Rapid City lawyer and writer David Ganje wryly imagines a conversation between himself and state government to depict Pierre’s arrogant resistance to public participation in state affairs:
Ganje: Do you keep records and statistics on citizen proposals concerning existing regulations and new rules?
Government: We have no general clearinghouse for such matters. We do give public notice on matters and receive suggestions from the public but citizen proposals are commonly not worth the reading. Citizen input is for town halls, not for important state government concerns [David Ganje, “A Conversation Between Mr. Ganje and South Dakota,” Tri-State Livestock News, 2018.07.24].
That sounds familiar….
Yeah, there never was a central clearinghouse for this. It’s one thing the state could do to make government user friendly, but there is probably turf issues or laws that would have to be made condusive to this sort of thing.
Our groups were always watchdogging the agencies and citizens boards, so we knew when stuff was coming up. If you don’t have the time to do that you can be placed on several mailing lists or watch one of several newspapers’ for public notices.
We always commented in writing on rules and regs, but mostly you got the feeling that your comments meant little. If you show up at rulemaking hearings, you get a bit more respect shown to you comments, but respect and 50 cents won’t get you much of anything these days.
There is (or was) a statute that required the rulemakers to give reasons why they didn’t accept specific changes you suggest in draft rules, but you have to ask them specifically to give those reasons. We used that provision several times.
The legislature doesn’t need citizen input. They’ve got Chuckie, Davie and Buttina to tell them what to do.
There has always been a provision for citizens to petition for rulemaking. You propose a rule and they have to consider your proposal. We used this provision several times as well.
SDCL 1-26-13
Interesting statute, Donald! Curious: how much could we achieve through that rules petition process? I mean, what is there some limitation to what administrative rules can do?