This interview originally aired on In the Moment on SDPB Radio.
Jon Hunter joins In the Moment for our Dakota Political Junkies conversation. He and Lori Walsh dive into a few issues pertaining to the ballot.
Open primaries would invite all voters to cast their ballots in the primary regardless of party registration. Could that help address the hyper-partisanship problem?
Also, are changes coming to the very petitions that bring such questions to the ballot?
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Lori Walsh:
You're listening to In the Moment on South Dakota Public Broadcasting. I'm Lori Walsh. The ballot initiative picture is coming further into focus with the petition drive for an open primaries ballot question. That would do away with party primaries we know today and instead, invite all voters to cast their ballots regardless of political party. Well, how exactly would that work? Our Dakota Political Junkies conversation today is with Jon Hunter. He is publisher emeritus of the Madison Daily Leader and member of the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame.
He's with me now in SDPB's Kirby Family Studio in Sioux Falls. Welcome back. Thanks for being here.
Jon Hunter:
Thanks, Lori.
Lori Walsh:
I love ballot questions. I just do.
Jon Hunter:
Me too.
Lori Walsh:
There's so much. There's tea to spill about ballot questions and who wants them and who doesn't and the notoriously long South Dakota ballots and the history of this. It's just all interesting to me.
Jon Hunter:
Could be a kerfuffle, maybe.
Lori Walsh:
There could be a kerfuffle on the horizon. Could be a hullabaloo coming. This is open primaries and some people who've been talking open primaries for quite some time, Joe Kirby and others are doing a lot of the forward work, the communications about open primaries. Help catch us up. This isn't the first time it's been talked.
Jon Hunter:
Right. It was on the ballot in 2016 and it failed 55-45. So this is a resurrection of that with a significant change. But for listeners thinking about open primaries, what this means is now in South Dakota law, Republicans and Democrats go to the polls in June in even numbered years and they get different ballots. They get to hear the Republican candidates you want to nominate for a general election in November. Here's the ones that the other party does. Independents don't have a primary. They are excluded from that process.
And in South Dakota, roughly 50% of registered voters are Republicans, roughly 25% are Democrats, roughly 25% are independents. So those 25% don't participate in the primary process. Only in the general election. So this proposal says let's open this up. We will have everybody votes, all three of those groups, common ballot, and they would have all the candidates on there with their party affiliation behind their name, but they could choose Republicans, Democrats or whatever. And then the top two for each office would go to the general election where everyone would vote again.
And essentially a runoff is what that takes that to.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah.
Jon Hunter:
So it's an interesting concept. It's in response really to hyper-partisanship and that's what drives this type of thing.
Lori Walsh:
Let's dive into that. It's a response to hyper-partisanship or is it a response to the dominance of the Republican Party in this state to the super majority?
Jon Hunter:
I think it's the former. I think it is responsive to hyper-partisanship. Red states and blue states alike have passed these open primaries laws across the country and the results show that it doesn't really change a blue state from being a red state or vice versa. It does what some people believe and certainly I'd believe is that it tends to bring people a little bit more to the middle from the far. So if you're voting in a South Dakota Republican Primary, you have to appeal to sometimes very partisan Republican voters, which then your stand becomes more partisan.
There used to be a time when you'd have to go to the general election and using your word I've heard on the radio, Lori, pivot at point some point to appeal to all voters. They don't have to do that anymore. 21 out of the 35 Senate seats last year were determined in the Republican Primary. Neither Democrats nor independents got to vote for those.
Lori Walsh:
And if the primary turnout is low, then a very small percentage of South Dakota voters are deciding the final outcome.
Jon Hunter:
Right. Let's just toss out a number. Let's say in a presidential year you tend to get more, but let's just toss out 40%. 40% of 50% is 20% and they might be enthusiastic party members too.
Lori Walsh:
Sure. Sure. Opponents to this will argue this is just Democrats' way of trying to get more people. You're getting beat at the ballot box, do something different. Or they will say, if you're an independent and you don't like the way things are going, join a party, show up for the meetings in your county, Republican or Democrat. What do you think the response would be from the proponents to those arguments?
Jon Hunter:
I think that's a good question. I don't know what they would say. If I were them, what I would say was that opportunity has been around for a long time to join a party or to make a change. The trend is in the opposite direction. People are leaving parties. People are becoming more independent. Even some people who are registered to a party identify as independent anyway. So, that opportunity has been available and has not worked, and so this is in response to that.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. How many people sign up do you think to be Republican who aren't really Republican just because they want something on the ballot?
Jon Hunter:
Right. I don't know. And if you want to participate in the primary process, you have to join a party, but apparently people aren't doing that.
Lori Walsh:
And really, you have to join the Republican Party in this state.
Jon Hunter:
Yeah. Yeah.
Lori Walsh:
Joining a party doesn't mean you can join the Libertarian Party or the Democratic Party and have any kind of influence in a primary election in South Dakota.
Jon Hunter:
Yeah, you're right. Libertarian is less than 1%. You can nominate your candidate who will then not win later.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Do we know other states that have done this? The impact you said is not to change a blue state from a red state or a red state from a blue state. What has happened? Has the hyper-partisanship gone down or is that just the pool that we swim in now?
