Howie in South Dakota
South Dakotans for Open and Clean Government.
In South Dakota, Measure 10 combined Paycheck Deception with Open and Clean Government and the measure was defeated 65%-35%. The South Dakota state Attorney General had written an opinion stating that if approved, Measure Ten was likely to be challenged in court and could be declared in violation of the United States Constitution. If so, state taxpayers may have been required to pay attorney fees and costs.
There were many unanswered questions with this initiative. For example, a social service group could be banned from receiving a government grant because they spoke to public officials about their work. Under Initiative 10, this would have been considered lobbying and it would have disqualified the social services group from receiving any government grant.
Also, as a result of the state and local governments having labor agreements with public employee groups, this initiative would have unfairly prevented public servants like law enforcement officers and school janitors from donating a few dollars to a candidate, yet would have allowed big out-of-state interests to continue spending millions of dollars to influence state government.
One major concern with the initiative was that many citizens would unknowingly and innocently break the law by supporting a particular candidate or cause because they would be unaware that a distant relative had a government contract.
The Aberdeen News did a four part series tracking the funders behind the "Open and Clean Initiative" movement in South Dakota. Read those articles here:
- Hiding the Money: Ballot issue funding mysterious
- Hiding the Money: Outside influences on ballot
- Hiding the Money: Government 'transparency' group won't disclose own funding sources In a nutshell
- Hiding the Money: S.D. has no 'right to inspect' law
