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Crackerbarrel Brief: Quiz Your Legislators on Nursing Homes, State Money for Church Schools, PUC Participation….

By Cory Allen Heidelberger on 2019-03-02

Aberdeen gets its third and final crackerbarrel this morning (10 a.m., Northern State University Student Union). As our legislators head for the last seven days of the 2019 Session (not counting Veto Day), here are some questions we may wish to pose to our elected representatives:

  1. House Bill 1060 (dead) and Senate Bill 158 (dead): Now that you’ve killed the only two bills that offered increased funding for nursing homes, what solutions do you have left for the nursing home crisis? Thoughts and prayers?
  2. SB 96 (House calendar Monday, 2 p.m.): When we can’t afford to spend more on nursing homes, how can we afford to spend more on private schools by expanding the stealth-voucher tax breaks?
  3. SB 175 (House calendar Monday, 2 p.m.): Would the $1,845,000 this bill emergency-appropriates for the Ellsworth Development Authority be better spent increasing funding for nursing homes?
  4. SB 15 (House State Affairs hearing Monday, 10 a.m.): Why does this bill take away the right of South Dakota grassroots groups to participate in Public Utilities Commission hearings on energy facilities?
  5. HB 1094 (Senate calendar Monday, 2 p.m.): Why is it necessary to force South Dakotans who volunteer to circulate ballot question petitions to submit their name, physical address of current residence, email address, phone number, and occupation to a public state database? If it is necessary, why does the state not impose the same requirement on individuals circulating candidate petitions?
  6. HB 1066 (Senate calendar Monday, 2 p.m.):
    1. Why should a civics test be the single test the state requires students to take to get a high school diploma?
    2. What learning outcomes will a state-mandated civics test achieve that are not currently being measured and met in our high school curriculum?
    3. Will support an amendment to require the Governor, other statewide elected officials, and all members of the Legislature to take the civics test, publish the results, and set their average score as the benchmark score students must achieve  to graduate?
  7. HB 1191 and HB 1212 (Senate calendar Monday, 2 p.m.): If these two hemp authorization bills pass the Senate, and if Governor Noem acts on her public opposition to hemp authorization and vetoes these bills, will you vote to override those vetoes?
  8. SB 59 (House calendar Monday, 2 p.m.): If prohibiting the state and political subdivisions from entering into confidential settlements is a good idea, why exempt the South Dakota Investment Council and the South Dakota Retirement System from that prohibition on secret settlements?
  9. SB 115 (House calendar Monday, 2 p.m.):
    1. Why allow civilians to carry concealed firearms in the Capitol when unarmed civilians are more likely to stop crime than armed civilians?
    2. (Referring back to HB 1094): Why would you require a petition circulators and lobbyists to wear badges but not people carrying concealed weapons in the Capitol?
    3. What are the legislators backing this bill so afraid of?
  10. SB 86 (House State Affairs Monday, 7:45 a.m.): Do you support directing new sales tax revenue to reduce the tax on food?

A crackerbarrel that can get through all ten of these topics will be greatly informative, but there are dozens of of other bills still alive that are worth quizzing your legislators on this weekend. Get out and speak up!

Published in South Dakota

6 Comments

  1. grudznick 2019-03-02 09:54

    The rest of the legislatures meetings are all scripted out. Asking Mr. Novstrup, the elder, to vote whatever way you want is a waste of time this late. All remaining steps are predetermined by the puppet masters in the back rooms.

  2. Porter Lansing 2019-03-02 10:07

    Stop funding private schools! All you get for the money is Jeremiah (grudznick) Murphy’s, Jason’s and MAGA hat wearing little jerks that don’t know how to be polite unless a Priest has a ball bat over their heads.

  3. grudznick 2019-03-02 11:37

    Messrs. Murphy and Novstrup are very polite, indeed.

  4. Porter Lansing 2019-03-02 11:59

    Your fence is down. Your goats are gone. This is your last year in Pierre.

  5. jerry 2019-03-02 16:31

    I don’t think the dummies in Pierre realize that the dangers of the nursing home crisis. By them whistling past the graveyard, they will make it even harder on those who reside in them and the uncertainty their family’s have on their care. Republicans cannot govern and never will, but to put the disabled and the elderly in harm’s way, is a form of genocide.

  6. Debbo 2019-03-02 20:51

    Jerry, it’s an extreme form of cruelty, as extreme as locking up 5 month of babies in Frantic Flaccid Fool’s refugee prisons.

Comments are closed.