Fighting Sioux Petitioners Will Postpone Their Measure Until December

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Written By:
Rob Port

Aug 7, 2012
12:02pm

The Fighting Sioux petitioners, backed by the Spirit Lake Sioux tribe, have announced that they won’t be submitting the petitions for their constitutional amendment to preserve the University of North Dakota’s former nickname. They point to the number of measures that will already be on the ballot in November and say that they don’t want their issue crowded out.

From their press release:

Supporters of an initiated measure to place the Fighting Sioux name in the North Dakota State Constitution will wait until December to submit their petition packets to Secretary of State Al Jaeger. The Spirit Lake Committee for Understanding and Respect and Fighting Sioux Ballot Measures Committee has until December 12, 2012 to turn in 27,000 signatures to get the initiated measure on the next statewide election ballot, which presumably will be in June of 2014.

Fighting Sioux supporters chose to wait in light of several other initiated measures being submitted for voter consideration on the Nov 2012 ballot. “Quite simply, we did not want our issue grouped in with several of the others which will be up in November; issues that were not apparent when we first started our efforts,” said Sean Johnson, a sponsoring committee members.

Both committees are also pursuing other supporting efforts in an attempt to ensure the University of North Dakota does not exterminate the traditions and heritage that accompanied the positive use of the Fighting Sioux name and symbol for over 80 years.

So far, pending approval by the Secretary of State, it appears as though a measure to protect farming rights, a measure to funnel oil money into environmental groups, a measure to expand the state’s smoking ban and a measure to allow the use of medicinal marijuana in the state will be on the November ballot along with some contentious statewide political races.

Perhaps a smart move for the Fighting Sioux folks to hold off.