2024 initiated measures offer lessons for future elections

A Sioux Falls resident votes in the city and school board election at Southern Hills United Methodist Church on April 9, 2024. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)

In the run-up to the Nov. 5 election, South Dakota voters should be hearing quite a bit about seven ballot issues. Looking back, there are some lessons inherent in the way some of those ballot issues were handled in this election cycle.

People seem to like medical marijuana.

One of the first stories of this election cycle was a petition effort to ban medical marijuana. That effort never got off the ground or anywhere near the ballot.

While recreational marijuana has had a tough time on the ballot and in the courts, people seem to like medical marijuana just fine. It would have been a shame to vote on a ban after the South Dakota Legislature has gone to the trouble of filing multiple bills in an effort to nail down all the regulations needed for a medical marijuana program.

It’s probably best not to run two ballot campaigns at once.

Dakotans for Health took on the task of putting two issues on the ballot in the same year: Amendment G , which would legalize abortions, and Initiated Measure 28 , which is intended to eliminate the state sales tax on groceries.

Dakotans for Health now faces a lawsuit from Life Defense Fund alleging, among other things, that it tricked voters into signing the abortion petitions when they thought they were signing the grocery tax cut petitions. No matter how the court rules, there won’t be time at this late date to get Amendment G off the ballot if Dakotans for Health loses.

If a win at the ballot box is in doubt, go to court.

The effort by Life Defense Fund to hash out the fate of Amendment G in the courts, rather than the ballot box, can be seen as a reaction to the fate of abortion ballot initiatives in other states. As it stands now, abortion rights are 7-0 since the demise of Roe v Wade. Voters in seven states have beaten back efforts to enshrine abortion restrictions in state constitutions or have won with initiatives that protect abortion rights.

Being short-sighted on the issues can be costly.

Lawmakers are faced with some tough choices if voters decide they like the idea of cutting the state sales tax on groceries. The Legislature had its chance to eliminate that sales tax in 2023, but chose instead to opt for a cut that took the state sales tax from 4.5% to 4.2%, with a sunset in 2027. No one was clamoring for that cut; the GOP-controlled Legislature used it as a way to enhance their Republican credentials.

The candidates, the ballot measures, and the tools you need to cast your vote.

With that tax cut carving out an estimated $100 million hole in state revenue, lawmakers are now faced with the potential passage of Initiated Measure 28, eliminating the state sales tax on groceries. That will mean another estimated $134 million in lost revenue, or more, depending on interpretations of the measure’s language. The easiest way to handle the sales tax cut on groceries would be to reverse the 2023 tax cut, but raising the state sales tax is hardly a way to enhance your credibility as a Republican.

While Republicans were behind the original tax cut as well as a failed attempt in 2024 to make it permanent, they have steadfastly refused to make any sort of headway on cutting property taxes, an issue that has property owners all over the state howling for action . As usually happens when the Legislature won’t take action, there’s a property tax ballot issue already getting teed up for the 2026 election.

Despite its popularity with voters, the initiated measure concept is under siege.

Just about every legislative session offers a new law designed to hamper the initiated ballot measure process. Fortunately, those have been shot down in committee, overruled by the courts or vetoed by voters.

Conservative Republican activist and entrepreneur Chris Larson went to all the trouble to set up a website that encourages citizens to vote no on four of the ballot issues. His thinking on the initiative ballot process likely reflects that of many of his fellow Republicans. “I think the initiated ballot system we have is not great for South Dakota,” Larson told The Dakota Scout , asserting that it shouldn’t be used to change the constitution.

Given the way conservative Republicans have saturated the state’s Legislature, a citizen petition process is the only way that South Dakotans would ever find themselves with the chance to weigh in on abortion rights, the legalization of marijuana , eliminating the state sales tax on groceries or the future of carbon capture pipelines .

With seven issues on the ballot this year, at least a few of which get under the skin of Republican lawmakers, there’s likely to be more legislation that tries to throw up roadblocks to the ballot petition process. However, with that process enshrined in the state constitution, the only way its opponents can get rid of it altogether is to, well … put it on the ballot.

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