In March 2015, South Dakota made its ballot access laws worse. SB 69 moved the petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties from March 29 to March 1; said no one can independent candidate petitions if they are registered into a qualified party; increased the number of signatures for major party members to get on a party primary ballot, and made their deadlines earlier as well.

Also in the 2015 session, the legislature passed a controversial bill limiting the voter-approved measure to increase the minimum wage. The legislature passed a bill saying the increase doesn’t apply to persons under age 18.

The AFL-CIO and other groups are angry about the minimum wage bill, so they started a petition to put a repeal of that law on the November 2016 ballot. When referendum petitions get enough valid signatures, the new law passed by the legislature is suspended until the public votes. Because the AFL-CIO is doing one referendum petition on the minimum wage, it decided it might as well do a second referendum petition at the same time, to ask the voters to repeal SB 69. The AFL-CIO is mostly interested in fighting SB 69 because it has a disproportionate effect on Democrats who want to run in the Democratic primary. SB 69 increased their primary petitions from 1% of the last vote for their party nominee for Governor to 1% of the registered voters in that party.

The referendum petitions began to circulate earlier this month. Thanks to Jackie Salit and Harry Kresky for this information.