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Noem Breaks Title and Single-Subject Rule Again with SB 212 Cuts to Local Gun Fees and State Business Fees

Governor Kristi Noem wants to knock a five-million-dollar hole in the general fund by eliminating the $150 fee businesses must pay the Secretary of State to do corporate business in South Dakota, the $50 they must pay with their annual reports, the $30 filing fees that must accompany those papers, and a smattering of other fees. The Governor also wants to eliminate all fees for criminal background checks and other parts of the process for obtaining concealed pistol permits.

Alas for anti-tax and pro-gun activists, Noem piles this disparate proposals into one bill, Senate Bill 212. This bill’s title reads, “An Act to revise certain fees collected by the Office of the Secretary of State,” but local authorities collect the concealed pistol permit fee of $10 and the renewal fee of $5 and keep 30% of that money. Sheriffs collect the $60 application fee, $35 renewal fee, and extra costs for processing criminal background checks for enhanced permits and the $40 application fee and $40 renewal fee for gold card permits. None of these locally collected fees are mentioned in the title. South Dakota Constitution Article 3 Section 21 requires that the single subject of any law “shall be expressed in its title.” SB 212 thus violates the South Dakota Constitution and cannot pass.

Even if we rewrite the SB 212’s title to mention all the fees and agencies affected, SB 212 encompasses separate subjects. Gun permit fees collected by local officials and business registration fees collected by state officials are absolutely separate subjects. Article 3 Section 21 prohibits any law from embracing more than one subject. SB 212 thus violates the single-subject rule, is unconstitutional, and cannot pass.

For all the time Kristi Noem spent as a legislator, she seems to be stunningly bad at writing bills that comply with basic constitutional requirements. Maybe she should just take a break in her sauna and let attentive legislators write our bills.

17 Comments

  1. mike from iowa 2022-02-05 13:05

    Three likely reasons for Noem’s inability to read and comprehend. Ignorance, arrogance or both.

  2. mike from iowa 2022-02-05 14:54

    Works for me, Master.

  3. larry kurtz 2022-02-05 17:08

    Any idea what percentage of bills are written by lobbyists and signed into law?

  4. grudznick 2022-02-05 18:41

    Lar, you know darned wells most bills signed into law are written by lobbists. The lobbist guild probably even controls who gets dinner reservations in Pierre.

  5. grudznick 2022-02-05 18:47

    It’s a guild, not a heinous union. Unions are bad, they are very bad.

  6. Arlo Blundt 2022-02-05 19:39

    The people of South Dakota pay into seven figures for all the out of state experts in the employ of the Governor and her administration. None of those hired hands can write a bill according to the South Dakota statute. Probably a good thing they can not or we’d be afflicted with all sorts of statutory weirdness. It looks like the Governor trusts no one from the “Sunshine State”to do her legislative work. Another failure by her inept “Chief of Staff,” Let us hope she keeps him around.

  7. Mark Anderson 2022-02-05 21:42

    Unions are bad, very bad, that’s why grudz never married.

  8. Jake 2022-02-06 06:50

    “unions are bad”, says GOP grudz, as he attempts, again, to belittle those “commoners” that are only destined to serve him his gravied taters. Of course, he only says it cuz someone in the GOP hierarchy said it first.

  9. RST Tribal Member 2022-02-06 07:38

    Goodness gracious is America’s Governor writing campaign slogans in legislative format then trying to float them through the inept inbred Republicans controlled legislature?

    Stupid writes. Other stupids read. Some a bit less stupid say, “what”? It is getting to that point in the folly called legislative session for sensible governance to come to the forefront?Probably will not find it is Pierre anytime soon, maybe in November.

    Campaigning or bill writing by the America’s Governor and her handlers has not been mastered yet. We learned she is ok at stopping voter’s initiatives, like the people’s weed vote, but not worth a darn at getting anything of substance started. Don’t get me started on “We’re on it”. Or the copycat bills enacted in other states.

    Cut fees today, raise fees tomorrow. Must be election year.

  10. leslie 2022-02-06 08:36

    Kristi is doing what Trump did. In desperation he influenced small Republican state officials to conspire with him to nefarious ends in his late term power abuse. Trump-sympathizer state and local officials abused their power to queer the 2020 election.

    For example in Michigan, Wisconsin and in Colorado he met with GOP state constitutional and appointed office holders, party leaders and legislators. A few sheriffs and armed, kevlar armored individuals and bogus “election integrity committees” spokespeople in Michigan attempted or seized county voting machines to corrupt their internal computers or download data. Rural Mesa County and Elbert County (where I have relatives in Colorado) had data downloaded (as early as last August- “testing, testing… mic testing!”) and delivered to nefarious unidentified lawyers. Mesa taxpayers were forced to replace those voting machines. https://coloradosun.com/2021/08/11/mesa-county-voting-littwin-opinion/

    Kristi clearly bends and breaks the rules in her radical Republican governorship of SD. She swallows Trump’s some 30,000 documented lies to the detriment of her state and 2300 lives of SD residents have been lost because of her “Covid denial”.

    Oh, and Grdz attacks unions in this thread?

  11. grudznick 2022-02-06 08:59

    The lobbist guild is not a union! It’s a guild!

    Today, at the Conservatives with Common Sense Breakfast, we will get updates from the legislatures from some who know what is going on there. You will be able to ask questions of these fellows.

    Usual first-meeting of the month location.

  12. Porter Lansing 2022-02-07 12:12

    A union is a collective bargaining agent for employees.
    A guild is a collective bargaining agent for independent contractors.
    Same damn thing, grudz-NICHTS …

  13. O 2022-02-07 13:09

    I have always thought Grudznick’s perspective was from a gilded point of view.

  14. Porter Lansing 2022-02-07 13:16

    Good one, O. :)

  15. John Dale 2022-02-08 16:27

    Both solid ideas.

    We should be removing barriers to small businesses.

    Man, we really need to restore access to cheap capital, too.

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