Citizen-Initiated Amendments and Statutes: Follow the Money

Citizens overwhelmed with huge number of unwelcome ballot measures.

Twenty six (26) states allow ballot measures, citizen-initiated amendments to the state constitution and state statutes and vetoes to laws passed by the legislature. South Dakota allows all three.

In South Dakota, an amendment to the constitution requires signatures equal to 10% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election (35,017 signatures in 2024) and an initiated state statute (law) requires signatures equal to 5% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election (17,050 signatures in 2024). A simple majority vote is required once the signatures are collected.

Sadly, a few enterprising people have discovered they can make very good money running ballot initiative signature churning operations.

In South Dakota, Rick Weiland has several businesses that collect ballot initiative signatures. For Amendment H, for example, about $1,000,000 was paid in “consulting fees”. While there are no details on these mysterious consulting fees on the financial disclosures filed with the Secretary of State’s office, rumor has it a lot of this money went to Weiland for signature collection.

The situation is so out of control, a lawsuit was filed by the opponents of Amendment G suggesting that Mr. Weiland’s signature collectors used deception to get people to sign the petitions.

As a minimum, we need some transparency in how these consulting fees are spent. Who are the fees going to? How much is going to the signature collectors? And how much is being pocketed by Mr. Weiland?

Then we need transparency in the signature collection process. Are signees being told the full story about the measure?

Finally, we need some type of incentive to encourage the ballot initiative churners to stop churning.

Perhaps we need to consider Florida’s solution. In that state, constitutional amendments require the approval of 60% of the voters. Maybe we need an even higher percentage. Or maybe we need to move to a system that only allows changes to statutes, but not changes to the state constitution.

Or even better, maybe we need legislation that keeps signature collectors from receiving pay. This one step would mean citizen-led efforts like RL21 would make it to the ballot, but initiatives that are products of signature churning operations (Amendment G and Amendment H) would not.

Needless to say when people have to spend a lot of time and money fighting something most of the people didn’t want to start with, it’s time for change.