Going to crackerbarrel today? Here some bills coming up for votes and questions about them that you may wish to pose to your legislators:
HB 1184: regulating private CAFO sewer lines like phone and power lines:
- Why should private animal waste disposal pipes posing severe environmental hazards to adjacent landowners be regulated like far less hazardous utility lines that serve the general public?
HB 1201: Mickelson bill requiring that we print on the ballot the name, county of residence, and amount paid to each ballot question’s sponsor:
- Will this provision make the ballot too cluttered and discourage people from voting on ballot measures?
- Why do voters need to know this specific information in the voting booth?
- If voters need to know this information about sponsors of ballot questions, shouldn’t the ballot also give them information about the big-money opponents of ballot measures?
- Would you support an amendment expanding this bill to require that we print on the ballots the names, counties of residence, and donations of the biggest PACs and businesses supporting each candidate for public office?
HB 1216: limiting the amount Minnesotans and other neighbors can contribute to South Dakota ballot question committees:
- Explain how this law will withstand the inevitable court challenge on First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds.
- Which is preferable: this cap or Mark Mickelson’s complete ban on out-of-state contributions to ballot question committees (IM 24)?
- Would you support an amendment to HB 1216 that would include limits or bans on out-of-state contributions to South Dakota candidates?
HB 1230: promoting texting while driving from a secondary to a primary offense:
- Should police pull drivers over solely for texting while driving?
HB 1304: Mickelson’s strange amendment to the process for challenging petitions (and note that since I blogged about it last week, House State Affairs has struck the provision that would have made the Secretary of State’s office pay half the legal costs incurred by successful petition challengers):
- Why does this bill exist?
- Why does it have an emergency clause? What “emergency” exists right now that requires changing petition-challenge law immediately?
HB 1286: easing ballot access laws for alternative parties:
- Do you support allowing new political parties to form after the primary election and nominate their own candidates for the November ballot?
- Do you support allowing “alternative” parties to nominate all of their candidates at convention in the summer instead of making their candidates for Congress, Governor, and Legislature file to run in the primary by the end of March?
SB 83: requiring public schools to set aside time for certain private organizations to speak to students:
- Why should the Legislature order public schools to surrender instructional time to dozens of private organizations to conduct their programs on school time?
SB 125: clarifying that the Government Operations and Audit Committee really does have subpoena power:
- If the state state has contracts with private contractors who appear to be involved in corrupt activities, the Legislature really should be able to demand that those private contractors come testify about what they did while working for the state, right?
House Education Committee Monday:
HB 1256: allowing parents to delay sending their kids to kindergarten until age seven or eight:
- Is it good educational practice to create kindergartens where children will range from age 5 to age 9?
- Will it be harmful to the high school environment to have more adult students age 18, 19, and 20 attending with minors?
- What impact would this measure have on state aid to schools?
HB 1259: removing authority of party conventions to nominate attorney general, secretary of state, and other statewide candidates.
- Won’t HB 1259 make South Dakota’s ballot access laws even more unconstitutional and provoke a legal challenge from smaller political parties?
- Will removing this nomination power weaken political parties by making their conventions more pointless?
SJR 5: placing on the November ballot a constitutional amendment to cap increases in state general fund spending by (1) state population growth plus inflation, (2) state personal income growth, or (3) state GDP growth, whichever is least:
- Why do we need an artificial spending cap if state government is controlled by fiscally conservative legislators and has balanced its budget every year?
- Wouldn’t this budget cap make it impossible for the state to respond to immediate budget needs?
There’s much more on the agenda in Pierre; your fellow South Dakotans welcome your questions in the comment section below and at your local crackerbarrel!
Regarding HB 1216, it was my impression that Rep. Turbiville was for unlimited out-of-state spending. Sen. Ewing was in favor of limitations. I thought Rep. Johns had a reasonable take on the issue. Limit contributions for constitutional amendments only (could’ve helped with Marsy’s Law).
That’s odd, Ben: Judge Johns appears to have the constitutional perspective backwards. Right now, SD law allows unlimited contributions by anyone to ballot measures and only limits contributions to candidates in keeping with previous court decisions that have held on First Amendment grounds that states can’t limit money/speech (remember, the two are identical in the court’s eyes when we talk about campaigns) unless they demonstrate some compelling overriding interest. The courts have accepted limits on contributions to candidates on the argument that the state has a compelling interest in preventing corruption, and unlimited contributions to candidates can corrupt those candidates or essentially buy an elected office. The courts have not supported limits on contributions to ballot question committees, because there is no candidate or public office to corrupt; we’re voting on a law. HB 1216 supporters can’t appeal to that justification used for limits on contributions to candidates, so they’ll need to plow new constitutional ground.
To make matters worse, HB 1216 runs afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment by discriminating against individuals by state of origin. We have no such restrictions on candidate contributions—Minnesotans can donate as much to Mickelson as can South Dakotans. If HB 1216’s concern is integrity of South Dakota politics and preventing out-of-state influence, HB 1216 should be more immediately concerned about outside influence on candidates rather than on individual ballot measures.
HB 1216 supporters thus have a complicated and, it seems, new constitutional argument to make.
That was how i interpreted their remarks anyways. Johns seemed to be saying he didn’t think the constitution should be able to change easily. So to prevent an outside interest with a lot of money from buying up air time. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t pose a constitutional problem.
Judge Johns is smarter than most voters and bloggers. That’s why he was a judge. He seems a pretty swell fellow.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but having 19 and 20 year old kids attending high school probably won ‘t set too well with non-custodial parents paying extra years of child support. Plus In iowa the courts can make the non-custodial parent pay college expenses as well.
This isn’t Iowa, Mr. Mike, but good golly here in SD we really try to get our kids through high school well before they are 20. Did you attend some of the Cracker Barrel Food and Speaching in Sioux Falls, Mr. mike?
Re 1216: there are many ways to get around it. The mining companies were foreign and that didn’t stop them from pouring money in against our initiatives. I’ve thought of several ways to legally launder money to get around it. I mean G. Markey figured out a way to launder out of state money into his stupid initiative.
Mr. Pay, we don’t want Wisconsin money coming into South Dakota to influence our elections. If you can’t vote here, you can’t contribute.
Don’t worry, Grudz. I don’t have the kind of money that could influence an election, and my philosophy is exactly the same as yours on out-of-state money. We had to battle out-of-state money in every initiative or referendum we brought forward. We never liked it, but, the Supreme Court says you can’t stop it. The nuclear waste folks out-spent us by 20 times, nearly all of it from out-of-state. The mining money was mostly from Australian and Canadian firms, laundered through subsidiaries. The dump fight was money from Texas and Colorado laundered through Burlington Northern and SDDS. I’d love it if you could get rid of that money, but even if you could overcome stare decisis, there are a lot of ways to make all that out-of-state money look like it’s coming from some South Dakota interests. G. Marky found a way to hide the out-of-state money he used.
Grunge- did you bother to read the article? No, I guess you didn’t. 7 year old kindergartners equals 19 year old or older seniors in high school. It is called math, Grunge. Try it some time.
Hang on, Mike: start kindergarten at age 7, turn 8 in November, count out the years… kid will be 20 at HS graduation.
As for HB 1216, yes, expect Rod Aycox, Henry T. Nicholas, and the Koch Brothers to all discover cousins in South Dakota… or just form PACs and shadow corporations. HB 1216 makes it harder for the grassroots to enlist supporters abroad while leaving loopholes more easily accessed by the very rich and powerful forces whom Mickelson pretends he’s trying to curb.
Indeed, Mr. mike. Math, but not Iowa math.