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We’re giddily counting down the hours until the 2016 election season officially kicks off in the new year. According to state law, January 1 marks the first day that petitions can be circulated in South Dakota.

While petitions are not required for running for President, the rest of you don’t get off so easily.

Currently, signature requirements under state law are based on the amount of the vote the political parties received in the previous Gubernatorial election. A law was passed last session to change that, and base it on registration numbers, but a bunch of liberal activists didn’t like it, so we’re going to be voting on that as a referred law this coming November.

For those wondering how many signatures you will need, as retrieved from the Secretary of State’s web site:

U.S. Senate, U.S Representative

• Republican: 1,955 (1% of the vote for the 2014 Republican Gubernatorial candidate: 195,477) (SDCL 12-6-7)
• Democrat: 706 (1% of the vote for the 2014 Democrat Gubernatorial candidate: 70,549) (SDCL 12-6-7)
• Independent: 2,774 (1% of the total vote for Governor in 2014: 277,403) (SDCL 12-7-1)
• Newly Recognized Political Party: 250 (SDCL 12-5-1.4)

To Form A New Political Party

• 6,936 (2.5% of total vote for Governor in 2014: 277,403) (SDCL 12-5-1)

State Legislators

• Republican and Democrat: 50 signatures or 1% of the vote for their party’s Gubernatorial candidate in the 2014 election, whichever is less (SDCL 12-6-7.1)
• Independent candidate: signatures equal to 1% of the total vote for Governor in 2014 in their district (SDCL 12-7-1)
• New Political Party: Five (5) signatures (SDCL 12-5-1.4)

Legislative District	Democrat	Republican	Independent	New Political Party
1	50	50	195	5
2	50	50	181	5
3	39	50	121	5
4	45	50	152	5
5	19	50	78	5
6	20	50	93	5
7	28	50	93	5
8	23	50	91	5
9	18	45	65	5
10	18	50	71	5
11	22	50	92	5
12	22	50	79	5
13	26	50	91	5
14	26	50	92	5
15	16	23	41	5
16	18	50	81	5
17	21	45	71	5
18	21	50	78	5
19	18	50	90	5
20	18	50	81	5
21	19	50	81	5
22	21	50	78	5
23	17	50	92	5
24	16	50	96	5
25	19	50	88	5
26	26	39	68	5
26A	16	11	29	5
26B	11	28	40	5
27	25	29	57	5
28	19	50	74	5
28A	13	16	30	5
28B	7	36	44	5
29	13	50	76	5
30	21	50	105	5
31	20	50	89	5
32	22	50	89	5
33	18	50	82	5
34	22	50	92	5
35	14	42	58	5

County Officials and Party Delegates (filed with county auditor)

• Partisan Candidates: whichever is less, 50 signatures or 1% of the total vote for your political party’s candidate for governor at the last gubernatorial election in the county or commissioner district (SDCL 12-6-7.1).  May only gather signatures from the political party the candidate is registered to vote with.

• Independent Candidates: signatures equal to 1% of the total vote for all candidates for governor at the last gubernatorial election in the county or commissioner district (SDCL 12-7-1).  May gather signatures from any registered voter.

• Newly Recognized Political Party: Five (5) signatures (SDCL 12-5-1.4)

Independents might seem to have a much heavier burden, but in actuality, not so much. Whereas members of organized parties have to go to the extra step of determining who is a member of their party, Independent candidates can obtain petition signatures from everyone, regardless of party.

The minimum number of signatures that a candidate for the legislature has to obtain is 50 signatures or 1% of the vote for their party’s Gubernatorial candidate in the 2014 election. For Democrats, they are only required to hit that high bar of 50 signatures in only two legislative districts. Republicans are required to obtain that number in 29 of the state’s 35 legislative districts.

On the low end of the spectrum, Democrats are only required to pick up 7 signatures to run for office in District 28B, and 14 in District 35.

Republicans have a low mark of 11 and 16 signatures in the split house legislative districts of 26A and 28A, and a minimum of 23 in the Sioux Falls Cathedral area comprising District 15.  (We don’t run a lot of candidates in those areas, BTW).

