Week Four

We have passed the halfway point in this 97th session of the South Dakota Legislature, leaving four weeks. As is usual, when the Legislature gets closer to crunch time, things are getting a bit heated over a few contentions issues and the budget. In particular last week, there was a serious flare-up between the Governor's office, Senate, and House appropriations. All of this is inevitable for this year as two members of the House Approbations are running for higher office, Representative Howard from Rapid City is running against Governor Noem, and Representative Haugaard from Sioux Falls is challenging Congressman Johnson. Combine those two things and the fact the Legislature has a copious amount of federal and general funds to appropriate it all creates a recipe for disagreement and discord. The flare-up last week was over whether state agencies have the authority to spend federal dollars based on their guidelines without renewed additional spending authority from the Legislature. To be more specific, it boiled down to if state agencies could spend today's federal dollars on child care in this particular case, up to the spending authority that has carried over from the prior year's session. The Governor and state agencies believed that authority exists based on practices from past years, but the House did not. At the end of the day, the Senate passed Senate Resolution 701, A resolution acknowledging authority to spend federal funds as authorized in the general appropriations act for the current year. The resolution passed by a voter of 35 Ayes to 0 Nays. With all of the "free money" the Federal Government has sent to the state, this will not be the last disagreement between the Governor, House, and Senate on spending those dollars. In my years of serving you, I can not ever remember this being an issue.

Wednesday the Ninth, we heard SB 184 on the Senate floor. SB 184 would provide for limited elk licenses to landowners hunting on their land. SB 184 is aimed at allowing the game commission to provide additional elk tags to landowners to help with depredation. Some landowners have large numbers of elk wintering on their ground, and they can eat a lot of grass and hay in a short period of time. I support the bill, but I had concerns that the game commission would now issue elk tags to non-residents just because they own land. Today non-resident elk tags are not issued for any season, and this bill is being backed by a group of non-resident landowners. I was able to get an amendment placed on the bill. The vote was 24 Ayes – 11 Nays, adding the word resident in front of the landowner that will prevent the game commission from turning those tags into non-resident elk tags. This will not be the end of it, as the bill will now head to the House for its committee hearing. I expect the amendment to be stripped off in committee, and if the bill passes the House floor, it will set up a conference committee as I will not agree to the bill passing without the amendment.

A quick overview of a few bills we heard on the Floor last week. SB 139 would provide the creation and funding of Oceti Sakowin community-based schools and passed by a vote of 22 Ayes – 13 Nays. I voted against this bill as it is a step toward charter schools. HB 1078 would authorize the use of electric ATVs, UTVs, and four-wheelers on public highways. As of now, if they are gas-powered, you can drive them on the road, but not if they are electric. I voted to support the bill, and it did pass 35-0. We also heard a couple more cannabis bills which is a common theme this year. I voted against HB 1056, which pertained to medical cannabis data maintained by the Department of Health. It did pass by a vote of 23 Ayes – 12 Nays. I can be contacted at herman.otten@sdlegislature.gov with your comments or concerns.