Last month, fifteen South Dakota Representatives, and six State Senators, introduced HB 1158, to move the independent candidate petition deadline (for office other than President) from early June to late April. South Dakota’s primary is in June.
The same bill had been introduced in 2009. It was HB 1234, and it had passed the House 52-17, but it was defeated in the Senate State Affairs Committee after then-Secretary of State Chris Nelson testified that if the bill were passed, it would probably be declared unconstitutional. Unfortunately, Chris Nelson did not run for re-election in 2010, and it is not known if the new Secretary of State will take a position similar to that taken by Nelson in 2009. The bill in 2009 had even more co-sponsors: seventeen in the House and eight in the Senate.
Courts in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, have all ruled that independent candidate petitions deadlines in advance of partisan primaries (except one day in advance) are unconstitutional. In 2000, a U.S. District Court ruled that South Dakota’s June petition deadline for independent presidential candidates was unconstitutional, and the legislature moved the presidential independent deadline to August. The bill does not propose to move the independent presidential deadline.