Obtaining signatures to run for office is actually not that terribly difficult.  What’s probably more challenging is doing it correctly, as Annette Bosworth might attest.   What can’t be stressed enough is “DON’T FUDGE YOUR PROCEDURES, AND TURN THEM IN EARLY.”  Seriously.

As Annette can attest, courtesy of her felony convictions, is that the circulator is required to witness each and every signature, and to attest to the fact they did on the back of the petition in front of a notary. You cannot fudge this procedure. There’s a good chance you could get stung for it.

I also admonish you to turn them in early. You have until March 29, 2016 for Primary Election candidates (meaning partisan political candidates) to turn them in. Those who turn them in early get a sucker. Actually, no. They don’t get anything – but if the petitions are screwed up, you still have time to go back and fix them, or to obtain more signatures.

There are always 3 or 4 candidates who screw up something, whether it’s they, or someone else filling out the header of the petition. I’ve even seen it coming from County Auditor’s offices, where an employee of the County Auditor screwed it up. If you turn them in early, you have plenty of time to go back, and fix it with new signatures.  If you turn them in on March 29th…  Well, not so much.

You could write a book about the information you should be aware of when you circulate petitions for office. And actually, someone has.

How to Circulate No m Petition State Leg County Candidates

The above guide provides some basic information about circulating and turning in your petition, as posted on the Secretary of State’s web site. Everyone taking out a petition from the state or county generally receives one of these, as well as a guide on reporting your campaign finances to the appropriate entity.

It’s not rocket science. It’s just an election, and it comes with an instruction book.   So read up, start early, circulate it correctly, and don’t fudge your signatures.

What else do you need to know?  🙂

Secretary of State Shantel Krebs Certifies Third Ballot Measure

Pierre, SD – Today, Secretary of State Shantel Krebs announced that an Initiated Measure To Set A Maximum Finance Charge for Certain Lenders (36% rate cap) was validated and certified to be on the November 2016 general election ballot as a ballot measure the citizens will vote on. The sponsor turned in 19,936 signatures to the Secretary of state’s office. An initiated measure requires a minimum of 13,871 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 86.4% or 17,222 of 19,936 signatures were in good standing. This will be Initiated Measure 21.

This is the third 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 5 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, which would be January 27, 2016.

As we wind down the hours until the new year, I just wanted to point out that we have some advertising opportunities available for people looking to reach an audience that is among the most public affairs minded and politically engaged in the state.

Dakotawarcollege.com has a couple of openings in it’s advertising line-up, including the top position in the right hand banner. Once these top level spots are filled, they may be locked up through the election.

Additional advertising spots are also available in the left column of the page.

Advertising on the Dakotwarcollege.com website is based on a first come, first serve basis for the available positions.  Advertising slots are 300×200 pixel ads, which may scale slightly depending on WordPress theme, and may be either static image, animated .gif, or flash file, as long as the file size is within acceptable file parameters, does not impede the loading of the website, or interfere with existing code.

Our non-campaign season traffic averages 1000-1500 unique individual visits daily.*  At times of flurried activity, the SDWC has reached as high as 6900 unique visits in a day (And that’s visits, not hits).

Information on ad prices, ad positions, and required ad commitments may be directed to the webmaster by clicking here.

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And while I’m on the subject, whether your business is politics or retail, organizational or service, if you find yourself in need of high quality print materials such as business cards, postcards, or brochures, or collateral items such as signs, banners, pens, or pins, or anything that helps you promote your business or campaign, drop me a note today.

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*If we use our internal Webalizer server stats to measure, we’re at 4600+ visitors hitting about 20k pages daily. Different traffic measurement tools will yield vastly different results.

Yesterday, the New York Times picked South Dakota in trying to illustrate a gulf between our congressional delegation and the Governor on the implementation of Medicaid expansion as a provision of Obamacare:

John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, voted earlier this month to repeal major provisions of the Affordable Care Act and to end its expansion of Medicaid, arguing that the health law was “unpopular and unaffordable.”

A week later, his state’s Republican governor, Dennis Daugaard, announced that he wanted to make 55,000 additional South Dakota residents eligible for Medicaid under the law.

