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I think the message I sent at the top of yesterday’s Digest for paid subscribers may have been a bit confusing, so for that I apologize!
Permit me to try again, only much simpler this time: If you’re receiving duplicates of our emails and would prefer not to, just reply to this email and we’ll get it resolved. Be sure to let me know what the address of your other email account is (the one getting duplicates).
Thank you so much!
David
P.S. If you missed it yesterday, I wanted to make sure you saw Daniel Donner’s new analysis of individual House race polling—the latest metric that also points to a building Democratic wave. This piece is available exclusively for paid subscribers like you.
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Morning Digest: The South Dakota GOP wants to roll back Medicaid expansion—and direct democracy
One amendment could shrink Medicaid eligibility. The other would make it harder to pass ballot initiatives.
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Leading Off
SD Ballot, ND Ballot
South Dakota Republicans are promoting a ballot measure that would endanger Medicaid expansion in the state, as well as a second proposal that would make it difficult for voters to reverse any changes to the program.
Amendment I, which the state’s GOP-dominated legislature placed on the ballot last year, would roll back expanded Medicaid eligibility if federal support for expansion—which voters approved in 2022—ever falls below 90% of its cost.
Republicans have said that passage of Amendment I wouldn’t automatically cost anyone their Medicaid benefits, a claim that opponents vociferously dispute.
State Sen. Casey Crabtree told his colleagues last year, “Really, what we need to do is make sure we’ve got the flexibility to negotiate terms, as well. If the voters go back and clarify they want us to have that flexibility, then, we’ll be able to adjust accordingly.”
The plan’s proponents, therefore, are unhappy with the measure’s official ballot summary, which tells voters that an affirmative vote “ends the expanded Medicaid coverage if the federal funding for expansion drops below 90%.” Should that threshold ever get breached, “Medicaid coverage will once again only apply to low-income children, pregnant women, disabled individuals, and the elderly.”
Another Republican, state Rep. Will Mortenson, argued to South Dakota Searchlight last month that this summary, also known as the ballot title, is “100% inaccurate,” saying the proposal “would absolutely not immediately remove Medicaid coverage for the expansion population.”
But GOP lawmakers aren’t just quarreling with Democrats. Their beef is with Attorney General Marty Jackley, a Republican who drafted the summary that his fellow party members are now complaining about.
“When you look at what the legislative proposal was that the title is based upon and the language is, it’s very straightforward of how this would occur,” Jackley, the GOP’s nominee for South Dakota’s lone U.S. House seat, explained to the Searchlight. “And again, the Legislature made that decision.”
Amendment I comes four years after South Dakotans voted 56-44 to approve an amendment expanding Medicaid, which healthcare advocates placed on the ballot after Republicans spent years refusing to enlarge eligibility under the Affordable Care Act. The state estimates that approximately 31,000 of South Dakota’s 143,000 Medicaid recipients are on the program because of the expansion.
Ever since the passage of the 2022 amendment, though, Republicans have sought to chip away at it. A GOP-backed amendment allowing lawmakers to impose work requirements on anyone who wants to benefit from the expansion also passed 56-44 in 2024. The state estimates that these new restrictions could impact about 1,200 people starting next year.
Expansion proponents are predicting far greater consequences should Republicans have their way this time.
“Supporters may try to frame Amendment I as a budget measure, but the reality is much simpler,” says Erik Gaikowski, the leader of the state’s branch of the AARP. Gaikowski warns that passage places the “health coverage for more than 30,000 South Dakotans at risk.”
Gaikowski’s organization is part of the “No on I” coalition, an alliance that also includes groups like the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.
There is no organized “yes” campaign, however. Republican Lt. Gov. Tony Venhuizen instead told KELOLAND News, “Amendment I is being promoted on a voluntary basis by those who want to protect the state from constitutionally mandated spending increases. There has not been any money raised or spent so no ballot question committee is required.”
Republicans are also hoping to cement Amendment I in place by asking voters to pass another amendment, called Amendment L. That plan would raise the threshold for passing amendments from a simple majority to 60%—rules that would have prevented Medicaid expansion from passing in 2022.
Republican lawmakers advanced this amendment in March of last year, just a month before their counterparts in North Dakota placed a similar proposal on the ballot in their state. North Dakota’s amendment, known as Constitutional Measure 1, would likewise require a 60% supermajority to pass future amendments. Both Amendment L and Constitutional Measure 1, however, need to win just a simple majority to go into effect.
