State lawmakers amend petition signature withdrawal bill to remove ‘chaos factor’

Rep. Jon Hansen, R-Dell Rapids, speaks on the state House floor on Jan. 16, 2024. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)

In response to a potential ballot measure that would reinstate abortion rights, the Senate State Affairs Committee amended and advanced a bill Wednesday in Pierre that would allow people to remove their signatures from ballot-question petitions.

The bill passed 8-1 and now heads to the Senate floor. An emergency clause in the legislation would make it effective immediately, before this spring’s deadline for petitions to place questions on the Nov. 5 general election ballot.

Amendments to the bill alleviate some concerns raised throughout the bill’s legislative process, including:

• Requiring that the withdrawal request is signed and notarized.
• Removing the option to submit the request by email.
• Requiring that the withdrawal notification be submitted before the petition is filed and certified for placement on the general election ballot.

Sen. Lee Schoenbeck, R-Watertown, said the amendments would remove “the chaos factor” of the bill.

Sen. Lee Schoenbeck, R-Watertown, listens on the House floor ahead of the budget address at the South Dakota Capitol on Dec. 5, 2023. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)

The bill’s prime sponsor in the House, Rep. Jon Hansen, R-Dell Rapids, said the changes were a logical and reasonable compromise.

“I think it gives the power to the people,” Hansen told lawmakers.

Opponents asked for the emergency clause to be removed, cautioning lawmakers that the bill would risk litigation.

Rapid City lawyer and former legislator Linda Lea Viken told lawmakers she questions whether an emergency clause is proper. According to the state constitution , emergency clauses may be used when legislation is necessary for the “support of the state government and its existing public institutions” or for the “immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety.”

The bill originally used the state government emergency clause, but the amendment switched the emergency clause to the “public peace” explanation. According to an explainer on emergency clauses from the state’s Legislative Research Council , the preservation of public peace, health or safety is synonymous with the “police power” of the Legislature, including actions for the public welfare and to “promote and protect a state’s major industry.”

The use of emergency clauses has been challenged 10 times in the South Dakota Supreme Court. If the court found an emergency clause improper, only the clause would be declared void and the rest of the law would take effect on July 1 rather than immediately after its passage.

Hansen did not address concerns about the emergency clause in his rebuttal testimony.

Hansen serves on the board of directors of South Dakota Right to Life, which supports a “Decline to Sign” campaign to keep the abortion-rights measure off the ballot. Currently, abortions are banned in South Dakota, and the state’s only exception is to save the life of the pregnant mother.

Dakotans for Health Executive Director Rick Weiland, standing beside copies of petition signatures, speaks to the press Feb. 7, 2024, at the Capitol in Pierre about an initiated constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)

Hansen also alleged abortion petition circulators are fooling South Dakotans who think they are signing a measure to repeal the sales tax on groceries but are being given the abortion-rights petition. The Dakotans for Health ballot question committee is circulating both petitions.

Hansen aims to establish a process for withdrawing signatures from petitions for initiated measures, initiated constitutional amendments and referendums. Initiated measures and referendums need 17,508 signatures from registered voters to make the ballot; initiated constitutional amendments need 35,017. Dakotans for Health has said it has more than 50,000 signatures on the abortion-rights ballot measure, but it has not yet submitted the petitions.

While Hansen said that he consulted the Secretary of State’s Office to ensure the bill would not be a burden on the office, a representative from the secretary of state did not testify to the committee.

State Sen. Reynold Nesiba, D-Sioux Falls, speaks on the Senate floor on Feb. 5, 2024. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)

The committee’s lone no vote came from its sole Democratic member, Sioux Falls Sen. Reynold Nesiba, who said the bill was “deeply problematic” because it would “change the rules in the middle of the game.”

“When you have a viable signature, it should be carried to its full term and not be aborted,” Nesiba concluded.

California, Idaho, Utah and Washington allow for signers of petitions to withdraw their signatures. Florida was on the list, but in 2009, that state Supreme Court said the state’s signature revocation law was unconstitutional.

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