Joshua Haiar, South Dakota Searchlight
Some Republicans, many of them aligned with anti-abortion groups, are tired of South Dakotans petitioning their ideas onto the ballot.
“There are things being put on the ballot that they can’t get through the Legislature,” said Brian Gosch, a Republican former state lawmaker who lobbies for clients including South Dakota Family Voice Action, which opposes abortion rights. “They’re trying to bypass that process to go around it and then get their way through some other means.”
Gosch was testifying recently on behalf of legislation that would limit how often similar ballot questions can be proposed to voters. The bill is one of many that Republican lawmakers have proposed during the current legislative session at the Capitol in Pierre to crack down on citizen-backed ballot measures. The bills include efforts to reduce the time for signature gathering, to require signatures from every legislative district in the state, to raise the threshold to pass a constitutional amendment to 60%, and more.
Rep. Erin Healy, D-Sioux Falls, said citizens putting issues on the ballot that their lawmakers will not entertain is a good thing.
“They’re trying to let the people decide; they’re trying to participate in democracy,” Healy said. “And Republicans here in this building continue to try to completely just squash their voice, and that’s wrong, and that’s undemocratic, and I’m tired of it.”
Nancy Turbak Berry is a Democratic former legislator who is co-chairing an effort to bring an abortion-rights measure to the ballot in 2026.
“The Legislature knows they are out of touch with what most South Dakotans want,” she said. “So, they want to limit our ability to put stuff into law. Plain and simple.”
The “Protect Our Initiatives Coalition” was recently launched in response to the wave of ballot measure legislation.
“The sponsors of these bills attacking our initiative process say they are trying to stop out-of-state money from flooding our elections, but we don’t buy that the solution should be a systemic attack on the initiated process itself,” said Chase Jensen of Dakota Rural Action, one of 10 coalition members.
The state has three types of statewide ballot measures: constitutional amendments, initiated measures and referendums.
To be placed on the ballot, citizen-backed constitutional amendments need petition signatures from registered voters equal to 10% of the votes cast in the last election for governor. The current signature requirement is 35,017. State lawmakers can also send constitutional amendments to the ballot.
Initiated measures propose an ordinary law, and referendums put a law passed by legislators on the ballot, with each requiring signatures equal to 5% of the votes cast in the last governor’s race. That threshold is 17,508 signatures.
This year’s legislation includes:
- A bill that would move the deadline for filing ballot measure petition signatures from May up to February, shortening the time available for signature collection.
- A bill that would require signatures for constitutional amendments to be gathered from every legislative district in the state.
- A resolution that would ask voters to raise the approval threshold for constitutional amendments from a simple majority to 60% of votes cast.
- A resolution that would ask voters to require defeated questions to wait for one general election before being submitted again.
- A bill that would prohibit paying people to gather signatures for ballot measures and make violations a felony.
All of the bills are pending in various parts of the legislative process.
Signatures in every district
Rep. Rebecca Reimer, R-Chamberlain, is sponsoring the bill to require petition signatures from all legislative districts in the state. She said the bill addresses concerns that ballot measures advance with signatures concentrated in Minnehaha and Pennington counties, the two most populous in the state.
“This ensures amendments have real statewide support before they go to the voters,” Reimer said.
The bill was supported by the state’s most prominent anti-abortion group, South Dakota Right to Life, which played a leading role in defeating a ballot measure in November that would have restored abortions rights in the state.
“We believe that we will continue to see – unless there’s a change – those who do not share our pro-life values using the current signature requirement mechanism to try and skew the process,” said Dale Bartscher, South Dakota Right to Life’s executive director.
The bill’s opponents said South Dakotans from across the state already have their voices heard on ballot measures when they vote. They said the bill would make it harder for citizens to put a question on the ballot.
60% to amend the constitution
Rep. John Hughes, R-Sioux Falls, is sponsoring the effort to raise the vote threshold for constitutional amendments to 60%. He said the bill would make it harder for nonresidents of the state to change the state’s constitution.
“This ensures only amendments with overwhelming public backing are adopted,” Hughes said.
Hughes pointed to the 2024 abortion-rights ballot measure receiving large donations from Think Big America, an issue-advocacy nonprofit launched by Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker with a focus on supporting abortion rights. Pritzker’s wife was raised in South Dakota. The measure was rejected by 59% of voters.
Less time for signatures
Another bill proposes amending the deadline for filing petitions to initiate a law or constitutional amendment in South Dakota. Rep. Jon Hansen, R-Dell Rapids, introduced it. He serves on South Dakota Right to Life’s board of directors.
Hansen’s bill would move the deadline from May to February of a general election year, shortening the period petition sponsors could collect signatures by three months.
Hansen said the purpose of the change is to ensure sufficient time for legal challenges and verification of signatures. Hansen helped lead an effort to challenge the signatures for the 2024 abortion-rights measure.
“Six months is just not long enough to litigate these disputes,” Hansen told fellow representatives in the House.
During the bill’s committee hearing, opponents argued the changes would limit South Dakotans’ ability to bring forward ballot measures, making the process more difficult.
Waiting period
A proposed constitutional amendment introduced by Republicans would require any new but similar ballot measures rejected by voters in the prior election to wait until at least one general election has passed before the question could appear on the ballot again.
Zebediah Johnson is with the Voter Defense Association of South Dakota and testified against the measure. He said the bill would unduly restrict the initiative process while not imposing similar restrictions on the Legislature.
“A defeated initiative is not without merit,” he said. “If the people of South Dakota decide to petition their government for change, they should be allowed to do so.”
Former state Sen. Reynold Nesiba, a Sioux Falls Democrat, returned to Pierre during a committee hearing on the legislation. He mentioned South Dakota’s status as the first state to allow initiatives and referendums in 1898, and he called citizen-backed ballot measures a safeguard against big money and power influencing the Legislature.
“Under God, the people rule,” Nesiba said. “This is a fundamental part of who South Dakota is.”
Bartscher, with South Dakota Right to Life, spoke in favor of the bill. He said abortion-rights groups continue to push for ballot measures.
“People are telling us across the state, they want a break,” Bartscher said. “South Dakotans are tired. They’re fatigued of all the campaigning, of all the commercials, and the postcards.”
State lawmakers don’t appear to be heeding that alleged fatigue. They have introduced 11 bills of their own this legislative session that would appear as questions on the 2026 ballot.
Other bills that would impact the ballot measure process include legislation that would require petition signers to list the address and county where they are registered to vote, rather than merely the address where they reside, and prevent the Secretary of State’s Office from counting signatures without the information; change how petitions for ballot initiatives are formatted; allow fiscal estimates for ballot measures to be updated closer to elections; and require the secretary of state to review ballot initiatives for compliance with the state’s single-subject rule. That review is already required for constitutional amendments.