Author: @SoDakCampaigns

In retrospect, it’s been kind of a week of mishaps around the Powers household.

My oldest up in North Dakota had the front end smashed on her car, and it’s going to be about $1800 to repair. And of course, she has a $1000 deductible she’s going to have to borrow from me because she’s not financially in a position to cover it. It will be borrowed in the sense that I’ll cover all of it, and she can eventually pay me back half.

At home, I snapped the interior door handle off of my truck. And had to fix it to the tune of about $300. My garage door opener went on the fritz.  So, if I want my garage door to open again, I’m going to have to bite the bullet and buy a new one.  Yesterday, I sent my daughter to the store with $20 to buy a battery. She slipped on the ice, but got back up to go get the $2 battery I needed…… Only to realize that she’d lost the $20.

All “first world” problems to have, aren’t they? It just doesn’t mean anything in the big scheme of things.

There are people out there who have those mishaps or worse happen, and they’re in serious trouble.  A sibling called today, and noted that his wife could be facing cervical cancer.  Kind of underlines the fact that my problems are not really problems.

What’s worth focusing on is that I get to enjoy almost all of my children home for Christmas, plus my dad, my sister, her daughter, and boyfriend, and my #2 daughter’s fiance’ sharing the holiday with us.  It has been filled with friends and family enjoying the Christmas holiday with each other, enjoying food, drink, and old-school trivial pursuits.

Family, friends, and the opportunity to share memories of the holiday together. That’s the only thing that really matters this holiday.

News Year’s Resolutions for the Senate
By Senator Mike Rounds

As we ring in 2016, many South Dakotans will make New Year’s Resolutions for themselves. Oftentimes, these resolutions are self-improvement goals for the year ahead. As I began thinking about what lies ahead for the Senate in 2016, I started to think about New Year’s resolutions the Senate could adopt to help it operate more efficiently, so that we can better deliver on our promises to the American people. These suggestions, which we already do in South Dakota, are simple tactics to help suppress some of the Washington dysfunction that runs all too rampant.

While the list is undoubtedly long, two ideas in particular jump out: passing a budget and appropriation bills without waiting until the last minute–in Washington, they call this regular order–and operating under a senate calendar that will allow us to attend all our necessary committee hearings each week, as well as get our work done in a timely fashion.

For too long, Congress has failed to operate under regular order when it comes to the budget process. Reviving and staying committed to a normal budget process – in which all 12 appropriations bills are passed individually – is important for a number of reasons. Not only will it prevent us from having to rush another last-minute, thousands-page long omnibus bill through Congress just before the holidays, it will allow us to affect policy, which is what you sent me here to do in the first place. Crafting legislation behind closed doors is not an effective way to change policy provisions that previous congresses enacted. A regular budget process is also the best tool we have available to make certain the federal government is being a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars. This will help us rein in spending and address our bloated debt.

Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that his top priority for 2016 is to pass all 12 appropriations bills through regular order, which hasn’t been done in more than 20 years. We made progress in 2015 by passing all 12 bills out of the Senate Appropriations Committee for the first time since 2009, and by passing one appropriations bill out of the Senate. But attempts to bring other appropriations bills to the floor were repeatedly blocked by Senate Democrats, who would prefer to maintain the status quo on spending and policy. This is a tactic we have pledged to reject in 2016.

Which brings me to my second resolution: operating under a calendar. Doing so will make certain our work gets done in a timely fashion. If the Senate had started considering appropriation bills in the spring and made considering them a priority, public pressure would have worked in our favor to get our work done and I believe we may have had some success in passing individual appropriation bills. If we set an appropriations calendar ahead of time, it would incentivize both parties to work together early on.

I would also prefer a set calendar for committee hearings so that they do not overlap with each other. This would allow us to attend all our hearings each week. I serve on four committees, and more times than not two or more of them schedule hearings for the same time. We shouldn’t have to pick and choose which hearings to prioritize as all our hearings are important. They allow us to ask questions and hear important testimony from expert witnesses about the issues before us.