Jon Hunter:
Right. It's hard to imagine in 2023 that there are any states that have become less partisan.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah.
Jon Hunter:
So the answer is I don't know what has happened in other states. And that's probably a good question for Joe Kirby or one of the other organizers.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Well, we'll be talking about this in the days ahead. And I'm also curious, Jon, about as ballot questions come up, they have to get a certain amount of signatures to get them on the ballot. When you sign the petition, you're not deciding whether you want... You might sign a petition and the vote against it when it's on the ballot. But there's a push to not sign. So there's a billboard on 10th Street near my house, decline to sign. Don't sign any abortion petitions, for example, so decline to sign, just walk away from these petitions going back to the beginning before it even gets on the ballot.
What are your thoughts on that?
Jon Hunter:
Yeah. I find it interesting and we joked before the show that if once you have a slogan that rhymes, you're officially a marketing campaign, so decline to sign. But I think people are expanding as far as they can in any direction to endorse or defeat issues. And that would be, even if something passes at the ballot box as people say, look, we'll just take it in court. We'll go to court or we'll have this. And so, that would be post passing or failing. What you're talking about is pre-passing or failing. Let's just not even get it on the ballot, so doesn't even give it a chance.
So I think people are so eager for their side that they will expand it beyond just that day on the ballot box.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah.
Jon Hunter:
And so, you just hope that people will still respect the process that petitions are a part of American government, civics, and you don't have to sign, certainly. And I would encourage people not to sign if you're opposed to something.
Lori Walsh:
Sure.
Jon Hunter:
But respect the process and let's not interrupt. And I know you've mentioned too about out-of-state signature gatherers.
Lori Walsh:
That was a whole thing back this legislative session. Who's holding the clipboard and handing it to you and what are the rules and how can we? So there's all kinds of maneuvering, I guess.
Jon Hunter:
We're going to talk more about this one, aren't we? I can just tell.
Lori Walsh:
Yes, we're going to talk more about maneuvering.
Jon Hunter:
Yeah.
Lori Walsh:
One of the great concerns is that rural South Dakotans will not have as much of a voice because if you need numbers and you need 35,000 people to sign something, you go to Sioux Falls, you go to Rapid City, you go to a population center and you get your signatures. Which was one of the other efforts that failed this legislative session, make people go to the counties-
Jon Hunter:
Yeah, that's right.
Lori Walsh:
... Make sure they get so many votes from geographically representative places. But again, that all happens election day.
Jon Hunter:
But that's a good point. You're right. I had forgotten about that petition thing where you needed certain number of signatures from 5% of the registered voters from each county, which would be a monumental effort, which is a reason it didn't pass. But it was an attempt to try to get more rural participation in the petition process.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. So if Sioux Falls wants open primaries, does the whole state get them?
Jon Hunter:
Well, and what we're facing a little bit in South Dakota is many other states you'll have red states with blue cities and South Dakota's a little bit like that. Sioux Falls does-
Lori Walsh:
I don't know if Sioux Falls is a blue city.
Jon Hunter:
Well.
Lori Walsh:
Maybe if you-
Jon Hunter:
Purple. Is there a hue in there that you agree with?
Lori Walsh:
I'm not going to make that assessment. I'm just saying I don't know that that it's blue, maybe purple.
Jon Hunter:
You'll see that in certainly other states around the country where it-
Lori Walsh:
Sure.
Jon Hunter:
... The rural areas are red and the urban areas are blue-
Lori Walsh:
Yeah.
Jon Hunter:
... Or some hue.
Lori Walsh:
I think Mayor Paul TenHaken said in our interview that it was a purple city, so we're going to go with purple. If the mayor, I'm not-
Jon Hunter:
Maroon.
Lori Walsh:
Don't quote me on that. He might not have said that.
Jon Hunter:
So it's purple or maroon, which one's closer to each side? They're pretty close.
Lori Walsh:
There's a hullabaloo about mauve. All right, let's talk about our next topic before we let you go, which is issue memorandums. Huh?
Jon Hunter:
Well, let's dig in. So if you don't mind me taking the lead on this.
Lori Walsh:
Please.
Jon Hunter:
The executive board of the legislature, which we often think of the legislature just working in January, February and part of March, they actually work much of the year and there's something called the executive board of the legislature, which makes a lot of decisions between sessions. And one of their responsibilities post session is to set up or establish summer studies and not summer sessions, by the way.
Lori Walsh:
Thank you. Preemptively warning listeners that sometimes I say session and it's a study.
Jon Hunter:
So they did approve two summer studies this year. One on kind of county funding and their opportunities and their costs of doing business and as well as nursing home reimbursements and so on. Now, I thought that was the end of that. And then up pops the executive board and they said, oh, by the way, we want the LRC to study some other issues and they tossed out seven others. Now, these are far from a summer study. It's not going to have participation of legislators. They're not going to have public hearings, citizens aren't going to do this. It's just said, look, we need some research.
