Gov. Larry Rhoden vetoed a bill on Tuesday, March 25 that would have required ballot measures seeking to amend the state constitution to have signatures from all 35 state Senate districts.

Arguing in a letter to lawmakers that the bill would attempt to change the constitution by statute, Rhoden said he was averting a potential challenge that wouldn’t withstand court scrutiny. The bill, he also said, wouldn’t withstand free speech arguments in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Rhoden echoed the sentiment of those who opposed the bill, saying it gave veto power over a proposed amendment to voters in one Senate district. The bill would have required signatures from 5% of registered voters in each district to qualify.

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“From a practical standpoint, the additional burden of collecting signatures from each of the 35 senatorial districts, each on a separate petition sheet, risks creating a system where only those with substantial financial resources can effectively undertake a statewide ballot drive,” the governor wrote. “This undermines the bill’s intent by putting South Dakotans at a disadvantage to dark money out-of-state groups.”

Rhoden also said in his letter that he preferred House Joint Resolution 5003 that asks voters to change the threshold of votes needed to change the constitution to 60%.

Rhoden signs 20 election-related bills

While vetoing House Bill 1169, Rhoden signed 20 other bills related to elections in South Dakota. Those included one requiring an indication of a person’s citizenship status on driver’s licenses or non-driver state ID cards, a requirement that people be registered voters in the state before sponsoring a ballot measure and one that prohibits the use of “deep fakes” – often images and voiceovers created by artificial intelligence – from being used to influence an election.

But of the group, HB 1169 proved to be the most controversial, and Rhoden faced heavy lobbying from some quarters to veto the legislation.

Sponsored by Dell Rapids Republican Sen. Tom Pischke and Chamberlain Rep. Rebecca Reimer, also a Republican, the measure had the support of South Dakota Right to Life, the South Dakota Farm Bureau Federation and the National Rifle Association.

Opponents of the current system in which measures can qualify for the ballot by collecting the signatures of any registered voter in the state argue that it has become too easy to change the state’s constitution by placing petition gatherers at strategic locations in the state’s largest cities. Because sponsors focus on cities, rural communities don’t have as much say in whether a measure should qualify for the ballot, they claim.

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But opponents of the measure argued that it would undermine a fundamental right for citizens to change the state constitution that has existed for 125 years. Those opponents included the Voter Defense Association of South Dakota and Dakota Rural Action.

Lawmakers return to Pierre on Monday, March 31 to consider overturning vetoes. House Bill 1169 passed the state House with enough votes to override the governor’s veto should lawmakers there want to stick to their guns, but the measure was five short of the needed votes in the Senate.

Gov. Larry Rhoden issued his second veto while making law a slew of legislation focused on South Dakota’s elections and its citizen-led petition process.

Rhoden on Tuesday signed 20 “election bills” largely aimed at tightening the state’s residency and voting requirements.

The most notorious includes House Bill 1208. According to the bill’s language, people who claim residency at a mail forwarding address or post office “without providing a description of the location of the individual’s habitation” are not considered residents of the state and can only vote in the federal election, if eligible. The bill works in tandem with the standing requirement that prospective voters must live in South Dakota for 30 consecutive days to be considered a resident and able to vote in state elections.

Opponents of the legislation have said the bill unfairly restricts the voting rights of full-time travelers from South Dakota and the state’s homeless population.

“South Dakota continues to be an example of free and fair elections. Our election system has integrity, and these bills improve our already strong system,” Rhoden stated in a Tuesday press release. “America is founded on the principle of freedom, and I am proud that we live in a nation and a state where we can choose our leaders.”

Other bills signed by Rhoden include laws prohibiting and penalizing the use of deepfakes in an election, requiring South Dakota driver’s licenses to indicate citizenship status, and banning people who aren’t registered as in-state voters from circulating petitions on ballot measures.