“I know many South Dakotans are skeptical about expanding Medicaid, and I share some of those sentiments,” Mr. Daugaard said. “It bothers me that some people who can work will become more dependent on government.”

“But,” Mr. Daugaard said, “we also have to remember those who would benefit, such as the single mother of three who simply cannot work enough hours to exceed the poverty line for her family.”

In state after state, a gulf is opening between Republican governors willing to expand Medicaid coverage through the Affordable Care Act and Republican members of Congress convinced the law is collapsing and determined to help it fail. In recent months, insurers have increased premiums and deductibles for many policies sold online, and a dozen nonprofit insurance co-ops are shutting down, forcing consumers to seek other coverage.

Read that here.

Is there really a gulf between Daugaard and Thune on Medicaid expansion? I don’t think so.   Both Daugaard and Thune have been steadfast on most provisions of Obamacare being “unpopular and unaffordable.”  But focusing on the provision to expand Medicaid as justification for a rift doesn’t seem to work to say there is.

South Dakota is a bit of an outlier in this argument, as Governor Daugaard has only vowed to expand the program if the money could be found without raising fees or taxes. And he’s negotiating with the Federal Government to cover health care expenses for Native Americans through IHS, instead of dumping them off as an expense of State Government as a strict condition of even considering the expansion in the first place.

That doesn’t sound as if we are absolutely going to do it. It sounds more like “we may, but…”

State Democrats in the state have been falling over themselves to call this a victory for their agenda... but they should not start clucking so quickly.

When Daugaard says “It bothers me that some people who can work will become more dependent on government,”  Dems should consider that there are people in the process who are not just bothered, but dead set against any expansion of welfare. Couple that with the fact that the expansion proposal could be derailed at any point by any number of things, Medicaid expansion in the state could come to a careening halt.

Also consider the aforementioned fact that if the money can’t be found within the confines of the budget, the deal is off.  And don’t forget, the federal government has yet to signal that they’d even consider signing off on the IHS proposal.

Despite what the New York times is proclaiming, Daugaard is not painting himself into a corner to accept expansion unconditionally.  In fact, it’s the very opposite. it’s very conditional, and it may not happen, except to solve another problem our state has in the federal government not paying medical expenses for a group of people they should be covering.

If anything, it may be using the carrot of a program the Federal Government wants to get them to reach completion of their promise of another.

Well, get ready for a week of bad news.

It’s not that I’m somehow prescient, and able to tell you that bad things are going to happen this week.  It’s just that this tends to be a week where people have a tendency to dump bad news, because it’s going to be quickly lost.

Now some believe it’s an awful week to release bad news, because it’s a slow, slow time in the media.  But in my experience in South Dakota, it’s the time when people are paying the least amount of attention.  It’s the lull between Christmas and New Years’ Eve, and once past that, people are gearing up for the State Legislative session which starts up (January 12th for those who are wondering).

It’s also typically a short week, This year, we have Monday…  Tuesday… Wednesday…  And then everyone is distracted with a revelrous and raucus holiday, and then three more days until people are back at their desks. Oh, and look, here’s all this news about what’s coming up in the legislative session, and here are all these people running for office…

If you had to dump bad news, this is probably the time to do it.

We got through stories 6-10 yesterday, and it’s time for the rest. As we cruise towards the new year this coming weekend, here’s the rest of the list of the top ten SDWC political stories for 2015:

5. The long downhill slide of the SDDP

All year long, South Dakota Democrats have continue to shed voters, as well as high profile candidate possibilities as they’ve limped along to the end of the year. Recently, the party was cited as having the lowest level of Democratic registration since 1972.

Dems started off the year with promises and hosting fundraising events in hopes of improving their chances, but by the end of the year, it became apparent that these were hollow efforts, and we were treated to the “same old, same old” from the party of McGovern.

Rare signs of internal dissent have shown through the walls of silence about the party’s internal workings, showing a party that’s organizationally still trapped in the 50’s, and has ever declining organization and participation.

At a recent central committee meeting held by Democrats, only 18 of South Dakota’s 66 Counties had representation – geographically, representation came from only 27% of the state. Population-wise, it may be worse.

