On November 3, 2020, South Dakota voters passed Measure A, an initiative, which legalized both medical marijuana and marijuana. On February 8, a state trial court ruled that the measure is invalid because it involves two separate subjects, marijuana and medical marijuana.
On February 12, the Attorney General said that he will not appeal the decision. The Attorney General had tried to defend the initiative in the trial court because any state’s Attorney General is supposed to defend state laws, whether they were passed by the legislature or by initiative.
Proponents of the measure will carry the appeal forward themselves. They will ask the State Supreme Court to reverse the trial court. See this story from Reason magazine. The Attorney General’s decision not to appeal is not covered in that story, because the Attorney General made his decision after that story was written. Thanks to Eric Garris for the link.
Laws that require initiatives to pertain to only a single subject are inherently arbitrary. Last year in Alaska, the Alaska Supreme Court said that an initiative to impose campaign finance rules, and also to set up a top-four system, does not violate the single subject rule because all parts of the initiative concern election law.
Trial court judge and AG both party HACKS ???
This is really disgusting. All initiative petitions have to have their legal language approved by the state before they can start gathering signatures. If this was really an issue, it should have been taken up during the legal language review process. I think they were just looking for an excuse to disqualify it.
SINGLE SUBJECT — More VOID for VAGUENESS UNCONST STUFF ???
I applauded Governor Noem for her constitutional handling of the pandemic crisis but this time she got it wrong.
I don’t applaud her for either one, to say the least.
Kevin thinks the government should run everything and people should have no freedom. In short, a communist.
Liberals aren’t communists, nor are sane moderates, conservatives or libertarians. But you’re a fascist, and trash, or fash for short.
Ironically, the government would run a lot less if the US took precautions early on in the pandemic like e.g. Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, etc. None of them communist nations, incidentally.
You mean the countries that went into lockdown multiple times? You just proved my point that they don’t work, and people lose their freedom as a result. Apparently you hate freedom.
If I’m a commie, why are you putting out Pravda style propaganda and justifying killing hundreds of thousands of people needlessly while leaving tens of millions with long term serious health consequences, recurring disease and massive debts, and leaving many millions more effectively locked down for many months at a time for fear they’re next? If you’re going to call all those countries, and many others, “communist” the term loses all meaning. Your idea of freedom is sociopathic and psycho. It’s downright genocidal.
No one is forcing you to leave your home. The vast majority, if then even catch it, survive. Why punish the healthy? The flu and common cold kills too, should we just lock ourselves in our homes forever? That’s what commies like you want.
Who controls dictionaries controls ALL [thoughts] ???