Re: More legislative shenanigans by Al Carlson
Originally Posted by
Yote 53
Something similar in South Dakota Amendment C requiring a three-fifths (60%) supermajority vote for the approval of ballot measures placed on the ballot through citizen initiative or referred to the ballot by the state legislature that increase taxes or fees or that would require the state to appropriate $10 million or more in the first five fiscal years.
I don't have a problem with this as it applies to to citizen referendums and applies explicitly to tax increases or large state appropriations. When we're talking money like that the threshold should be higher than 50/50. The Legislature still has the power to pass budgets, taxes, etc. at 50%+1. We have a big issue in South Dakota with outside money coming in and dumpling huge money to push initiatives on public referendums. Why? I have no idea. To effect "change" to a population that is really fine with the way things are.
Irony is we passed both medicinal and recreational marijuana referendums and those got hung up or overturned by State Courts denying the will of the people. Those wouldn't even fall under Amendment C. So even when we vote for something the Powers That Be will still find a way to deny you. Like Noem, but she's wrong for what she's doing there. The more popular she gets the more the haters in this state are becoming vocal.
$10 million dollars seems like a crazy low threshold.
I have the honor to be Your Obedient Servant - B.Aud
We all live in stories... It seems to me that a definition of any living vibrant society is that you constantly question those stories... The argument itself is freedom. It's not that you come to a conclusion about it. Through that argument you change your mind sometimes... That's how societies grow. When you can't retell for yourself the stories of your life then you live in a prison... Somebody else controls the story. - S. Rushdie