Fighting the Koch Brothers for Transparency in South Dakota

The post Fighting the Koch Brothers for Transparency in South Dakota appeared first on WhoWhatWhy.

In early February, a plane soared over South Dakota’s capitol building, tugging a banner that read:

 “Shame on you. Respect our vote.”

Inside the Senate chamber, legislators didn’t seem to get the message.

With support from the Koch Brothers, those legislators passed an emergency repeal of a groundbreaking anti-corruption bill known as Initiated Measure 22 (IM-22).

In doing so, they undermined the will of voters who had approved the measure by a narrow margin in November. Many citizens watched in disbelief as their hard-fought grassroots campaign to broaden transparency unraveled at the hands of the very politicians they had hoped to hold more accountable.

But the activists from last year’s initiative aren’t letting politicians have the last word. They’re meeting with citizens across the state to craft a fortified constitutional amendment for the 2018 election which will be more difficult for the Republican supermajority to repeal ─ any legislative changes to the state’s Constitution have to first be approved by voters.

It’s likely that Represent South Dakota, a bipartisan group stemming from last year’s initiative, will have to go up against the Koch brothers for the second year in a row. In the fight for IM-22, the group’s national sponsor, Represent.Us, succeeded in fending off the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity, which contributed nearly $650,000 to defeat the bill.

Read more https://whowhatwhy.org/2017/05/24/fighting-koch-brothers-transparency-south-dakota/