Last updated on 2019-01-14
Rookie Representative Kaleb Weis (R-2/Aberdeen) got stuck on House Commerce and Energy and has to sit through four bills tomorrow morning. Poor guy. At least that committee doesn’t meet until 10:00 a.m.; that’ll give Kaleb a chance to sleep in, then maybe review the bills before he slinks into his chair:
House Bill 1002 expands background checks to include any employee conducting inspections for the Department of Public Safety. If Representative Weis is the good conservative he says he is, he’ll jump on this bill and ask why the state is interfering with the free market so darned many inspections in the first place. Restaurants, farms and ranches, daycares, meters and scales, fuel pumps… all more heavy hand of government weighing down entrepreneurship! Forget background checks on inspectors; Representative Weis should hoghouse HB 1002 into a task force to check the backgrounds of all these inspections!
House Bill 1009 has 7,568 words. Rep. Weis shouldn’t have to sift through 28 pages of strikes and insertions. Too long! cries the true Trumpist. If we’re going to cut waste in government, we’ve got to print shorter bills! Kill HB 1009 now!
As if that’s not enough, HB 1009 writes the Affordable Care Act further into state law, aligning the definition of state employees eligible for benefits with the ACA definition. More ObamaCare?! You’ll want to vote that one down on principle, Kaleb.
On top of all that, HB 1009 would add this definition of “spouse” for state employees:
“Spouse,” an employee’s husband or wife as a result of marriage that is legally recognized in this state or under the laws of the state where the marriage occurred. The term does not include a spouse as a result of a common-law marriage;… [HB 1009, Section 1, as posted 2019.01.06].
Uh oh! That sounds like one of those measures that Kaleb said last spring is causing us to see “the very core values of our families being eroded.” Clearly, HB 1009 must die!
Other than that, HB 1009 just updates and rewords a lot of Human Resources statutes. No harm, really… but… gay marriage! ObamaCare! Words, words, words! Kill it, Kaleb!
House Bill 1030 poses no such dire threat to the fabric of Weis’s straight Christian America. HB 1030 would simply let the Office of School and Public Lands auction mineral leases over the Internet. Anything that can hasten the private exploitation of public resources should be A.O.K. with a conservative like Rep. Weis.
House Bill 1031 is a tougher call. HB 1031 would authorize the Office of School and Public Lands to authorize easements and leases for solar and wind power projects. Every penny the state can make selling leases helps Rep. Weis protect his Dear Leader from having to raise taxes. But solar panels and wind turbines are the tip of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s socialist spear. Good conservatives recognize we can’t have government helping along any competition to the fossil fuel industry until we’ve burned every drop of oil and crumb of coal.
Hoghouse, Nay, Aye, and Nay: there, Kaleb’s conservative morning is covered.
HB 1031 should be a no-brainer – except for Luddites.
Now that power production from wind and solar is less expensive than from fossil fuels.
Black Hills Power, employing stilted language, acknowledges as much, bowing to shareholders wrath that the utility reduce costs. It announced a large investment in wind power in WY, with half of the service beneficiary being in South Dakota.
https://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/black-hills-energy-says-wind-farm-a-response-to-customers/article_7b6ff33e-d38e-5364-bb3e-99f5b4d9e106.html
Windy South Dakota was loathe to encourage wind, solar (we used to be the Sunshine State recall), and geothermal. It was wrong then and wrong then and wrong now to not use these resources.
Thanks for the Monday run down of the hearings.
I noticed that none of the conservative reasoning includes benefitting the citizens of SD. Typical of the Wrong.
I cannot believe the residents of D2 put him in office….I shake my head
Scorecard from today’s House Commerce and Energy Committee hearing: all four bills passed, first three unanimously, HB 1031 12–1, with Rep. Spencer Gosch (R-23/Glenham) casting the only nay. Gosch must not have gotten the memo from Black Hills Power.
Showing his ignorance, Rep. Weis asked if HB 1031 would affect local control. Commissioner Brunner explained that the Office of School and Public Lands controls state land, not local land.