As we look ahead to 2016, there are many policy issues that the Senate must address. Enacting a budget through regular order and operating under a predetermined calendar are two resolutions I believe could help the Senate operate more efficiently so we can make the best decisions for our country.

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From my mailbox – the Christmas card from Attorney General Marty Jackley.

(Somehow I’m not thinking Annette Bosworth got one.)

Secretary of State Shantel Krebs Certifies Second Ballot Measure

Today, Secretary of State Shantel Krebs announced that an Initiated Amendment to the South Dakota Constitution to Provide for State Legislative Redistricting by a Commission was validated and certified to be on the November 2016 general election ballot as a ballot measure that the citizens will vote on. The sponsor turned in 43,198 signatures to the Secretary of state’s office. An Initiated Amendment to the Constitution required a minimum of 27,741 signatures from South Dakota registered voters. Once the signatures were delivered to the Secretary of State’s office, a 5% random sampling was conducted. It was determined that 70.2% or 30,335 of 43,198 signatures were in good standing.

This is the second initiated measure to be approved by Secretary of State. A total of 8 measures were submitted for review. This office will continue the signature validation process of the remaining 6 measures in the order they were submitted to the Secretary of State. A total of 275,000 signatures were submitted among all petitions.

Those looking to challenge the Secretary of State’s certification of a ballot measure have 30 days from the date they are certified. To challenge the validation of to Provide for State Legislative Redistricting by a Commission that date would be January 25, 2016.

Challenges to all statewide initiatives and referendums must be brought within 30 days after the petition has been validated and filed by the Secretary of State (SDCL 12-1-13)

House and Senate bills have begun being pre-filed with the state’s legislative research council, and have now appeared on the LRC’s web site for review and dissection.

A few interesting ones are among the group, most notably House Bill 1006 – authorizing counties to impose sales and use taxes. Such an action would represent a sea change in how counties raise revenue, as they had been restricted from using sales tax proceeds in the past.

Fred Deutsch’s bill – House Bill 1008 – An act to restrict access to certain restrooms and locker rooms in public schools is sure to be one of the early and controversial measures, given the level of discussion the topic usually brings. The act is sponsored by Representatives Deutsch, Craig, Al Novstrup, Partridge, Russell, Schoenbeck, Verchio, and Zikmund and Senators Brock Greenfield, Haverly, Holien, Olson, and Ernie Otten.

If you think about the names on the list, this represents a fairly broad base among the ideological viewpoints of legislators. So it may carry far more weight than you might think.

The list of what’s been filed as of this writing is provided below. Click around, and let us know what you think.

House Bills

Bill	Title
HB 1001	repeal the Midwestern Regional Higher Education Compact.
HB 1002	eliminate certain reporting requirements for the county general fund.
HB 1003	revise certain administrative functions regarding county government.
HB 1004	make form and style revisions to certain statutes regarding counties.
HB 1005	revise and repeal certain fees that are established to compensate counties for services provided by county officials.
HB 1006	authorize counties to impose sales and use taxes.
HB 1007	make an appropriation to revise and update the values and methods used to determine the agricultural land production capacity and to declare an emergency.
HB 1008	restrict access to certain restrooms and locker rooms in public schools.

Senate Bills

Bill	Title
SB 1	revise certain provisions regarding the Executive Board of the Legislative Research Council.
SB 2	revise the distribution of the revenue from the alcoholic beverage fund.
SB 3	revise the income criteria for determining if property is classified as agricultural land for property tax purposes.
SB 4	provide for the assessment of certain agricultural land as noncropland.
SB 5	revise the procedure to initiate a school district boundary change.