Republican-led states across the country have long been hostile to direct democracy and have therefore spent years trying to weaken the ballot initiative process, which has allowed voters to adopt progressive reforms opposed by the GOP. But voters in conservative states, including both Dakotas, have overwhelmingly refused to go along.
North Dakota Republicans placed an amendment on the 2024 ballot that would have required all future citizen-initiated measures to win voter approval in both a June primary and the subsequent November general election. The plan, though, failed 56-44.
Their neighbors just to the south, meanwhile, have twice tried and failed to impose supermajority requirements on future ballot measures.
South Dakota Republicans suffered their first defeat in June of 2018 when an amendment that would have increased the threshold for future amendments to 55% failed 54-46.
But the threat of the Medicaid expansion in 2022 incentivized Republicans to place another amendment on the primary ballot that would have required 60% of the vote to amend the constitution. Voters, though, gave it the thumbs down 67-33 a few months before they approved the expansion.
“This is the third time in about eight years that our legislature has attempted to make it more difficult for citizens to use direct democracy methods,” Chase Jensen of Dakota Rural Action, a group that backed the Medicaid expansion four years ago, told Bolts this summer.
“The last two attempts both failed by wide margins, and so having a third attempt here is more than just annoying,” Jensen continued. “It feels disrespectful for the voters of South Dakota, who have already spoken very clearly.”
Governors
AL-Gov
The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday unanimously sided with a lower-court judge who dismissed a lawsuit this summer challenging Republican Tommy Tuberville’s eligibility to serve as governor.
Opponents of Tuberville, a member of the U.S. Senate, argue that he failed to reside in Alabama for the requisite seven years prior to Election Day as the state constitution requires for gubernatorial candidates. The state GOP’s executive committee, though, repeatedly rejected challenges to Tuberville’s eligibility.
The Supreme Court ruled that committee’s determination was enough, writing that “there is no statutory right to appeal a committee’s decision to the circuit court or to this court.”
Tuberville faces former Sen. Doug Jones, the Democrat he unseated in 2020, in the general election to replace termed-out GOP Gov. Kay Ivey. A September RMG Research survey for the conservative group Alabama Policy Action showed Tuberville ahead 50-37, but there’s been no other recent polling.
Poll Pile
All polls must comply with The Downballot’s requirements.
NC-Sen: Change Research for Carolina Forward:
Roy Cooper (D): 50, Michael Whatley (R): 40, all others 2% or less.
Aug.: 50-43 Cooper.
Carolina Forward is a progressive organization
NE-Sen: National Public Affairs:
Pete Ricketts (R-inc): 46, Dan Osborn (I): 43, other candidates 2% or less.
Ricketts (R-inc): 49, Osborn (I): 46.
National Public Affairs, a Republican firm, did not say if this survey was conducted for a client.
TX-Sen: ReconMR/Siena University:
James Talarico (D): 48, Ken Paxton (R): 44.
Sept.: 49-43 Talarico.
MN-Gov: Mason-Dixon for the Star Tribune/KARE 11:
Amy Klobuchar (D): 50, Lisa Demuth (R): 41.
NE-Gov: NPA:
Jim Pillen (R-inc): 44, Lynne Walz (D): 40, Brett Lindstrom (America First Party): 7, Rick Beard (Legal Marijuana NOW Party): 5.
TX-Gov: ReconMR/Siena:
Greg Abbott (R-inc): 48, Gina Hinojosa (D): 47.
Sept.: 49-45 Hinojosa.
TX-Gov: GBAO for Hinojosa:
Hinojosa (D): 47, Abbott (R-inc): 45, Pat Dixon (L): 4.
Aug.: 49-48 Abbott.
GA-07: 20/20 Insight for Tony Kozycki:
Kozycki (D): 47, Rich McCormick (R-inc): 45.
Aug.: 46-43 McCormick.
MN-01: SurveyUSA for KAAL:
Jake Johnson (D): 46, Brad Finstad (R-inc): 44.
NE-02: NPA:
Denise Powell (D): 50, Brinker Harding (R): 38, Eric Michael Foreman (L): 6.
NM-02: Research & Polling for the Albuquerque Journal:
Gabe Vasquez (D-inc): 48, Greg Cunningham (R): 44.
NC Supreme Court: Change Research for Carolina Forward:
Anita Earls (D-inc): 50, Sarah Stevens (R): 41.
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