PIERRE, S.D. (MITCHELLNOW) A hog-housed House bill causes an uproar in the legislature on Tuesday.
HB1140 started out as a “zombie” or vehicle bill to be used at the end of the session if needed.
On Monday, the Senate amended the bill, which now would allow cities and counties to not put citizen-initiated measures on the ballot if the governing body believes the measure violates state or federal law.
The hog house is apparently aimed at petition drives in counties that would require them to hand count ballots.
The bill passed the Senate 27 to 6 without a hearing and then went to the House, also without first having a committee hearing. Hog housing or amending vehicle bills can circumvent the normal committee process under legislative rules.
Nearly all legislation goes through committee hearings with public testimony before going to the floor of the House or Senate.
Opponents said the bill was not just a bad idea but was part of a bad process.
Republican Rep. Jon Hansen from Dell Rapids attempted to prevent the House from concurring in the Senate’s changes and not appointing a conference committee.
“I don’t think that’s right,” Hansen argued. “I don’t think that’s how we should treat the people of this state in all of these counties where they’re trying to bring initiated measures.”
Hansen said it gives county officials a veto over citizen’s local initiatives. Further, he said a court can sever unlawful or unconstitutional portions of an initiated measure from the legal parts.
But Hansen wasn’t finished.
“Moreover, on the process of this bill, our process matters,” Hansen said. “And the people having a voice and a fair hearing in this building matters a great deal. But what we’ve done with this bill is we’ve taken a vehicle bill that we passed over to the Senate without a hearing on this, without a real floor discussion on that, and we’ve sent it over to the Senate.”
He said he didn’t know the original bill was going to be amended.
However, Republican Assistant Majority Leader Taylor Rehfeldt from Sioux Falls said the legislature should address the problem since it arose during the legislative session.
“What I think is the most important part to realize about this bill is that it came to us as a result of identifying a problem,” Rehfeldt said. “So, when you look at the examples on our desks of issues that we’re going to have as a result of a process that we currently have in our state that we’re allowing, we have the option to fix it because we’re in session. If we were outside of session, we may not be able to fix it, but here we are.”
Republican Rep. Roger Chase from Huron agreed with Rehfeldt.
“We trust our county commissioners, we trust our city officials,” Chase said. Why would we tie their hands if they know that something is being brought that could, unfortunately, have bad consequences on the city or on the county? If this gets passed (motion to not concur and not appoint a conference committee), we tie their hands. This is good legislation that came about at the last moment.”
Republican Rep. Scott Odenbach from Spearfish said the bill was a “backlash” against the local hand-counting movement.
“Well, the problem that’s been identified is a bunch of grassroots activists who are concerned about our voting system got a little bit too successful and now there’s been a backlash,” Odenbach said. “Those are the facts of what’s happened here today, and they did a backlash with a hog house vehicle bill that very, very few of us in here would have ever voted for if we knew what was going to happen. That’s a fact.”
Hansen’s motion to not concur and to not appoint a conference committee failed on a rare tie–35 to 35.
After the motion to not concur and not have a conference committee failed on the tie vote, Republican Majority Leader Will Mortenson from Fort Pierre moved not to concur but to appoint a conference committee. That motion passed 38 to 32.
House conferees are Republican Representatives Rebecca Reimer from Chamberlain, Chase, and Sue Peterson from Sioux Falls.