Wisconsin invades South Dakota

How's that for a catchy headline? (Headline fundamentalists please chastise me in comments for false advertising...)

I've always had a thing for the great state of Wisconsin. Houdini, the Badgers, McCarthy, and his mirror image, the powerhouse of the early 20th Century Progressives, Fightin' Bob La Follette!

So I'm downright proud of the effort by Waukesha-based Basic Abortion-Rights Network to sponsor a referendum down in South Dakota to overturn the state's punitive and privacy-killing abortion ban.

According to the Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, "laws passed by the state Legislature can be put on statewide ballots for approval or rejection by voters if 16,728 signatures are collected within 90 days of adjournment of the legislative session when the bill was passed."

That means you have until mid-June to drive, bike, fly or crabwalk to South Dakota to help gather signatures. A word of caution though: as with the letters to Americans from the UK urging Ohioans to vote against Bush, campaigns like this can backfire if there's the perception that it's something being imposed from without (See: Dear Limey Assholes...). The campaign ought to have the backing of South Dakota-based groups for it to succeed...

UPDATE from a South Dakota commenter:

Please, STAY OUT!!

If there's anything that dooms an election or ballot initiative to failure in South Dakota, it's out-of-state involvement. The people behind this push obviously did not talk to anyone in South Dakota before they did this, or they would have known what a terrible disservice they were doing to us. They would also have found out that the pro-choice groups in our state have a strategy for fighting this and if we need any help, we'd ask for it.

So don't go patting yourselves on the back. All you've done is create a mess that we now have to clean up. Like this fight isn't hard enough...

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