Every now and then, my truly conservative District 3 legislators talk sense. Representative Dan Kaiser and rookie Rep. Drew Dennert both appear to agree with me that Senate Bill 176, the Governor’s effort to declare martial law at protest sites, is a bad idea. Rep. Kaiser, a policeman himself, told Saturday’s Aberdeen crackerbarrel crowd that SB 176 is an “overreaction” to the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline:
“In its current form, I’m not supporting the bill. I have a lot of concerns with this,” Kaiser said.
“One, it gives the governor executive authority to declare a safety zone on public and private property,” he said “So, if you own a farm or ranch and decide that you want to host a protest, the government can come in and say, ‘No, that’s a safety zone.’”
Kaiser said there are already criminal trespassing laws.
“One of my other concerns is if this is going to apply to tribal lands, which I hope not, because they are a sovereign country,” he said. “We don’t pass laws to affect Canada.”
Kaiser said the bill seems to be an overreaction to what happened along the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota [Shannon Marvel, “Cracker Barrel: Legislators Split on Control and Prosecution of Protestors,” Aberdeen American News, 2017.02.26].
Seizing farms and ranches that host protests, violating private property rights—hey! That’s what I wrote Friday!
Neither Kaiser nor Dennert appear alarmed at the potential for a tyrannical Governor to suppress dissent. Dennert does express concern about the executive branch intruding on the judicial branch:
“The judge can use discretion on whether you should go to jail or not go to jail. And this is saying that you should go to jail for at least 10 days,” Dennert said. “I think this bill could be amended to where it could be workable. I would be very skeptical of giving the executive branch any more authority than it has now” [Marvel, 2017.02.26].
Senator Al Novstrup voted for this abomination three times—once in committee, twice in the Senate. He told the crackerbarrel crowd that (Marvel’s words) “something needs to be done to ensure the state doesn’t foot a hefty protest bill”; however, SB 176 does nothing to address the cost of protests. Arguably, mobilizing law enforcement statewide to lock down a one-mile radius around a declared protest site could cost even more than simply carting off violent protestors who break existing laws.
SB 176 goes to House State Affairs next. Contact those legislators (who include the powerful Speaker Mickelson, as well as some Kaiserly conservatives like DiSanto, Heinemann, and Rhoden who might share Kaiser’s concerns about private property rights) and tell them to stop this executive power grab.
I also have my reservations about SB176.
It is too much power for too long for just one man.
Many of the laws are already in place.
I fully understand the intent, Often times these situations are fluid, and the Governor has to act quickly to prevent a small peaceful protest from becoming a large out of control riot. We seen what happen at the DAPL protests and are still getting reports about the clean up.
Let’s got back to August 2014, and the protests in Ferguson, MO, that turned into running riots.
I would say a couple of admendments are in order.
Al Novstrup isn’t using that big brain as he could. Think about it, Al. If your juvenile worker’s parents, teachers and local churches organize a protest picket line around your amusement venue to demand proper wages, decent working conditions and less late night work on holiday weekends a Governor could shut down your whole show. How’d that sit with the bottom line and the support you donate to Ron Branstner’s hate group?
I agree with you on the questioning of this. But on a similar note, how about mentioning why this law is even being discussed? Look at North Dakota. Protesters leave and have hurt an environmental impact area with garbage, human crap and more. Plus they caused injuries.
Protest all you want but follow the law. Otherwise govt officials get scared and want to protect the masses.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
MC, why amend? If protestors break the law, we can arrest, fine, and jail them under those laws. If protestors aren’t breaking the law, why create new laws to suppress their legal speech and assembly?
Steve, actually, no, we don’t have to look at what happened in North Dakota. SB 176 doesn’t look at that. SB 176 doesn’t provide any mechanism that lowers the cost of what happened in North Dakota. It seems to increase government power, which would be mobilized at increased government expense. SB 176 also provides no new funding for picking garbage… unless the plan is that the Governor would use his war powers to seize private assets to clean up that garbage.
Yes we do. This side is supposedly the beacon of environmental protection and they pissed that down their leg. It matters.
Doc Newquist- let me take a stab at the establishment clause and sort it out-wingnut fashion.
Congress can’t establish a religion, but, kristianity is already an established religion so that kristianity and only kristianity gets grandfathered in as THEE religion of ‘Murrica. Problem solved. :)
Steve P: In regards to your remark about the protectors causing injuries: One protector lost her arm, another lost vision in one eye, there are other protectors that were injured due to the force the police used. I have not heard of any injuries to the officers that were there. They were in full body armor, so how many of the officers that were there were injured, how badly? No one ever reported the police injuries, so how many of them were injured? As to this bill, it is a great way to steal more land using protestors as an excuse.
I’m mentioning the destruction of the land that they claim to be protecting. Where they were protesting is protected wildlife environment area. Yet it is now full of human waste, garbage etc from said protesters. Come on.
Today is the 44th anniversary of Wounded Knee ’73. As I reflect on the occupation and the subject of this post I am reminded of how former Governor Bill Janklow was itching to get in the foray and threatening state jurisdiction. Of course that was knocked down quickly since the state has no jurisdiction over the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
If tribal governments or tribal lands are threatened in anyway by this legislation the state is welcoming an immediate unwinnable lawsuit.
