South Dakota and Louisiana Voters Let Lawmakers Have It

Republicans in two states failed to twist the ballot initiative process to their ends. But the fight is far from over.

by Gabrielle Gurley April 7, 2025

Just about the only way to achieve any policy in the public interest in red states is through the legacy practice of ballot initiatives. But as I wrote last year, Republicans who don’t like what their populations tell them at the ballot box have been waging a war to weaken or nullify the practice altogether. And conservatives seeking to maintain their lock on state power are continuing to show contempt for their voters in 2025. But the voters are fighting back.

At the beginning of South Dakota’s short legislative year, which runs from January to March, state lawmakers voted to add the most extreme geographic requirement in the country, which would make it incredibly difficult to qualify constitutional amendments.

The plan would have forced canvassers to collect signatures in each of the state’s 35 senatorial districts. The number of signatures would have to equal 5 percent of that senatorial district’s votes for governor in the last gubernatorial election. Those signatures would be collected in addition to signatures collected statewide totaling 10 percent of the votes for governor cast in the last gubernatorial election. Arkansas has a similar convoluted requirement, but this one is worse.

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South Dakota Republicans outnumber Democrats by about 2-to-1, but that doesn’t mean that conservative voters won’t vote for progressive initiatives. So once voters passed heresies like Medicaid expansion in 2022 and medical marijuana in 2020, the initiative became anathema for the legislature’s far-right conservative faction, who saw their cherished goal of maintaining a permanent Republican majority devoted to the most conservative policies eroding.
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-04-07-south-dakota-louisiana-voters-ballot-initiatives/