This summer, code counsel Justin Goetz of the Legislative Research Council, produced an issue memorandum on the emergency clause for the Legislature’s Executive Board. The issue memorandum offers two important notes on the emergency clause:
First, Goetz reports that South Dakota courts initially held the Legislature to stricter standards on when it could use the emergency clause to enact legislation prior to the standard 90-day waiting period and stymie citizens’ right to refer those laws to a statewide vote. Before 1950, Goetz finds six cases in which the state Supreme Court weighed in on emergency clause cases, and four of those cases went against the Legislature. Since 1950, the Supreme Court has heard four emergency clause challenges and has deferred to the Legislature every time.
Second, Goetz confirms the finding David Owen of the Chamber of Commerce reported in 2022: the Legislature has floated far more emergency bills in the last few Sessions than its historical average. At the same time, the number of emergency bills passed has decreased:
The surge in emergency clauses began the same year as the coronavirus pandemic. The twelve pandemic-response bills debated on Veto Day 2020 thus constituted most of the difference between the 2020 emergency-clause count and previous years’ counts. But the doubling of emergency clauses the next year and the sustained higher numbers in 2022 and 2023 came less from dealing with coronavirus (which South Dakota stopped treating as an emergency after the first month, once the Governor chose her political celebrity path of greatest resistance) and more from spending federal pandemic relief dollars.
Yet whatever the subjects of those emergency bills, the Legislature has deemed fewer of them to constitute real emergencies than in past years. Nine of the 17 passed in 2020 were pandemic response bills. Only eight emergency bills passed this year out of the 67 proposed.
The abuse of the emergency clause is something I’ve noticed over 40 years It’s not so much the numbers have changed (except in the last few years during the pandemic), but the obviousness of the non-emergency nature of bills that are purported to be “emergencies” has expanded as the courts have gotten far too liberal in giving legislators free rein on the matter. Obviously, legislators have no clue what an emergency is, and now it’s become important for the courts to use a two-by-four to pound some sense into their pea-brains.
If there is an “emergency” you would think the pass rate of such bills would be up near 90%. What’s the pass rate in recent years? Not anything near 90%. Most of those emergency clause bills are not emergencies. If it ain’t an emergency, don’t lie about it in the title for your goddamn bill,.
To Everyone,
I have been very vocal, and outspoken in regards to the Henry Brockhouse Animals and the Situation related to the Zoo…
I am being told, that I have offended some, made a others upset.
I have never intended for anyone to be mad at me, or to get upset, other than being vocal on the issue at hand. I never saw myself as being mean spirited, or cruel, or to controlling…
All I ever wanted was for for people to be educated, informed, and to understand how the government system works, and how we can go about our business at improving government, and the process.
Sometimes, I guess I sometimes repeat myself, and sometimes I say things without knowing it, that may offend people. Perhaps, I do not know I am doing it, or I am saying to much, and and I should relax a little, being less vocal…
I am only human, and as I often tell people, I do not spell my name G-O-D so I often make mistakes, but I try to apologize, and admit when I may be wrong, let alone where I upset others…
I have such passion for history, and for learning how America works, that sometimes, I forget others may not fully understand the things I say, or do, let alone how or what I believe.
As someone who my mom has educated me on Autism, which she says is not a bad thing, but can cause some problems in how I communicate with others, she has helped me contain it to the point that I often catch myself where I may repeat myself, or where I may have said something, unknowingly without intent of harm, that my words hurt someone, or caused someone to become upset…
I just want all my friends, family to know that if I ever said anything that offended them, I am sorry….I never intended to be overly aggressive, or to be seen as to controlling in my public comments. I have decided to step away from the forum more frequently, not responding so much. So if you do not see or read my posts, I am still around, but I have scaled back my posting. I never meant to cause anyone any hard feelings. I apologize, and I wish you all the best.
Sincerely,
Mike Z.
It’s an emergency when the legislature says it’s an emergency, Mr. Pay. Stop trying to pump the horded budget surplus of South Dakota even higher for some nefarious libbie purpose from the minds of Wisconsinittes.
Pierre is broken beyond any reasonable expectation of governance.
Grudz, Well, I’ll say this, the Legislature as a body gets some credit for squashing those bogus claims of “emergency” that fat-headed legislators slap on their bills just so they can impress themselves and the lobbyist or special interest they introduce the bill for. I’m not sure if the Legislature killed all those bills. They may have reworked them, cut the emergency clause off them and passed them. There is at least some good judgement left in the SD Legislature. Still, a little self-discipline on the emergency clause would lend more credibility to the legislators who are abusing the process.
Thank you for your explanation, Mike Z. Most of us already knew this about you and do our best not to judge others. This is an open forum.
Emergencies are fine. They happen. Who cares, it’s a two of three pieces of the pie vote anyhow. If you want to have to get 67 of 100 fellows in the legislatures to vote for your bill instead of only getting 51 fellows, that’s up to you.