Butte County States Atty Heather Plunkett was kind enough to offer the following statement to dakotawarcollege.com this evening regarding her arrest, and today’s court proceedings:

Today I took responsibility for my actions in court but feel that I also owe the people of Butte County a formal apology as well as an expression of gratitude for the patience they have shown me in the last couple of weeks.  At a later date, I will issue a more in depth statement detailing my intentions concerning my position as State’s Attorney.  Additionally, I will be sentenced on February 5, 2015 at 1:30 pm and encourage the public to attend.

As noted in the immediately preceding post, Heather entered a plea of guilty today to possession of marijuana, less than 2 ounces, possession of drug paraphernalia, and ingesting substance other than alcohol. All were misdemeanor charges.

Learning Something from Yesterday
By Rep. Kristi Noem
December 23, 2015

It has been an honor to serve you again this year. As we prepare to start 2016, I couldn’t help but reflect on what a year it has been.

I started 2015 with an appointment to the historic House Ways and Means Committee, which handles all tax, trade and economic growth policies. As the first South Dakotan to serve on this committee, it’s been a tremendous opportunity to make sure our priorities and values are reflected in the nation’s largest debates.

Just days into the new year, the House passed the Keystone XL Pipeline Act with bipartisan support. This bill would have allowed work to begin. While Republicans and Democrats in the Senate also agreed to the legislation, the President vetoed it. In doing so, he deprived South Dakota of good jobs, millions of dollars in revenue for cash-strapped counties, and congestion relief for the roads and rails.

This was one of the first of more than 300 bills the House would pass throughout 2015. We also voted on a permanent repeal of the death tax, a bill to hold sanctuary cities accountable, and measures to rein in federal regulators. Although none of these items on our conservative agenda received the President’s signature, there were a handful of areas where we found common ground with members from both parties.

Over the last few years, I’ve advocated for legislation to combat human trafficking. On May 29, we earned a major victory when the President signed our bipartisan Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, which included provisions I wrote with the needs of South Dakota and our children in mind.

We also passed a bipartisan Trade Promotion Authority bill, which put tools in place to hold the Obama administration accountable for meeting the trade objectives set by Congress. This legislation is already making an impact. Because of it, the public has full access to the pending Trans Pacific Partnership before Congress can act on it. That gives everyone time to review it and make sure it’s a good deal for America.

After more than 13 years under No Child Left Behind, Congress also overhauled our federal education policy, finally getting us away from the federal government micromanaging local classrooms. In the bill, we gave states more flexibility, empowered parents, modernized the Impact Aid program, and stopped the federal government from pressuring schools into adopting specific academic standards, like Common Core.

Additionally, I helped drive forward the first long-term highway bill in a decade to make sure South Dakota farmers, businesses and families would continue to have access to a safe and reliable infrastructure. With 80,000 miles of roadway, 6,000 bridges, and thousands of miles of railways in South Dakota, it was critical that we give state and local governments more certainty, control and flexibility when addressing infrastructure problems. The Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act accomplished that.

Finally, we passed legislation to protect hardworking South Dakotans from pending tax hikes. In the package, we made improvements to 529 college savings plans, offered a permanent deduction for certain classroom expenses teachers take on, and permanently extended Section 179, which is important to many farmers and ranchers. The package also included an extension of the biodiesel tax credit through 2016 and stopped Obamacare’s medical device tax from taking effect until at least 2017.

Beyond legislative initiatives, I’m proud of the personal impact our office has made in the lives of many South Dakotans. We’ve assisted more than 600 constituents who faced problems when trying to adopt a child, pay their taxes, receive veterans or Medicare benefits, and more. We’ve also been able to show more than 130 South Dakota groups around the U.S. Capitol and made more than 170,000 calls to constituents to make sure you knew what I was doing.

There is much more to be done, but as John Wayne said, “Tomorrow hopes we have learned something from yesterday.”

Thank you for the opportunity to serve South Dakota. Have a happy New Year!

United State Senator Mike Rounds’ Christmas Card hit mailboxes yesterday, in case you wanted to see….