Daugaard seems to have Keystone XL in his scope with anticipated protests once construction starts.
Mr. H, I dare say if the scofflaws who are trespassing and destroying private property are tossed in the tank for more than 1 hour it takes to get a public defender and go back out and do it again to make another $250, why then it does reduce the cost of the environmental damage and terrorism done by the out-of-state professional protesters.
“Out-of-state professional protestors”? Grudz, that sounds like a boogeyman with no bearing on the basic constitutional question: why should we give the Governor the power to declare practical martial law, under which he could evict people invited by a landowner onto his own property and even evict the landowner himself?
Grudz, your invocation of “terrorism” is also irrelevant to SB 176. If anyone is really committing or even threatening terrorism, we already have SDCL Chapter 22-8 to bust them for felonies with far stiffer penalties that what SB 176 proposes. If they are causing real environmental damage, we can arrest and fine them under Title 34A. We don’t need to declare a protest site and the mile surrounding a war zone to prosecute real crimes.
Steve P, you appear to be responding to a different blog post. Either that, or you’re trying to turn this conversation into something other than discussion of the practical and constitutional merits of SB 176. As I note to Grudz, if people commit crimes like what you describe, we have laws under which they can be prosecuted. But if people are on private property, with the permission of the owner, what crime are they committing that justifies the radical police-state power created by SB 176?
That thing that calls itself grudz has failed time and again to provide any proof over paid protesters at NoDAPL or any other place for that matter.
He seems to just make up dollar amounts protesters get paid but can’t say conclusively who pays them. He’s just like Trump and has his own alternative facts and lies.
Mr. H’s retort to me at 17:33 confirms my answer to his question at 11:55. The SB #176 will save money by preventing the heinous trashing of our environment and cleanup and destruction of private property.
Grudzie … There are no more “paid out of state protestors” than there are hookers in Pierre. Something to think about when you’re in the basement with the lights out.
Now there are reports that the NoDAPL out-of-staters abandoned frostbitten puppies when they fled back out of North Dakota. Where are all the bleeding hearts for these fellows now that the truths just keep coming out? The bossturds…
Mr. Lansing, was that you who emailed my granddaughter the blue link to http://evilgopbastards.com/ with the urging to re-register?
Yes, it was. She told me things about you. Oh, my.
Tell your Representatives to vote NO on SB 176 because the fossil fuel industry doesn’t need protection from the people.
Definition of word protest; “a statement or action expressing the disapproval of or objection to something”
? I believe we should all be concerned
T, indeed, that’s another good example of how the vague language of SB 176 poses a threat to everyone’s Constitutional rights.
Grudz, you completely misrepresent by comment. Nothing I say supports your baseless contention that SB176 saves the state money. SB 176 empowers the Governor to create more costly “public safety zones” where his spending authority (augmented by his ability to confiscate property) is unchecked by normal budget constraints.
If this statement is true, we must condemn all media in South Dakota, including this one, for reporting almost NONE of it. WE sent SDHP to help in ND, will we be named in the lawsuits for personal injury and violations of Constitutional Rights?
From comments about “safety zones” in the RCJ:
To the Editor:
It’s very frightening when militarized police forces are used as tools of the oil industries. All the S. D. Governor has to do is declare contested areas as Safe Zones, then start arresting peaceful protesters. If you look at what Morton County deputies were wearing in August, 2016, at the beginning of Standing Rock protests against the DAPL pipeline, they were wearing regular uniforms, badges, name tags. Some had batons. It changed in October when Dakota Access brought in hired mercenaries and guard dogs, when unarmed people were attacked, sprayed with pepper spray for the first time. Now civil law enforcement look like SWAT teams, armed with semi-auto rifles, shields, helmets, masks, no identification badges or name tags, driving Humvees, and tank-like vehicles with sound cannons, etc., pulling praying men out of a sweat lodge, spraying people with water in below freezing temperatures, shooting rubber bullets etc. at point-blank range, strip searching prisoners, housing them in dog cages in unheated garages on cold concrete floors, transporting prisoners clad only in prison jumpsuits in vehicles with the windows rolled down and the air conditioning running, from Fargo to Bismarck. Who does these kinds of things? Who gives orders to violate civil rights and due process? Who allows industry to plow under sacred, religious sites, and burial grounds? Who gave the command for law enforcement to urinate and empty their bowels on sacred objects, then scoop them into dumpsters to be piled along the roadway? Why did the DAPL employee who took a loaded rifle to the protest on the bridge get away with not being arrested? Why was the daughter of a Protest leader pulled from the back seat of a car, arrested, stripped searched in front of male officers,, then kept naked in a cell until the next morning? All the state needs to do is hire infiltrators to push protesters into police lines, and the arrests begin. The power is in the hands of the state. Journalists rights are also being violated when they try to report the truth. The government doesn’t get to pick and choose what parts of the Constitution they get to use or get to ignore. It’s all one package.
(Comment attributed to Janice Mitich)