There have been reports of the party working it’s way downhill all year, as they prepare to go into the next round of elections. It’s hard to see a way up for them.

 

4. John Thune preparing to cruise to another unopposed victory.

Symptomatic of the previous political story is one that has farther reaching implications, and further illustrates the dire straits of the Democrat Party. They are currently preparing to hand US Senator John Thune a second, uncontested election in a row.

As noted in a recent article by a University of Minnesota Professor, “It has been 75 years since the last – and only – Republican U.S. Senator did not face a Democratic opponent in back-to-back elections.” Literally, the odds are ever increasing that we will see a – nationally – once in a lifetime event, where a Senator goes two terms in a row without a challenger.

A goodly part of that can be attributed to Thune himself.

Thune has managed to rise in the ranks in Washington like some of his predecessors, but maintains very strong ties to the state who has elected him. Unlike a Larry Pressler, or Tom Daschle, he has not, and will likely never establish a Washington, DC residence. Literally, Thune is seen in state as much as, if not more, than he’s depicted in his official duties in Washington.

Thune’s lack of any opposition in 12 years has also allowed him to amass over ten million dollars in reserves for a potential fight for his office. That’s enough to scare off anyone of any experience, which makes it tough for Democrats to argue to the inexperienced that they stand a chance.

That’s also borne out by the fact we’re at the end of 2015, with no Democrat candidate. Anyone with any political experience knows that a serious candidate would have been out raising funds six months ago. One fringe candidate, 2002 spoiler Kurt Evans, backed down in the face of Thune’s strength, leaving only another fringe candidate, Independent Mike Myers. Myers, who received 4% of the vote for Governor in 2014, is the only person even discussing the possibility of a race at the moment.

The closer we count down the minutes to 2016 makes the possibility of anyone running – even a poor candidate – ever the more remote.

Here’s another race you can draw a line through for 2016. Thune won this months ago. Period.

 

3. Blue Ribbon Task Force/Education funding

This was one of those things we talked about all year.

Nationally, there’s a crisis in retaining teachers in the profession.   They can receive better pay and less aggravation elsewhere, so there’s been a decline in the numbers in the profession. Nowhere is that more evident than in South Dakota, which ranks last in average teacher salaries, and somewhere in the lower 1/3 of salaries based on adjusted income/cost of living.

Some debate whether it’s a teacher salary problem versus a teacher pipeline problem, but that debate doesn’t fill teacher jobs that are left empty by the time the new school year rolls around.

Governor Daugaard formed a blue ribbon committee charged with examining the problem in depth, and during that process people bickered over the process, the procedure, and proposed special session(s) to no avail.

The Governor gave the committee three clear goals: a quality system of schools focused on student achievement, a workforce of great educators, and an efficient and equitable funding system, and after months of hearings, they came back in November with a report based on their findings. The big ticket item is a $ $75-million teacher pay proposal for increases in ongoing funding for teacher salaries.

$75 million in new ongoing funding is going to be one of the highest hurdles to leap, coming at the same time as counties asking for new funding sources, and finding money within the existing budget to go into Medicaid expansion.

The only difference between these and the other two big ticket items for next session? This one might stand the greatest chance of passing.

 

2. Petition Madness

Remember Susan Powter? She’s wrote a book about fitness, and blared the term “Stop the Madness!” throughout the media in the mid 1990’s.

That could apply with this years’ glut of initiated measures and state constitutional amendments. Something in the neighborhood of 13 were proposed, 10 were successfully circulated, and now 7 or 8 of them remain to be validated for the ballot.

Proponents of the multitude of measures claim that the measures represent the failure of South Dakota’s citizen legislature to pass legislation, but most all of these measures come from special interest groups who didn’t even bother with going the legislative route, because they knew they would likely fail.

Pro-marijuana measures, public financing of political campaigns, eliminating right to work laws, dueling payday lending limitations, etcetera and so on, were shoved in front of people all summer, testing the limits of “South Dakota nice” to obtain signatures to achieve the ballot. And it was featured on the news almost every night.