House Bill 1169, brought by State Rep. Rebecca Reimer, R-Rapid City, was the only one of the batch to receive the governor’s veto brand. The bill would have required groups circulating petitions for South Dakota Constitutional Amendments to obtain no less than 5% of signatures for all 35 legislative districts in the state, based on that district’s total votes in the last gubernatorial election, in order to placed on an election ballot.

The statute as it stands only requires circulators to receive a number of signatures equal to 5% of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election for the whole state.

Rhoden stated in a Tuesday press release that HB 1169 has a “worthy goal” in raising the bar for petitioning for constitutional amendments in the state but could prove a legal problem. He explained in a letter to the State House that if a court determines the proposed law infringes on the ability to engage in free speech, it would undergo “strict scrutiny,” or the highest standard of judicial review.

“I am concerned that this bill will not withstand scrutiny in the courts. This bill attempts to change the South Dakota Constitution in statute, and I believe that approach to be misguided,” Rhoden stated.

The governor’s veto was announced after Voter Defense Association of South Dakota, a group focused on the state’s ballot process, held a Friday press conference in which they and supporters threatened to put the bill through the referendum process.

Matthew Schweich, president of VDA, told the Argus Leader the bill would have hamstrung future citizen ballot initiatives in South Dakota by implementing “the most extreme geographic distribution requirement in the U.S.”

Former State Sen. Reynold Nesiba, a Sioux Falls Democrat, planned to sponsor the referendum petition to reject the legislation.

“It will effectively end the constitutional amendment process initiated by citizens in South Dakota,” Nesiba said. “We have to remember our state motto is, ‘Under God the People Rule.’”

Schweich also challenged the bill from a practicality standpoint by sharing concerns that petition gatherers would need to carry multiple versions of their petitions and clipboards for voters that may not live where they’re encountered. He also said the bill would make South Dakota’s petition process more vulnerable to outside influence, as smaller groups would be unable to financially support a statewide campaign that some out-of-state groups could still afford.

Rhoden echoed this in his letter to the State House.

“The additional burden of collecting signatures from each of the 35 senatorial districts, each on a separate petition sheet, risks creating a system where only those with substantial financial resources can effectively undertake a statewide petition drive. This undermines the bill’s intent by putting South Dakotans at a disadvantage to dark money out-of-state groups,” Rhoden wrote.

Other bills signed by Rhoden on Tuesday include:

• SB 68: Requires an individual be a citizen of the United States before being eligible to vote and to provides a penalty therefor.
• SB 73: Requires that an individual registering as a voter when applying for a driver’s license be a resident of the state for the purposes of voting.
• SB 89: Repeals the requirement that judicial officers be listed on a separate nonpolitical ballot.
• SB 91: Revises the requirements for a petition to initiate a measure or constitutional amendment or to refer a law.
• SB 92: Requires that the director of the Legislative Research Council and the secretary of state review an initiated measure and determine if the measure embraces more than one subject.
• SB 173: Revises the process by which a recount may be requested.
• SB 185: Amends provisions pertaining to the process by which the qualifications of a registered voter are verified.
• HB 1062: Amends provisions pertaining to the maintenance and publication of the statewide voter registration file.
• HB 1066: Revises residency requirements for the purposes of voter registration.
• HB 1126: Modifies provisions pertaining to the compensation of a recount board.
• HB 1127: Requires that notice of a county’s canvass, post-election audit, and testing of automatic tabulating equipment be posted to the secretary of state’s website.
• HB 1130: Provides permissible dates for municipal and school district elections.
• HB 1164: Revises the process for nominating candidates for lieutenant governor.
• HB 1184: Amends the deadline for filing a petition to initiate a measure or constitutional amendment.
• HB 1256: Requires the inclusion of certain information on a candidate’s nominating petition or on a ballot question petition.
• HB 1264: Requires the disclosure of an outstanding loan balance on a campaign finance disclosure report.

State House and Senate lawmakers will convene in Pierre on Monday. Both chambers will need a two-thirds majority of legislators to override Rhoden’s veto.