Senate Report by Bryan Breitling
2023 Legislative Session Week Eight
We are nearing the end of the 2023 session. There are some policy bills still making their way through the process, including some hoghouse bills that are being tried a second time. The spending bills are being vetted and those with support are advancing, while those with less support are voted down for the year. The FY23 supplemental budget and FY24 budget are beginning to near the final negotiation points to get to South Dakota’s balanced budget!
Week 8 was very busy with significant legislation making its final pitch. The Senate floor significant bill votes included: SB79 – Hiddenwood Lake Dam rebuild, easily passed the Senate, but couldn’t find enough traction and failed in the House. SB155 – Regional Jail Gap Funding, also easily passed the Senate but failed in the House. SB172 and SB173 – BHSU and NSU nursing program projects, both passed the Senate and House and are awaiting the Governor’s signature. SB35 – Sanford Underground Lab, passed both the Senate and House and is also awaiting the Governor’s signature. Sanford Underground Lab is the only high-tech underground lab in the United States, and several millions of federal grants come to South Dakota to fund research in this protected environment. In order to access some additional projected grants, the mine needed some additional underground tunnels, so the state is picking up that investment to keep and grow science research in South Dakota. The US. HB1135 – transparency in prescription drugs, passed both the Senate and House, this bill regulates pharmacy benefit managers (large corporate distributors), who have been squeezing local pharmacies throughout the United States.
HB1127 – Support for Volunteer Fire Departments, passed both the House and Senate, this bill will provide grant opportunities for fire departments to update some equipment. HB1016 and HB1017 passed both the House and Senate, these bills continue to advance the new women’s penitentiary in Rapid City and begins the process of building a new men’s pen in/near Sioux Falls. The women’s prison in Pierre is highly overcrowded, so a new medium security prison in Rapid City will allow for better retraining and work release, while keeping the maximum-security women in Pierre, and the “Hill” in Sioux Falls is over 100 years old, is unsafe for both staff and inmates, and will allow for better retraining and safety for all men inmate facilities.
All three major tax bills originated in the House this year. The House Appropriations advanced only the sales tax reduction bill, killing both the grocery tax and property tax bills. In the Senate Tax Committee, a two-year review and possible sunset was added, so the House hoghoused a bill and advanced a second sales tax reduction bill without the sunset amendment. The Senate priority has long been on property tax relief, so the Senate hoghoused a bill to offer a property tax rebate bill of commensurate value, and advanced that to the House. Both houses are seeking a tax reduction, so final negotiations will dictate which of these bills will stand on the last day of session.
Last, HB1193 – amend provisions of the uniform commercial code, created quite a stir this week! UCC provides uniform rules of commerce across state lines, meaning that businesses and consumers can buy and sell across state lines, and financial institutions can be located anywhere, in-state or out-of-state, and reliably make loans or investments. Certainty of transaction law is good for business. This year, the definition of money was updated because some countries have adopted Bitcoin as legal tender. Unlike traditional currently, it is impossible to possess digital currency, rather, it is ‘controlled’, so the existing rules for money did not work well. The new definition treats digital assets as similar to possession of a tangible asset, which gives transactions in digital currency the same legal certainty as transactions in traditional currency.
Of note this week, HB1116 – prohibit the use of state resources in hosting lewd or lascivious content, passed the House and was heard in Senate Education Committee. Testimony in committee surrounded the definitions and expanding context of what could be banned by anyone’s views, so they voted it down to be refined over the summer. The bill was attempted to be smoked out on the Senate floor. A Senate smokeout needs 12 votes, and with encouragement, they got to 12. The next day, the vote to calendar and debate needed eighteen votes and that failed. I did not vote for either the smokeout or calendar. I was not in the committee room to watch the testimony, but being on leadership, I support my counterparts in their decisions about what is worthy of advancing and what is not, and I agree with their sentiment that taking one more year to vet the correct language in the bill is OK.
In Joint Appropriations, most of the FY23 supplemental and FY24 budget is taking shape. We will have the final negotiations to figure out the remaining details, then advance those final general budget bills to both the House and Senate floor this week.
As always, I can be reached at bryan.breitling sdlegislature.gov. I look forward to continued conversations!