It got even more lively when one ballot measure sponsor claimed homeless people were being shipped in to *gasp* eat at his coffee shop. At the same time he attacked the sponsors of a competing measure as being fake.  It was sheer nuttiness into November, as courthouses had volunteers stalking visitors, and you could not go into a post office without being accosted.

Ever since, we’ve all been waiting to see how many of these measures ultimately will be placed on the ballot.

That is, of course, after the lawsuits on the ballot measures start being fought.

 

1. Annette Bosworth

What was I saying about “Stop the madness?” After her US Senate loss, and criminal charges arising as a result of her manner of certifying that she witnessed petition signatures, Annette Bosworth was inescapable in the news over the course of the past year. And it shows no sign of abating.

We watched her fight her battle in the media. We watched her surrogates attack the Attorney General often, and repeatedly, regardless of the truth. We watched her raise unknown amounts of money through solicitation letters for her legal fund, which many times made statements far past the realm of credibility, and so on and so forth.

We thought that much of this would end with her trial, and inevitable conviction. (She did admit she signed the things claiming she witnessed signatures while being on the other side of the planet, after all). But, of course, that would have been asking too much.

The Bosworth family circus has continued on since the trial with having her medical license revoked, court and license appeals being filed, and most recently, being sued by her former attorney Joel Arends for her characterizations of him.

And let’s not forget that late in the year, her husband, Chad Haber, has now been charged with the same offenses that Annette was convicted of.

Annette Bosworth dominated the political news in 2015, and unfortunately, it’s likely we’re going to continue to hear from her for a bit.

God help us all.

Agree? Disagree? Let us know your thoughts on the top ten stories below!

According to a facebook invite I received today, a third candidate has joined the race for Republican State House in District 30.

Air Force retiree Travis Lasseter, originally from Odessa, Texas, but now a farmer in New Underwood, SD, has put up a facebook page with a logo and theme around his running for District 30 House.

Lasseter would join Richard Mounce and Marilyn Oakes who are both planning on running in the race, triggering a primary for the seat. Given the composition of the district, the primary winners may find themselves elected by default, as District 30 doesn’t often run Democrats.

(I notice he’s also violating a cardinal rule in his logo. Never replace letters with difficult to read graphic element. It makes the whole thing hard to read).

It’s that time of the year again, where I do an annual list of the top political stories of 2015.

Admittedly, very often my lists tend to set the stage for next year, but in politics, events of the present often foreshadow the events of days to come. Part 1 of my top ten list is no exception, as all of them will affect the upcoming legislative session, upcoming elections, and how we view South Dakota’s political class.

So, let’s get on with it, and start the countdown…

10. The Westerhuis Murder investigation.

A horrendously tragic murder-suicide of a family in Platte, SD found itself over the course of a month and a half investigation in the middle of a political firestorm whipped up by the media, conspiracy theorists, and those who would like to make political hay out of it for the sake of political gamesmanship. Welcome for what passes for propriety in South Dakota nowadays.

The employer of the Westerhuis family parents had been given notice that their employer had lost a significant federal grant administered by the state hours before the tragic deaths occurred.  The grant involved a program administered by the Co-op, the GEAR UP program. This discretionary grant program is designed to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education.

The grant, and the educational cooperative’s administrative handling of the program soon became an issue, with information coming to light about the state directly intervening and providing extended involvement and hand-holding in trying to get them back on track over a series of years. Some criticized the hiring decisions by the Ed Coop, others criticized the state for having not dropped the hammer to strip them of the grant earlier, and getting in too deeply involved in helping them salvage it.

Democrats wasted no time by crassly using the occasion of the Atty General reporting on the status of the murder investigation to claim that “majority party dominance has resulted in a lack of government accountability.”  Despite the fact the Educational coop is a non-partisan entity.

It’s hard to simplify this case down to a few paragraphs, but watch for legislation to be proposed and for more clucking by Dems for the TV cameras. Ultimately, little will come of it.

What’s more likely to occur will be stronger rules about state grant audits, and when state agencies need to cut the cord with programs that aren’t producing.

