I want to write something else. I’ll be offline for a while. Thank you for your attention ..read more

Good grief—doesn’t the Noem Administration talk to anyone anymore? Representative Tony Venhuizen (R-13/Sioux Falls) went to House Education Friday to promote his House Bill 1002, a proposal to boot the “Smarter Balanced” standardized tests for high school juniors and instead pay for every junior to take the ACT. Venhuizen told the committee (SDPB audio here) that HB 1002 would benefit students by getting rid of a standardized test in which the students have zero stake and saving them money on their first swing at the ACT. HB 1002 might also help schools by evaluating their effectiveness with a ..read more

As reported in Friday’s Senate Journal, the Legislature is considering a few changes to their Joint Rules. Noteworthily: The House and Senate appear inclined to make it easier to ignore public testimony and ramrod bills without debate on the chamber floors. Joint Rules 13-1 and 13-2 govern the placement of bills and resolutions on the consent calendar. As implemented in past Sessions, the Joint Rules have said that if a bill receives no opponent testimony in committee and if the committee unanimously supports it, the committee may recommend placing the bill on the consent calendar. That means ..read more

On their way home from their first big week of the 2024 Session, legislators will perhaps ponder this evaluation of Governor Noem’s State of the State speech Tuesday and South Dakota’s “openness” for business from Jeff L. Lassle, South Dakota ex-pat and California businessman. Lassle sent this essay to legislators this morning: South Dakota legislators: Upon watching Gov. Kristi Noem’s speech on the “State of the State”, I honestly had to sit back and ponder if this elected official is for real. Her first statements emphasized hunting and trapping as if that is the only reason South Dakota ex ..read more

In an even more substantive snuffing of gun-nuttery, Senate Education yesterday killed Senate Bill 34, Senator Brent Hoffman’s (R-9/Hartford) really bad idea to require every school to post gunslingers on its premises. Senate Education’s early start—making SB 34 the first bill of its first hearing on the third day of Session at 8:15 a.m.—may have caught the gun lobby sleeping. Senator Hoffman only brought his handouts and slides and three women testifying on their own behalf. Somehow, the NRA and other gun lobbyists didn’t show up, and Hoffman was outnumbered by all the big education lobbyists ..read more

Not included in the welcome flurry of substantive committee activity this first Friday of the 2024 Session is Senate Bill 58, a 132-section monster that no legislator or reporter has fully read yet. The Department of Labor and Regulation has requested SB 58 to “revise provisions regarding money transmission.” SB 58 adds 68 sections of entirely new code and strikes 64 sections. My rough count finds SB 58 repeals 9.485 words of statute and replaces them with 14,269 words, a bit more than a 50% inflation of the money transmission statues. So for you Republicans looking for a reason not to read an ..read more

In a minor exercise of unusual veto power, Senator Reynold Nesiba (D-15/Sioux Falls) nuked House Commemoration 8001, a bit of useless right-wing clapping for the National Rifle Association and its indoctrination of the youth into America’s deadly gun culture. Representative Ben Krohmer (R-20/Mitchell) introduced HC 8001 to praise Friends of NRA and specifically his Mitchell chapter of FoNRA for raising lots of money to “support gun safety classes, hunter education courses, and youth shooting sports” and “increase awareness and support of the [obsolete, at best useless, and at worst deadly and ..read more

Sure, South Dakota has low taxes… if you’re rich. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reports in the seventh edition of its “Who Pays?” analysis of state tax systems that South Dakota continues to have among the most regressive taxes in the nation: Ten states — Florida, Washington, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Illinois, Arkansas, and Louisiana — are particularly regressive, with upside-down tax systems that ask the most of those with the least. These states tax their poorest residents — those in the bottom 20 percent of the income scale — at rates averaging ..read more

Governor Kristi Noem makes a new claim that her (corrupt and stolen) bad-plumber ads are working: Today, in her State of the State Address, Governor Kristi Noem unveiled new data demonstrating the success of her Freedom Works Here initiative. “Our state licensing boards are reporting huge increases of out-of-state applicants seeking licenses in South Dakota – including a 78% increase in plumbers, a 44% increase in electricians, and a 43% increase in accountants,” said Governor Noem in the State of the State. “Our labor force has grown by more than 10,000 people in just the last year. Our lice ..read more

Senate boss Lee Schoenbeck (R-5/Lake Kampeska) blesses reporters and the public with some blunt, bruising, and occasionally insightful, refreshingly party-transcendent, and once in a blue moon powerful and historic comments. But sometimes even the smartest Republican in the Senate says dumb stuff. Consider this comment from the Pres-Pro-Tem amidst his criticism of Governor Kristi Noem’s corrupt flim-flammery in rigging the bid process for her “Freedom Works Here (Pick Me for VP)” ad campaign for her Ohio political cronies: “I think this is an example of the good, the bad and the ugly,” Schoen ..read more