Today is the deadline for all Legislative committees to move bills to the House and Senate floors. Assuming a quorum made it back to Pierre ahead of the ice and snow, here are some of the bills before committee today that are worth an Aye:
- Senate Bill 79 would allow independent voters to sign any candidate’s petition. This bill makes it easier for independents to run for office and participate in the petition process. (House State Affairs, 7:45 a.m.)
- House Bill 1311 would peg legislators’ salaries to one-fifth of the median household income in South Dakota. It would not raise pay for our current legislators; the folks we elect this November would get about $4,200 more starting in the 2019 Session and see that salary adjusted annually. HB 1311 raises Legislative pay for the first time since 1998 and makes it economically feasible for more South Dakotans to serve in Pierre. (Senate State Affairs, 10:00 a.m.)
- House Bill 1286 would allow any candidate to get nominating petition signatures from any voter, regardless of party affiliation. It also extends the deadline for independent and alternative party candidates to petition their way onto the ballot to July 1. That date change allows independents and third parties to field candidates in response to the primary results. HB 1286 isn’t perfect in its amended form, and the Legislature has to go further to fix the unconstitutional burdens on ballot access identified by Judge Piersol last month, but HB 1286 is worth passing. (Senate State Affairs, 10:00 a.m.)
- House Bill 1308 doubles the chunk of the hooch tax that goes to counties and cuts in half the state’s keep. HB 1308 isn’t the moneymaker that it was before House Taxation hoghoused it down to a mere revenue shift, but it will help counties pay for the crime and chaos wrought by boozehounds (Senate Appropriations, 11:00 a.m.)
Four bills worth rooting for on this last committee day—stay tuned for rundowns of good stuff already on the floor and in conference committee, as well as the turkeys we still need to kill!
I don’t see any benefit to HB 1311, the more-pay-for-corruption bill. The 1990s pay hike was deserved, because, despite major flubs on issues, they actually did listen to people. They made some steps forward on a number of issues. It helped that the Legislature had a more even split for many of those years. They also had a legislative calendar that didn’t provide them with mini-vacations. How many folks do you know get to work a four-day week?
Generally, merit-based pay systems, where you pit workers against each other, don’t benefit the work place. However, setting reasonable goals for the organization (in this case the Legislature) and meeting those goals constitutes a reason for pay increases. You can’t look at the last few years of legislative stupidity, and tell me they should be rewarded for that. Look at the ballot question interim committee’s work. They spent a lot of time and resources on that and came up with diddly squat worth passing. Look at the teacher pay raises. Yeah, they did something, but reneged in a couple years. And those failures are typical.
Another reason to raise pay would be to attract a better type of person to the Legislature. I’m not sure an increase in pay would solve that problem. As soon as the pay was raised in the 1990s, we started seeing more, not less, corruption. So, how about this: start clean. None of the folks currently serving can run again. If we could be assured that corrupt and incompetent people, eg., G. Marky, wouldn’t run so they could feather their own nests, then, yeah, raise the damn salary, and see how it works. But you have to pull the bandage of ineptness and corruption off first.