states allow voters to participate in either Democratic or Republican primaries without having to register with those parties, and seven others allow unaffiliated voters to vote in party primaries, but don’t allow Democrats to vote in Republican primaries, or vice versa.

In a recent campaign update, South Dakota Open Primaries announced that the organization has gathered about 25,000 signatures so far.

Enshrining abortion rights in South Dakota: Abortion is currently banned in South Dakota, except when necessary “to preserve the life of the pregnant female.”

The proposed constitutional amendment would prevent the state from regulating “the abortion decision and its effectuation” during the first trimester (1 to 13 weeks). During the second trimester (14 to 26 weeks), the state could regulate abortion “only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.” During the third trimester (when the fetus is viable), abortion could be regulated or prohibited except when it’s necessary preserve “the life or health” of the mother.

The Attorney General’s Office recently issued a warning to sponsor group Dakotans for Health after receiving reports that petition circulators were violating state laws by allowing signatures without circulators present, allowing some signers to sign more than once, and providing allegedly misleading information to the public.

Rick Weiland, with Dakotans for Health, said petition circulators have been harassed by anti-abortion protesters and that the charges are “just another attempt to discredit our effort.”

The organization has reached the required signatures to submit the petition to the Secretary of State’s Office, Weiland said, but the group will continue to gather signatures until it hits its goal of 60,000. The group is about 75% of the way to its goal, and Weiland expects to file ahead of the deadline and potentially by the end of the year.

Eliminating food sales tax: While there are two petitions approved for circulation to eliminate the food sales tax in South Dakota — one by constitutional amendment and the second by initiated law — only the initiated law petition is being actively circulated, Weiland said. Dakotans for Health is spearheading the initiative in addition to its abortion ballot question.

Gov. Kristi Noem supported the idea to repeal the state food sales tax during her re-election campaign in 2022 and backed an unsuccessful bill during the last legislative session to eliminate the tax. But Noem pulled her support for the potential ballot question earlier this year, citing concerns from the Attorney General’s Office in his ballot explanation about jeopardizing state revenues from a tobacco litigation settlement and a streamlined sales agreement with other states.

Dakotans for Health has collected close to the required 17,508 signatures for the ballot initiative, Weiland said, but he plans to collect at least 25,000 signatures. He said he’s “extremely confident” the group will reach its goal by the end of the year.

Revising legislative term limits: The constitutional amendment would limit state legislator terms to a maximum of eight years in each of the House of Representatives and Senate, capped at 16 years total. South Dakota’s current legislative term limits allow legislators to serve indefinitely so long as they switch chambers every four terms or skip a term.

Sen. Brent Hoffman, R-Sioux Falls, introduced a bill during the last legislative session to establish such term limits and bring it to the 2024 ballot. He failed to gather enough support in the Legislature, so he must gather the 35,017 signatures to place the initiative on the ballot.

“We believe term limits are consistent with the constitution and voter intent,” Hoffman said in an emailed statement.

Hoffman said his group of volunteers will “eventually get all the signatures” required.

Prohibiting legislative intervention: The constitutional amendment would prohibit the Legislature from amending or repealing voter-approved ballot measures for seven years after their passage. Collin Duprel, former South Dakota congressional Libertarian candidate and co-chair of the Voice of the People organization, said the legislation is about “respecting the will of the people.”

Based on the state constitution, the Legislature may repeal an initiated statute with a majority vote. In order to change or repeal a constitutional amendment, lawmakers must place an amendment on the ballot via the ordinary referral process, which consists of a majority vote in each chamber.

The Legislature repealed and later reinstated some parts of Initiated Measure 22 in 2017, months after 51% of South Dakota voters passed the massive ethics, corruption and campaign-finance measure.

“The Legislature can take an initiated measure and decide it’s not in the best interest of themselves and get rid of it,” Duprel said. “That’s what it’s all about. It’s not as sexy to the media as the marijuana or abortion question, but it’s still pretty dang important. It’s the constitutional amendment that’s out there to protect any other initiated measure passed by the people of this state.”

The constitutional amendment would not prevent legislators or South Dakota citizens from referring a question back to the people to amend or repeal the initial ballot question, and it wouldn’t prevent the court system from intervening if the passed ballot initiative is illegal.

The seven year timeline “allows the spirit of the law to percolate through the state and still gives an opportunity for voters to overturn any of it,” Duprel said.

Voice of the People started collecting signatures this fall and is closing in on 10,000 of its required 35,017 signatures, Duprel said.

Repealing South Dakota’s medical marijuana program: Travis Ismay, the chairman of Concerned Citizens of South Dakota, said the group wants to repeal South Dakota’s medical marijuana program because it took away control for local governments.

Examples, he said, include sections of the state’s marijuana program that “forced every municipality to allow for at least one dispensary,” according to his interpretation, allow students to take medical marijuana during school hours and allow minors to acquire a medical marijuana card.

“I didn’t think that was right,” Ismay said, “and I had a lot of other people I talked to throughout the state who said they regretted voting for it (in 2020), so I thought we should give South Dakota a second chance.”

Ismay said the group isn’t quite halfway to its required 17,508 signatures for the initiated measure, but “we are gaining.”

Legalizing the possession, use and distribution of marijuana: This is Matthew Schweich’s third attempt to legalize marijuana for recreational use in South Dakota.

Schweich ran the Constitutional Amendment A campaign in 2020, which passed with 54% of the vote and would have legalized recreational cannabis in the state. But the amendment was struck down as unconstitutional.

He also ran the campaign for “Yes on IM 27” in 2022, which would have legalized the possession, distribution and use of marijuana for adults who are 21 years and older. The measure failed to receive majority support, earning 47% of the vote.

Schweich’s organization South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws is aiming to put the 2022 ballot question back on the ballot in 2024. The measure would legalize recreational marijuana use but would not implement regulations on sales (to stay true to South Dakota’s single subject rule for ballot questions) and would instead leave the regulatory process up to the Legislature.

While the group is circulating its petition, Schweich said the group has “a long ways to go.” The sticking point for the campaign’s success, he said, is funding.

“I don’t think of it as we get to the end of the signature drive, submit it and then the next chapter begins,” Schweich said. “We have to start raising the funds for the final push now. … We can’t just limp across the finish line in May.”

Petitions not yet in circulation

Sponsors of ballot questions submit a copy of the proposed statute or amendment to the South Dakota Legislative Research Council for review before ballot language is drafted and reviewed by the state attorney general. The attorney general’s statement is provided for public comment for 10 days before being finalized. After that, a complete copy of the petition including a list of signatures must be submitted to the Secretary of State’s Office.

At least 5% of the submitted signatures must be sampled and verified by the Secretary of State’s Office. State law allows any person to file a complaint against the validity of submitted signatures within 30 days of the petition validation.

Six potential ballot questions listed on the Secretary of State’s website have not been cleared for circulation yet:

• An initiated measure legalizing the sale of recreational cannabis to adults, from a different sponsor than Schweich.

• A constitutional amendment from Ismay preventing legalization of federally banned substances, which would halt the state’s medical marijuana program.

• A constitutional amendment removing the state’s single-subject limitation on ballot questions.

• A constitutional amendment regarding election integrity, including banning voting machines and only allowing hand counting of ballots, among other changes.

• A constitutional amendment to reserve certain parental rights to their children’s education and health records.

• A constitutional amendment banning any medical vaccine mandates by state government, local governments and private organizations unless the vaccine has been in circulation for at least 20 years; isn’t a ribonucleic acid vaccine (like the COVID shot); or a majority of the state House of Representatives and Senate don’t object to the mandate.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: The status of possible ballot questions SD voters could see in 2024