第56届达科他年会, 4月25日至26日, 2024, invites presentations on issues relating to “The Political Plains” and on other topics about the history and cultures of 南达科塔州 and the Northern Plains.
2024 will be a consequential political year, punctuated by a wide range of “hot-button” issues both nationally and regionally, from parental rights and religious freedom to women’s health and voting restrictions.
2024 also marks several historic political anniversaries, notably the bicentennial of the collapse of the two-party system caused by the failure of any candidate to win a majority in the 1824 presidential election, which threw the outcome into the House of Representatives.
今天在北部平原, 一党专政盛行, from Democratic Minnesota to Republican Wyoming. 在不同的时期, 包括进步时代, the absence of a viable opposition party has led to factions within the party in power, often resulting in legislation not supported by the majority of citizens.
To remedy this, citizens in some states turn to ballot initiatives. At the geographical center of the Northern Plains, 南达科塔州, 它的州训是“在上帝之下”, 人民统治,” was the first state in the nation to adopt initiatives and referendums by popular vote. Several initiated measures and amendments have successfully challenged legislative decisions. Some have later been overturned by the legislature.
Tribal governments can also face special challenges from single-party legislatures. 在南达科他州东北部, the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate has indicated that it intends to ask the state legislature in 2024 to recognize the Lake Traverse Reservation, the first step in petitioning Congress to reestablish the treaty boundaries erased by the US Supreme Court in 1975.
显著, 2024 is the centennial of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States, though some states continue to maintain barriers to the voting rights of Indigenous peoples.
2024 also marks the centennial of the year the 南达科塔州 State Legislature recognized the failure of the Progressive Rural Credit program. With insufficient revenue to repay farm loans, the state enacted a gross receipts income tax on businesses, 然后是个人, and ultimately a state sales tax in 1935.
The 西方研究中心 is charged by its constitution “to serve as a study and research center concerned with problems of 南达科塔州 and the contiguous states,” which it does through its research programs and public events. The Center is a financial underwriter of the “Politics and Public Policy” Beat on 南达科塔州 Public Broadcasting.
