PIERRE, S.D. (MITCHELL NOW) Week 7 in the state legislature has come and gone just as quick as last week. Crossover Day happened and similar to last year, there wasn’t nearly as many bills introduced, so it wasn’t quite the extravaganza as years past. The House even adjourned before the Senate, which I’m told almost never happens. Crossover Day was the final day for bills to crossover from their chamber of origin. House bills will need to be sent over to the Senate and vice versa. If a bill fails to crossover to the other chamber by Crossover Day then the bill dies. As the final weeks are upon us, I just want to remind everyone that the www.sdlegislature.gov website is a great website for following all the bills, committees, and more.
We had a few Senate bills in House Transportation; one that would extend rural infrastructure grant money to counties for another year, and one regarding flying drones. I believe we only have one upcoming Senate bill for House Transportation for the upcoming week.
Commerce and Energy still has a fair amount of bills coming through. The first one was to allow for additional off-sale liquor licenses for Deadwood. The reason that’s important to Deadwood is because these licenses are issued to cities based on population. Deadwood only has a population of only approximately 1,500 people but they have over 4 million guests. This will allow a few additional off-sale liquor licenses that can be places in hotels so people don’t have to drive across town to the municipal liquor store. I voted for it because Deadwood has a multiple exceptions since it is a major tourist attraction in South Dakota. We also had a bill that would allow people to do their own electrical wiring even if they don’t have an electrical license. It passed, but I voted against because of the risk to property and safety since if someone wires something wrong it can start a fire. I spoke with several electricians before casting this vote and they all agreed.
The full House chamber heard several bills. HB 1244 is a bill to address a problem pertaining to certain organization gathering signatures trying to get abortion put on the ballot. There have been cases where the people gathering signatures for the petitions have been caught misleading people into believing they were signing a pro-life petition but they really had them signing an abortion petition. This bill would allow for a process for the folks that were misled to have their signatures removed from the petition. I voted for it because I don’t think people should be misleading folks in an effort to legalize abortion. HB 1255 was an attempt to give property tax exempt status to churches for up to two years on property they own before the construction is complete on new buildings. I voted for this to extend tax exempt status for churches to buildings they are in the process of building; unfortunately failed by only a couple votes. HB 1098 and HB 1131 were similar as one was to give free birth certificates and drivers licenses to people in homeless shelters. These two bills seemed alright at face value, however, I voted against them because the issue the that came to light was that illegal immigrants could use this as a loophole to get a legitimate ID if they stayed the night in a homeless shelter. HB 1048 was the bill to increase pay to teachers. I voted for it because it would help increase teacher pay. Some school districts did reach out to me with concerns about limiting their ability to increase pay to staff that aren’t teachers, not just administration; however, those districts also explained that they routinely exceed the teacher pay increase that this bill would require. I think everyone is trying to do the best they can with what they have. Speaking of education, we also had HB 1213, that I voted for, it would create a center for civic engagement that would offer supplemental educational curriculum that strives to teach Pro-American civics lessons, it also passed. We also had HB 1257 that would require age verification for adult websites so minors aren’t accessing adult content on the internet, and I absolutely voted for this bill because I believe in protecting the children in our state. HB 1057 was the bill that would create a state public defenders office. I voted for it because even though it will cost the state some money, it will save the counties more than it will cost the state. SB 42 was to monitor the number of times someone can receive medical marijuana, just like Sudafed, and I voted for it at well.
We only have two weeks left in this legislative session. I like hearing from everyone, so please keep emailing me about bills. My email address is Ben.Krohmer@sdlegislature.gov.