As opposed to letting it stand or fall on it's own merits, the nanny staters who took free choice away from business owners have decided to challenge the validity of the referral petitions:

Of about 25,400 signatures reviewed by the South Dakota Tobacco Free Kids Network, nearly 40 percent were found to be invalid, the group contends.

Read it here.  KELO land had something to say about it too. Too bad they were wrong:

Thursday was a historic day in South Dakota. For the first time a group is challenging a petition to put an issue on a statewide ballot. Supporters of a statewide smoke free law filed paperwork with the Secretary of State's office claiming opponents did not collect enough signatures to put a smoking ban on the 2010 ballot.

Read that here.  Sorry guys. You're wrong. It was tried back in the 1980's.  Petition invalidation has been tired before (my dad was hired as the investigative firm to break a ballot initiative petition) and let me tell you this - it is prohibitively expensive to try to prove. It can involve hundreds, if not thousands of hours of independent investigators reviewing each and every petition, and a ton of court time.

Back then, as it was fought out in court, because of the expense, the plaintiffs eventually gave up. (Dad thought they had the petition broken, but he wasn't paying the bills on it.)

It may be a new thing under the current law. But it certainly was done before.

And as difficult as it sounds, it appears as if the nanny staters are going to try to do it anyway.

My question - if they're so secure in their position, what are they scared of?

What are they scared of?