Secretary of State Certifies 5th Ballot Measure
Pierre, SD – Today, Secretary of State Shantel Krebs announced that An initiated measure to Revise State Campaign Finance and Lobbying Laws, Create a Publicly Funded Campaign Finance Program, Create an Ethics Commission, and Appropriate Funds was validated and certified to be on the November 2016 general election ballot as a ballot measure the citizens will vote on. The sponsor turned in 24,532 signatures to the Secretary of State’s office. An Initiated Measure requires 13,871 signatures from South Dakota registered voters. Once the signatures were delivered to the Secretary of State’s office, a 5% random sampling was conducted. It was determined that 73.8% or 18,122 of 24,532 signatures were in good standing. This will be Initiated Measure 22.
This is the fifth initiated measure to be approved by Secretary of State. A total of 8 measures were submitted for review. This office will continue the signature validation process of the remaining 3 measures in the order they were submitted to the Secretary of State. A total of 275,000 signatures were submitted among all petitions.
Those looking to challenge the Secretary of State’s certification of a ballot measure have 30 days from the date they are certified, which would be February 5, 2016.
Well, to start with, this was initiated in part by Rick Weiland – enough said there.
Taken directly from the initiative petition: “The measure creates a publicly funded campaign finance program for statewide and legislative candidates who choose to participate and agree to limits on campaign contributions and expenditures. Under the program two $50 credits are issued to each registered voter, who assigns them to participating candidates. The credits are redeemed from the program, which is funded by an annual state general fund appropriation of $9 per registered voter. The program fund may not exceed $12 million at any time.”
So I would pay into the fund $18 over two years, but the fund will pay out $100 every two years to the candidates I would choose. Am I missing something here about money in and money out? And just who is going to make up the difference? But I guess this type of fiscal economics is typical of Democrats.
Also, if a candidate agrees to this, and his opponent does not, that candidate could be at a big disadvantage moneywise when it comes to running his campaign. How many candidates will agree to this? But if this passes, whether or not the candidate I might choose agrees to it, I will be assessed (taxed) $9 annually anyway and my $100 credits will go unused.
If I want to support a candidate, I will do so on my own dime as I desire. I do not want the state to decide which candidates get funded and by how much. This is just another example of the failure of the Democrats to raise campaign funds, and candidates, statewide. It needs to be defeated soundly.
This isn’t an ” Ethics Commission” measure. It’s a taxpayer funded campaign issue, and should be thoroughly thrashed on that basis alone.
OK, I misunderstood where the $9 annual appropriation is coming from – sorry. But this is even worse; it is coming directly from the state general fund. So which of the other mandated state expenses is going to be shortchanged to cover this expense — Medicaid, education, jails, roads, etc? The Dems are already crying for a state income tax because we don’t have enough money to cover all their wants.
if the government pays for the elections, it controls them.
Although this is not a direct poll tax, it is an indirect tax of sorts imposed on the state government itself for every registered voter. And the poll tax was done away with by the 24th Amendment.
The Democratic party, the party of Welfare, wants to be on welfare.