“A Systematic Assault”: GOP Rushes to Change Election Rules to Block Medicaid in South Dakota - Bolts
The latest Republican effort to weaken direct democracy faces a key test next week in South Dakota, the first state in the nation to set-up a popular initiative process.
Hasnain says:
So much for democracy. This is just further evidence of the erosion of democracy in the US.
“The erosion of direct democracy in South Dakota mirrors how the GOP is reacting to initiatives they dislike elsewhere. According to an analysis last year by the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, Republican lawmakers filed dozens of bills nationwide to make it harder for voter-initiated measures to make it onto the ballot, and many of them have become law.
In Utah, after voter-initiated statutes that legalized medical marijuana, expanded Medicaid, and created an independent redistricting commission all succeeded in 2018, the legislature repealed all of the statutes in its next session; they later added new restrictions on the process of gathering signatures, making it more burdensome for organizers. Mississippi’s supreme court shut down the state’s entire ballot initiative process last year while striking down a marijuana referendum. Similarly, after Idahoans approved Medicaid expansion in 2018, the legislature moved to thwart future efforts by greatly increasing the difficulty of qualifying an initiative for the ballot.”
Posted on 2022-05-30T23:49:37+0000