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South Dakota lawmakers have taken the first steps to overturn a voter-approved initiative called the South Dakota Government Accountability and Anti-Corruption Act (Measure 22, IM-22). Legislators plan to use a tactic that would allow them to overturn the measure immediately, and deny voters any additional say. Here is a brief overview of what IM-22 does: * It lowers contribution amounts for PACs, political parties, and candidates running in state and county offices; * Limits contributions f

If you listened to the mainstream media the past two weeks, you would have thought that there was the possibility of an electoral revolt of "faithless electors" who were going to ditch President-elect Donald Trump. But just as all media outlets were wrong about the outcome of the election, they missed the mark once again. Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig said he knew of at least 20 Republican electors who were willing to vote against Trump. But it didn't happen. In fact, Hillary Clinton on Mon

Keep up with the reform efforts building on the post-election momentum. Big change starts small, and these organizations have been hard at work to fix our broken system, little by little. With so much negativity in the media, it is nice to catch up on some of the encouraging efforts of hardworking Americans, fighting for reform. The following summaries have been provided by the organizations themselves: Open Primaries Open Primaries launched a new petition asking the incoming chairs of the R

This election was historic for the movement to break big money’s grip on our political system. On November 8, 2016, voters in South Dakota passed the first-ever statewide Anti-Corruption Act. This ballot initiative was led by Represent.Us volunteers and members. In San Francisco, a Represent.Us volunteer-led coalition passed a new law to stop lobbyists from bribing politicians. It passed by one of the widest margins of any law in San Francisco history. In two Illinois counties, conservatives a

In August, just one month after the Democratic National Convention, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders announced the launch of Our Revolution, a non-profit organization dedicated to keeping his progressive movement alive and strong. Among its stated goals are “supporting a new generation of progressive leaders" and "empowering millions to fight for progressive change." To these ends, Our Revolution backed more than 100 candidates from the school board level to the U.S. Senate between August and Ele

In a watershed electoral victory for drug policy liberalization in the United States, an astounding eight states voted to legalize marijuana for recreational or medicinal purposes Tuesday. That’s an especially resounding win for marijuana legalization considering that nine states had marijuana on the ballot, putting marijuana reform at an 88% success rate on Election Day. In four states—Florida, Arkansas, North Dakota, and Montana—voters passed medical marijuana initiatives, and voters in four

The Mount Rushmore State did not pass nonpartisan primaries Tuesday night. South Dakota's Amendment V - Nonpartisan Elections didn't quite make the cut at 44.51% to 55.49%. Amendment V would have enacted a similar primary system as the one currently used for Nebraska legislative races -- all voters and candidates would participate on a single ballot and the top-two vote getters would move on to the general election in November, regardless of party affiliations. The amendment would have removed

With teams of canvassers on the ground in ten communities the past week, the endorsements of every daily newspaper that voiced an opinion, and key support from influential Republicans, independents and Democrats, the Vote Yes on Amendment V ballot committee rides significant momentum into the pre-election weekend. “Over 40,000 South Dakotans signed a petition to put a Nebraska-style open primary on the ballot. Since then Republicans, Democrats and independents from West River to East River and

Amendment V is modeled on the Nebraska system, that is among the most competitive in U.S. Most voters would like to believe that their votes on Tuesday will decide the outcome of state legislative races. Unfortunately, they’re wrong. According to a recent study, 92% of state legislative elections were actually decided in the June 7 primary, with only 8% to be decided in the general election. Joe Kirby, a Republican supporter of Amendment V, says that locks out most voters: “Most of our electi

Why stick with third party and independent candidates in November, if Clinton and Trump have a combined 80% of the electorate in all major polls? In an election season that is anything but usual, one trend is holding up: outside campaigns are losing support in the last months of the race. The campaigns of Libertarian candidate Gov. Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, independent candidate Dr. Lynn S. Kahn, and Veterans Party candidate Chris Keniston responded to a short question