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South Dakota Legislature passed HJR1001, referring constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage to voters

On February 14, 2005, the South Dakota Senate voted 20-15 to give final passage to House Joint Resolution 1001, completing the legislature's bicameral approval after the House passed it 53-16 on January 24, 2005. HJR1001, sponsored by Rep. Elizabeth Kraus and Sen. John Koskan, proposed a new amendment to Article XXI of the South Dakota Constitution restricting legal marriage to a man and a woman and referred it to voters at the next general election. South Dakota voters approved the resulting measure, Amendment C, on November 7, 2006.

Jurisdiction
South Dakota
Location
Pierre, South Dakota

Abuses documented

Actors

  • South Dakota House of Representatives
  • South Dakota Senate
  • Elizabeth Kraus (South Dakota State Representative)
  • John Koskan (South Dakota State Senator)

On February 14, 2005, the South Dakota Senate voted 20-15 to give final passage to House Joint Resolution 1001 (HJR1001), completing the legislature's referral of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage to the state's voters. The House had passed the measure 53-16 on January 24, 2005; its prime sponsors were Rep. Elizabeth Kraus in the House and Sen. John Koskan in the Senate. HJR1001 proposed adding a new section to Article XXI of the South Dakota Constitution providing that only marriage between a man and a woman would be valid or recognized in the state, and that civil unions, domestic partnerships, or other quasi-marital relationships would not be recognized.

Because the resolution amended the state constitution, it required no gubernatorial signature — legislative passage alone referred it to the ballot.

Updates

2006-11-07 — South Dakota voters ratified Amendment C [2]

South Dakota voters approved Amendment C on November 7, 2006, by roughly 52 percent, enshrining the marriage restriction in the state constitution.

2015-06-26 — Obergefell v. Hodges superseded South Dakota's same-sex marriage ban [3]

The U.S. Supreme Court held in Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015), that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry under the Fourteenth Amendment, rendering state marriage bans including South Dakota's Amendment C unenforceable.

Why we recorded this

Equal protection under the law is a foundational democratic norm: government policy should not assign people different legal status based on who they are. South Dakota's legislature referred a constitutional amendment restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples, writing facially discriminatory treatment of same-sex couples into the state's founding charter. Voters ratified the measure as Amendment C in 2006, and it stood as state law until the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling required states to recognize same-sex marriage nationwide. This archive records government action that discriminates based on sexual orientation, regardless of whether it was later superseded.

Sources

  1. HJR 1001 - House Joint Resolution No. 1001 (2005) — South Dakota Legislature (archived via Internet Archive Wayback Machine) primary accessed July 20, 2026
  2. 2006 South Dakota Amendment C — Wikipedia secondary accessed July 20, 2026
  3. Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015) — Justia primary accessed July 26, 2026

See also