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Governor vetoes effort to restrict constitutional amendment process with geographic rule • South Dakota Searchlight [1]
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Date: 2025-03-25
South Dakota Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden issued his second veto of the legislative session, rejecting a bill that would place new restrictions on citizen-initiated constitutional amendments.
He also signed a large group of other election-related bills into law Tuesday, including a bill requiring labels on political deepfakes within 90 days of an election, and legislation limiting full-time travelers such as RVers to federal-only ballots when they vote in South Dakota elections.
The vetoed legislation, House Bill 1169, would require constitutional amendment petitions to receive signatures from registered voters in each of the 35 state Senate districts. Groups would need signatures equal to 5% of the total votes cast for governor in each district during the last general election.
That would be in addition to current requirements that petitions have a total number of signatures equal to at least 10% of the votes cast statewide for governor in the last general election. Current law says those signatures can be from anywhere in the state.
Voter advocacy groups raised alarms last week, urging the governor to veto the bill and pledging to petition it to the ballot if he signed it. The Voter Defense Association of South Dakota praised the governor’s veto in a press release Tuesday and urged lawmakers to sustain it.
“House Bill 1169 was a deeply flawed bill that would have severely and unjustly restricted the initiated amendment process in South Dakota,” the release said.
Bills affecting voters and elections Read more about election-related bills considered and adopted during the legislative session on South Dakota Searchlight’s 2025 Election Legislation page.
In a letter to lawmakers, Rhoden said the 35-district requirement risks creating a system where “dark money out-of-state groups” with more financial resources are the only entities that could effectively undertake a statewide petition drive.
He added that the bill’s requirements might not be upheld in state or federal court. A federal court could determine the bill imposes an illegally severe burden on political speech, he wrote, and he questioned whether the baseline level of petition signatures required in the state constitution can be modified by a statute.
“I swore an oath to support both the South Dakota and the United States Constitutions – and I am concerned about this bill in both regards,” Rhoden wrote.
Lawmakers could override Rhoden’s action with a two-thirds vote of each chamber when they gather on Monday to consider his vetoes. The bill had more than two-thirds support from the House when it passed, but had less than two-thirds support in the Senate.
Rhoden vetoed another bill earlier this session, which would have offered more child care tuition assistance to child care workers. The Legislature considered that veto earlier this month and failed to override it.
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https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2025/03/25/governor-larry-rhoden-vetoes-bill-restrict-elections-constitutional-amendment-process-south-dakota/
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