House Report by Scott Moore
It is March 3 as we finished week eight in Pierre and are moving into week 9 and the final week. Committee hearings have gone well, and we should finish voting on final committee bills, Monday, March 6th on the House side. If you have been following the activity, there were appropriation bills moving through both chambers in week eight. Some bills were approved, and some spending bills did not make the cut. Until the final I’s are dotted and T’s crossed nothing is certain. Three chambers and three different tax cut bills--only through negotiations and time will we know where or if there will be a tax cut. Some of the spending bills will not be finalized until the last gavel hits the desk and that is March 27, 2023, “Veto Day” and final day of session.
When you turn on the news or open your newspapers on March 10, we should have a clear direction about where legislation is going and what needs to be completed moving forward in 2023. I would like to thank the voters for sending emails and texts with issues on bills being introduced. I have, in short notice when amendments were being added, reached out to my constituents for opinions. I can tell you I have had good professional correspondences with the people of District 23 and others throughout the State.
In today’s atmosphere it is clear that South Dakota is one of the finest States to live in and raise a family. As a state legislature I can sit in the House of Representatives chambers shake hands and have discussions with the public and professional lobbyist and have no worries about safety or unnecessary harassment. It is a pleasure to serve District 23.
Finally, I would like to thank Hoven, Edmunds Central, and Sunshine Bible school boards, administrators, and instructors for allowing their students to travel to Pierre this past week. It is always a pleasure to get together and discuss what legislatures do. I would encourage parents to discuss with their children and encourage them to apply to be a page or intern.
Finally, Districts 3 and 23 met with four different groups of pages throughout the session, answered questions and just had good conversations. I can tell you there is a great bunch of high achieving students entering college and technical institutes and with some luck they will return to rural South Dakota and be our next generation of leaders.
House Report by James Wangsness
With the final week of session just around the corner, the legislature worked hard to finish debating every bill in time for the end of session. Some of the bills debated involved election and government reform.
One bill that was brought forward was Senate Bill (SB) 55, which would ban ranked choice voting in South Dakota. Some of the arguments in favor of the ban was that ranked choice voting is extremely complex and slow to count; for example, it took New York 15 days to count its votes last year. Also, it destroys the concept of one person, one vote, for ranked choice essentially means voting multiple times. Additionally, sometimes when a candidate receives the necessary number of votes to win, the remaining votes are discarded with some votes not even being counted at all. The proponents also pointed to Alaska, which adopted ranked choice voting, and they are already working to remove it after one election. The only opposition arguments were that it was unnecessary as the legislature already rejected it, and that an initiated measure failed to get the required signatures to even be on the ballet. Further, it should be up to local governments to decide how to run their local elections. After passing committee, the House of Representatives voted 63 to 5 in favor of SB 55. It now awaits signature by Gov. Noem.
Another election reform bill was SB 40, which would also modify primary elections by making the Lieutenant-Governor directly chosen by the Governor, and other state-wide elected officials elected by direct primary vote rather than indirectly through a convention. Proponents pointed out that last year, when Gov. Noem nominated Larry Rhoden for her running mate at the Republican State Convention, several delegates voted for her primary opponent rather than for Rhoden. Similarly, other candidates for other state-wide offices received opposition votes despite the primary results. SB 40 would largely remove the convention from the primary process and have the voters directly decide the party nominee. The opposition argued that SB 40 is convoluted, contradictory, and divisive, and that the convention is a good way to prevent big, out of state doners from influencing the party nomination. After a long debate in House State Affairs Committee, SB 40 passed with 8 yeas and 5 nays. On March 2, SB 40 was amended on the House floor to only affect the nomination of the Lieutenant-Governor as a compromise with the opponents. After a short debate, SB 40 was passed with 48 yeas and 21 nays.
One proposed amendment to the constitution was Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 502, which would replace the Lieutenant-Governor with a Senator as President of the Senate. The goal of this was to make the Senate more like the House, where the Speaker of the House is elected by the body. Opponents argued that the amendment was fixing a problem that didn't exist, and that a certain level of formality should be upheld. After passing the Senate and House committee, SJR 502 ultimately failed on the House floor with 27 yeas and 43 nays.
On March 1, students from Sunshine Bible Academy, and on March 2, students from Hoven and Edmunds Central High School, came to the Capitol and were recognized by both chambers.
Reader Comments(0)