We want the LRC paid staff in peer to do some research on these seven topics. What do other states, now there's at least two of them say other states around us, what do they do? And it's pure research, but it does give, I think, a little bit of a clue as to what people are thinking and what issues might be coming up.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Just future policymaking questions. This is sort of the big umbrella. What are some of the topics on that list?
Jon Hunter:
Well, I think the two that really jumped out, it was like a red light that came out. One was on nuclear energy.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah.
Jon Hunter:
Boy, we haven't talked about that in South Dakota since the Pathfinder thing southeast of Sioux Falls many, many years ago. So the memorandum is, and intended to provide an overview of nuclear energy technology. And you probably read in the papers about micro nuclear plants. Now that's a little bit of a trend where you don't have the monster plants, but several smaller ones that would be safer. And what are federal laws? What are regulations? All those kinds of things. I don't know who brought that up. I don't remember hearing anything during the session about nuclear energy, but there it is.
Lori Walsh:
Summary of the laws and regulations of states bordering South Dakota. So-
Jon Hunter:
Yeah, won't that-
Lori Walsh:
... Something's up.
Jon Hunter:
Won't that be interesting. And just as Xcel Energy had its ... I think it was Xcel had their radioactive water leak up in Minnesota. So yeah, it'll be interesting. The other one that jumped out too is irrigation and water systems that, excuse me, rely on water from the Missouri. That at least I'm sure is in response to the Colorado River being so low and some people in California go, look, let's just go up to South Dakota and get some. They've got water up there. Let's take it. So-
Lori Walsh:
Yeah.
Jon Hunter:
... I think people are in full awareness of that.
Lori Walsh:
Shout out to Seth Tupper on South Dakota Searchlight. Last time he was on the Junkies, he had written about this for-
Jon Hunter:
Okay.
Lori Walsh:
... Searchlight. He'd done a nice piece that was somewhat hypothetical, but it ties into, that's not insult. It's not like he was writing hypothetically, but he was asking that question, what if?
Jon Hunter:
Yeah.
Lori Walsh:
And they're asking the same question here, legislators.
Jon Hunter:
Interesting.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah.
Jon Hunter:
And specifically in here say whether out-of-state projects can cross the borders of South Dakota to access water from the Missouri.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah.
Jon Hunter:
There it is. And now I think at least a little bit of the South Dakota response to that. I know the Lewis and Clark system has, and I hope this is public because all of a sudden now millions of people are going to hear it on the radio, is that Lewis and Clark is looking about setting up something similar that would be west of the Missouri River. That they can utilize Missouri River Water for western South Dakota just as they successfully have done over a long period of time in eastern South Dakota, southwest Minnesota, and northwest Iowa.
Lori Walsh:
And this brings up all these questions about water rights and how long you can put dibs on something.
Jon Hunter:
And I think Governor Noem is going to weigh on this. She basically said, if it comes to your state, that's ours to use. Now people in Iowa, are they going to agree with that or are we going to agree with something in North Dakota? Let's pretend California piped into North Dakota and drew it all out before it ever crosses South Dakota.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah.
Jon Hunter:
That's a big issue. Water is always a big issue and here we are. So those two, there's plenty of other, I think, interesting ones. I think the emergency clauses in legislation is worth an issue memorandum. That's when you attach to a bill that said, this doesn't take effect July 1st, which is the default date. Instead, it's going to take effect as soon as the governor signs it. And I think it might be overused. I think that's probably what they're looking at.
Lori Walsh:
Sure. Okay. Also, taxation of precious metals. Interesting. Publication of legal notices, legislation that failed this year. I'm looking for more information on how other states have addressed that. What was the other one? Two of them didn't go through. Daycare funding was a no-go and future of schooling was a no-go.
Jon Hunter:
That's a pretty big topic for an issue memorandum.
Lori Walsh:
Okay. Is that you think why it failed?
Jon Hunter:
No, I don't. I think-
Lori Walsh:
Current laws related to virtual school, alternative education and state apprenticeships.
Jon Hunter:
I don't know why. Lee Schonebeck and Will Mortenson, I think, are leading that and they have to do with that. But I do think the minerals thing or the precious metals and so forth, maybe what if someone discovers lithium in South Dakota or something and how that would change the world since the demand or any other these rare earth metals. So it's worth a study by paid staff to do that to better prepare our legislators for a session.
Lori Walsh:
Right. Memorandum will seek to identify whether there are any extracted materials that are not taxed, but are taxed in other states and will discuss the rates at which renewable and nuclear energies are taxed in South Dakota. So again, if you're just tuning in, these are not things that are, we need more information LRC working with the legislative executive board. But it is sort of a hint about some of the topics that are coming up and that are important to lawmakers.
Jon Hunter:
And there is not an opportunity here for the public to participate in that process.
Lori Walsh:
Right. Right.
Jon Hunter:
Those are for summer studies or the session itself.
Lori Walsh:
All right. Jon Hunter, thank you so much for stopping by. This has been super fascinating. I suspect all these things continue to criss and cross and come together in the day ahead. You heard it here. You'll hear it again and you'll hear it in other news outlets and you'll hear it in your backyard as you talk to your neighbors. So these are big topics. Thanks for being there.
Jon Hunter:
We'll be ready. Thanks for the invitation.