 

9. Legislative departures

Political resignations are always noteworthy, but 2015 was an unusual year for those political departures. Adding to the oddness were three departures in particular.

Dan Lederman announced his departure at the tail end of the legislative session, as his family absences coupled with increasing business demands dictated that he needed to take a step back from serving in the legislature, and as Assistant Senate Majority Leader. No one was more surprised than Senate Majority Leader Tim Rave, who announced his own retirement from the legislature shortly thereafter, due to a job change.

These departures left massive vacancies and necessitated a complete reorganization of the Republican Majority in the Senate, which led President pro tempore of the South Dakota Senate Corey Brown to step down, and assume the majority leader role.

Also of note was the departure of State Representative Steve Hickey. Hickey had been noteworthy as being involved in the demand for an investigation of Annette Bosworth for petition violations, and at the same time he announced his resignation, he was accused of similar actions as he himself had accused Annette Bosworth of. Hickey departed the country to study in Scotland, and the accusations were not deemed credible enough to pursue.

 

8. Presidential politics

We named this as one of our top stories of 2015 because the presidential race has been a hot political topic all year, and only continues to gather steam as we close out 2015. As the 2016 Presidential races have heated up, politics on both sides of the aisle have dominated conversations among South Dakotans… despite the fact caucuses and primaries were months away. South Dakota Politicians have been lining up with their candidates as well.

Senator Mike Rounds was an early supporter of Mike Huckabee, and a number of early supporters of Jeb Bush, led by Assistant House Majority Leader Steve Westra, made their support public as well. Atty and GOP activist Joel Arends was an early supporter of Donald Trump, and organized a California Event for him that liberal news organizations pounced on and attacked.

Later in the year, Both Congresswoman Kristi Noem and former GOP Chair Bob Gray came out for Marco Rubio.

 

7. Medicaid Expansion

Democrats have been long attempting to use this as a wedge issue, as they try to paint the GOP as uncaring, despite the massive costs it would promise to add to South Dakota taxpayers were this entitlement to be implemented.

Later in the year, Governor Dennis Daugaard came forth with a proposal he’s been negotiating with the federal government to offset the costs of such an increase in the welfare rolls by the federal government honoring their commitment to pay for the medical costs of Native Americans through the Indian Health Service. As described in the Argus Leader:

Currently, Medicaid-eligible American Indians can choose to receive covered services from any provider that participates in a state’s Medicaid program. Depending on where those patients seek services can affect the rates the state and federal government have to pay.

If a patient seeks care from a non-IHS or non-tribal facility, the federal government pays between 50 percent and 74 percent, while the state pays between 26 percent and 50 percent. By comparison, if that patient seeks care through an IHS or tribal provider, the feds cover 100 percent and the state doesn’t have to chip in.

This would go a long way to making such an expansion economically feasible . The question is whether legislators would view it as politically feasible, as some are already expressing concern over expanding to cover able-bodied persons, adding 10% of the state’s population to the welfare rolls.

The discussion has been pervasive in 2015, and is going to continue past the end of the year into next session.

 

6. Kristi Noem in Washington

Congresswoman Kristi Noem isn’t just having a good year – she’s having a great year in politics.   Noem’s bipartisan Human Trafficking Prevention, Intervention, and Recovery Act was passed in July, and the measure has already been recognized as increasing prosecutions. In November, she helped push the highway bill through the House. In December, Noem has helped pass the first education overhaul since 2002. And, I could go on and on.

But let’s not forget the big enchilada – Early in 2015, U.S. Rep. Kristi Noem was appointed to the House Ways and Means Committee. Noem, the first South Dakota member of Congress to serve in the committee, has jurisdiction over tax, trade and other economic policies. Her higher profile has kept her in the spotlight, and she shows no signs of slowing down.

Noem is literally at the current height of her power and influence in Washington, and it shows with her strong popularity in her home state.  A weak opponent , State Representative Paula Hawks has already caused the race to be labeled by national prognosticators as going “Strong Republican,” and her fundraising has proven to be more anemic than that of Noem’s unknown 2014 opponent.

Stick a fork in this race for 2016. It has already been won.

Stay tuned for part 2!

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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