It’s Friday after session and I am wrapping up my thoughts and checking my notes for the week. We just completed a five-day week, and the pace of bill hearings and floor activity is accelerating.
I won’t dwell on the most upsetting thing that happened this week, but I feel I must address it. One of our House members proposed legislation (HB 1224) to deny the Huron School District of any further appropriation through state aid to education. His reasoning, as I understand it, was to protest a bathroom policy that he perceived to allow biological boys to use the girls’ restrooms. This legislation caused a fire storm of controversy, which led him to withdraw the legislation and to his vice-chairmanship of the House Education committee to be revoked.
On another topic, we talk a lot about “local control” in the legislative body. There is strong sentiment that local control should be a foundational component on which we make decisions and vote. This is a shared mindset among legislators, until it’s intermittently abandoned for bills that dictate to communities what they must or must not do. Unfortunately, several bills came through this week when we, as a legislature, seemed to forget about the local expertise and good judgement of our school boards, city councils or commissions (i.e. local control). While I find this frustrating, I always return to showing my fellow lawmakers respect and communicating in a positive manner to why we have different opinions. My mother used to remind me that I am not always right, so I temper my emotions and look forward to the times we can reach an impactful consensus.
This week we also received the latest financial update on sales tax receipts. It isn’t encouraging. Unfortunately, it’s a very tough budget year, so while I advocate to restore current funding to the state library and SDPB, I must be honest with you, everything will be on the table. The appropriations committee and our caucus will have to make difficult decisions.
Regarding spending, I have gotten a few inquiries and opinions from constituents about the proposed prison construction, even though it is a hotter topic for citizens in the Sioux Falls area. This is a big deal as it is an 825-million-dollar investment. Yet, in my opinion, it is responsible to replace the old prison sooner than later. My reasons are as follows:
1. It is undeniable that it will need to be replaced in the near future.
2. One-time money from unclaimed property is available for this project
(as previously allocated to the prison fund).
3. The building costs will only continue to inflate the longer we wait.
As a legislature, we have never given the SD Department of Corrections a reason to not move forward with planning, preparing, and expending money to have architectural and engineering plans drawn up for site preparation. In fact, we’ve continued to fill the prison construction fund, session after session, with money, which undoubtably gave that department the indication that moving forward was prudent. The Department of Corrections may not have successfully communicated the proposed location of the new prison with residents in the area, but I don’t fault them for going forward. That discussion will come forward next week, and I expect lively, heated, and emotional testimonies… and hard votes for legislators.
All in all, it was a good week with a couple of bumps in the road. We are moving forward with the goal of doing our due diligence on proposed legislation and casting our votes appropriately.
I choose to be optimistic and will do my best to do good things for South Dakota.
– mw
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