I guess we should not be surprised about the Amendment A ruling today.
There used to be a time where South Dakotans could actually fight the goofy one-party legislation and that was by putting sensible legislation on the ballot and through the court systems, and now those processes are rigged.
While the SD GOP has been successful taking over most of the local governing boards, the state legislature and the constitutional offices, they now have officially have taken over the courts.
I think the one dissenting SD Supreme Court Justice, Scott Myren said it best;
Myren’s dissent focused on the single-subject decision. He noted that Amendment A received substantial media attention and that voters were informed about its intent.
“I believe that the propositions in Constitutional Amendment A are ‘incidental to and necessarily connected with’Â the object of providing a comprehensive plan for all phases of legalization, regulation, use, production, and sale of marijuana and related substances,” Myren wrote.Â
He is exactly right. I can guarantee if you interviewed every single voter in that election, whether they voted NO or YES, they would all agree they knew by voting for this measure it would legalize Cannabis for Recreational use if passed. I don’t think the supporters of Amendment A were deceiving anyone. And as Myren also points out, with any initiative or amendment there is a factor of regulation, I also think voters understand that.
But I think the most important part of his dissent was this;
Myren says the majority “departs from the ‘Strong presumption of constitutionality’ we are to accord to Amendment A†and the will of the voters.
This is the most important part of the case, because the will of the voters should always be upheld. The SD Supreme Court could have done that while separating out the regulation part, but cowered to obvious political pressure from the Right Wing Dictatorship that runs the entire state;
Although the Court agreed that the first 13 sections of Amendment A were a single subject devoted to legalizing marijuana, it declined to separate that by finding those sections legal and the rest of the amendment unconstitutional.Â
In other words, they could have agreed with Justice Myren that what the voters really wanted could have stood, while striking down the parts in the Amendment that need to be handled by the legislature (regulation and taxation) and the fact the other two parts (Industrial Hemp and Med MJ) are already legal and are moot.
There is also the question of how this even made it to the courts;
Ultimately, the Court ruled they didn’t have standing, but because Gov. Kristi Noem ratified the action, the challenge was valid.
“While Thom and Miller lacked standing to commence this action, our conclusion that the Governor ratified the prosecution of the action and is bound by the outcome of this litigation cures any standing defect,” Jensen wrote.
This part makes me question what kind of cooperation was going on between the governor’s office and the court system in private. How did Noem know she had to make this correction in mid-stream? And how is it that the governor can sue it’s own citizens (voters) while using their tax dollars to do so? That is the epitome of corruption and the foundation of any strong fascist regime. It’s mind boggling.
Like I said from the beginning, I wasn’t shocked of the outcome, South Dakotans have been voting in these clowns for years and we get what we deserve. The problem now is we have no way to remedy bad laws in the initiative process or the court system. We now are stuck with a regime we created by ignorantly electing radical right dictators that want to control our lives, so put that in your pipe and smoke it, cuz you got nothing else.