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South Dakota Republicans are on the verge of doing something that backfired spectacularly for congressional Republicans earlier this year: Getting rid of an independent ethics commission.

What is a politically tricky endeavor for any lawmaking body could beeven more precarious for the state's lawmakers, given that the commission they want to cut was approved by51 percent of voters in a ballot initiative this November. The independent commission was part of a larger voter-approved ethics reform package thatput limits on campaign finance and lobbying access.

State lawmakers metMonday to debate repeal of the entire law, and Republican leaders say the bill could be on the governor's desk by the end of the week. Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R) has indicated he would sign a repeal. In his December budget address, he lambasted the ethics package, declaringthat voters were hoodwinked by scam artists who grossly misrepresented these proposed measures.

As Daugaard's rhetoric suggests,Republican opposition to the voter-approved ethics package has been fierce.

Days after the election, 25 GOP lawmakers and a conservative lobbying group challenged the law in court, declaring that voters were tricked into supporting something that could be unconstitutional, for a variety of reasons. A South Dakota judge subsequently paused it from going into effect. Though the judge said some parts of the law could be saved, GOP lawmakers decided it was better to start from scratch.

It would only stand to reason from that logic that we repeal it in its entirety, said state Rep. Larry Rhoden, one of the Republicans leading the repeal effort.

Rhoden said lawmakers are considering other ethics reform legislation and added there was no rush to do something: We are pretty squeaky clean, and I can say that with a great deal of pride in South Dakota; the ethics among the people that serve the state in the legislature, I would call impeccable.

Lawmakers are also debating a bill that would double the required signatures to get an initiative on the ballot in South Dakota.

Democrats and progressive groups in South Dakota don't see it that way. They are accusing Republicans of picking apart the law to get out of having an independent ethics commission look over their shoulders.

Support for the anti-corruption act was wildly nonpartisan, said Doug Kronaizl, a spokesman with the grass-roots group Represent South Dakota, which advocated for the ethics package. He pointed out that no ballot initiative in South Dakota can pass without Republican support, because there simply aren't enough Democrats in the state. (Out-of-state money on both sides poured into the referendum.) At least two former Republican state senators campaigned for the reform package. It's troubling when legislators tell us we were 'hoodwinked' or don't know what we were voting for.

Did I agree with everything in Initiative Measure 22? said state Senate Minority Leader Billie Sutton (D). Probably not, but I think it's our job to respect the will of the voters and to fix pieces that may be considered unconstitutional.

The nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity recently ranked South Dakota 47th in the nation for accountability, largely because of its lax lobbying laws. Little to none of [state legislative and lobbyist interaction] is reported to the public in any detail, the report said.

Proponents of the ethics commission say South Dakota has earned its F rating on integrity. The state has been wracked by two major ethics scandals in the past two years: Investigations into misuse of the federal green card program for wealthy immigrant investors and the theft by a private company of more than $1 million of federal grant money to help Native Americans get ready for college.

As a grim aside, people implicated in both scandals either committed suicide or murder or both.

Republicans counter that this new ethics commission would not have been able to stop those scandals because they involved misuse of federal, not state, funds.

The whole saga has echoes of what happened three weeks ago in Washington.

On the eve of Congress's first day back insession in 2017, Republicans in control of the House of Representatives pushed a provision that would have gutted an independent ethics officethat investigates them. Republicansabruptly dropped the planafter public backlash from their constituencies and two tsk-tsk tweets from then-President-elect Donald Trump.

In South Dakota, the battle is largely along partisan lines. More than two-thirds of Republican lawmakers have signed onto the repeal effort; not one Democrat has. (That may also be a function of just how small the Democratic Party is in South Dakota: There are 16 Democrats in the entire 105-person legislature.)

All thatproponents of the ethics law can do is watch Republicans undo it and try to point out what, from their vantage point, looks like irony. More than a century ago, South Dakota was the first state in the nation to create a referendum process as a check on its legislature.

This isn't the first time South Dakota lawmakers have tried to change a voter-approved ballot initiative. In 2014, voters passed a ballot measure increasing the minimum wage; GOP lawmakers again claimed voters didn't realize what they had done and passed legislation excluding anyone under 18 from the paycheck boost.

Minimum-wage advocates successfullygot a referendum on November's ballot to override the legislature's changes to the law. That referendum passed by 71 percent, and the minimum wage went back up to $8.50 an hour for all workers.

We think it's pretty clear that the voters don't like when the legislature comes in and messes with our laws, Kronaizl said.

Advocates won't get a second chance to reinstate theirethics package. Lawmakers are considering the repealunder a protection known as state of emergency, which effectively prohibits a referendum on it.

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South Dakota Republicans are about to get rid of the state's first independent ethics commission - Washington Post