Good blogging, Mr. Zitterich. We appreciate you not going all randomcapzoid on us.
I’m sure we will hear from you just as often as always, during your next bout. EH? EH?
Mr. Z..the people I’ve known with Autism are wonderful people, by and large, but easily misunderstood. You, on the other hand have to be very diligent about understanding other people. Please remember that the people who correspond on this site are interested in politics but that politics is not the most important thing in the world. Peace, Love and Tolerance are far more important.
Let’s look at 2022’s House Bill 1008, which had an emergency clause:
An Act to provide a cause of action for certain employees that are required to receive a vaccination as a condition of employment and to declare an emergency.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of South Dakota:
Section 1. That chapter 60-2 be amended with a NEW SECTION:
An employee may bring a claim against an employer in a court of competent jurisdiction for actual and punitive damages for injuries or illness caused by a vaccination if the employer required the employee to receive a vaccination as a condition of employment.
No employer may invoke any limitation of liability or damages, or immunity, authorized by state law, when subject to a claim under this section.
For the purposes of this section, the term, employer, means any person or entity that has one or more employees, the state and any political subdivision of the state, and any agent thereof.
Section 2. Whereas, this Act is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety, an emergency is hereby declared to exist, and this Act shall be in full force and effect from and after its passage and approval.
This bill never got out of committee, yet the stupes who brought this bill thought it was a frickin’ emergency. The only emergency would have been if this stupid bill passed. Now you can bitch about having to get a vaccination to be employed. I can tell you that if your job entails providing health care or other assistance to people who have immune system problems or other health issues, and you have a loved one who is such a person, you are going to demand that people are taking proper precautions to not infect your loved one with something that could kill them.
I’m sorry, but these idiots had no business tacking an emergency clause onto this bill. There was no emergency at all.
There was also no emergency when Governor Noem claimed one to get the leg to hurry up and swap the categorization of several critters who happen to prey upon pheasants or their eggs so that the predators could instantly be hunted and trapped out of existence. She got her votes and to this day, native species such as fox and skunk and possum are on the same kill-on-sight list as rattlers have always inherently been.
Fire is an emergency. Nest robbing omnivores are not. Running out of blood at the blood bank is an emergency. The governor’s million pheasant kill quota is not. A nursing home staff shortage is an emergency. Building a $2,000,000 tool shed is not. Pierre doesn’t get the difference.
@AllMammal described “white privilege”.
Mike Z., We all have our faults and quirks, and I don’t judge you for yours. I have my own, though I’m not autistic. I worked with people with autism, so I recognize some of the behavior as a special gift some people have, even though it can be frustrating for others, and for you, at times. My main issue with you is your positions on some issues, and I won’t let you off the hook for those.
Maybe somebody needed to stop forced vaccinations right away, Mr. Pay, or maybe they had a lawsuit ready to roll and wanted to get it going before the 1 July date. To you what is a mundane, meaningless, or even stupid law bill might really be an emergency in somebody else’s puny brain. If they think they can get a 2/3 vote in the legislatures, they can try if they choose. No hair off your back.
Perhaps some lobbists charge more to pave the way for emergency bill, and accordingly they push their clients into think it is an emergency.
There’s the REAL grdz, the radical right wing scum growing on the surface of clean public water:
“stop forced vaccinations right away”
Trump killed 7-800,000 covid victims, i hear.
They think cheating for more votes is righteous.
Grudz, no one is forced to be vaccinated. No one is forced to take or remain in a job which requires you to be vaccinated. But if you work in a field where you are in close proximity to people with fragile health, you should understand that you might be asked to be vaccinated as a condition of your being able to treat or interact with those people. Your choice is to be vaccinated or leave that position. If you are lucky your employer may have a different position for you that doesn’t require you to work with people who are easily infected. But your employer doesn’t owe anyone a job if the health of another person is put at risk because you don’t want a vaccination. And the same goes for students in schools. If you don’t like the vaccination requirements, you have the option to home school your kids.
No one is forced to go to actual work, either, Mr. Pay. They can be slackards and live on the welfare but then they may not complain. So when we slap some mandatory work requirements on people, then they can all follow their employer’s rules. The Man comes in many forms. As you know, even grudznick’s good friend Bob works as a corporate narc part-time, and Bob’s the last sort of fellow you’d expect to be working for The Man.
You fellows fail to see, in your immediate haste to unleash some libbie hate on the overly vaccinated grudznick, I said “perhaps someone…” like a Ms. Frye-Mueller or her ilk. The point you cannot see in your blind rage whenever vaccinations, of which grudznick has many, come up is that even the Ms. Frye-Muellers, with their puny brains, can choose to call whatever they want an “emergency” in their law bills. No hair off your backs…just let the legislatures sort their ownselfs out.