South Dakota voters vow to defend ballot measures

Joyce Scott is furious.

She and others worked their tails off persuading South Dakota voters to approve anti-corruption Initiated Measure 22.

Republican lawmakers quickly torched the new rules this year and instead are seeking changes that would make it far tougher for residents to bypass the statehouse at all. Scott and others angry about the swift repeal of the voter-backed anti-corruption initiative have turned to the 2018 ballot, hoping to enact a new constitutional amendment that even the Legislature can't touch. Supporters gathered more than 50,000 signatures — using volunteers and paid petitioners — for the 2018 constitutional amendment. "Who would have ever thought that something that the voters passed, that the Legislature would just do away with it totally," she said.

Read the rest here.

On Monday, the Secretary of State’s Office received petitions for eight potential ballot measures for the 2018 election, which comes after 10 ballot measures — including Initiated Measure 22 that voters approved — were on the 2016 ballot. Now, the Legislature’s brazen act of overturning IM22 to start the 2017 legislative session and — as lawmakers claimed — protect the electorate from alleged unconstitutionality has led to three proposed constitutional amendments that zero in on election reform. In the end, however, it is South Dakotans who will vote on Election Day and many feel disenfranchised by an increasingly insular Legislature dominated by a handful of Republican leaders.

Read that here.

Pretty scathing indictment from a conservative newspaper like the Rapid City Journal.

Your thoughts?