Family Heritage Alliance issues scorecard for the 2020 Legislative Cycle

Pat Powers

South Dakota Right to Life wan’t the only organization that issued a scorecard for the 2020 Session this last week. Family Heritage Alliance also issued a scorecard for their issues this past legislative session, which you read in full at http://fhaaction.org/2020-legislative-scorecard/

14 thoughts on “Family Heritage Alliance issues scorecard for the 2020 Legislative Cycle”

  1. I have an idea what the GOP Senate can do with these cards. Destroy two strong family values legislators so a few others can seek power.

  2. Any Republican who had a score lower than 70% should probably be voted out this year’s Republican primary.

  3. I tend to favor SD Citizens for Liberty of FHA. They don’t march in line like the other non-prhttps://www.facebook.com/sdcitizens.forliberty/?tn-str=k*Fofit.

  4. So which “Republicans” score lowest on issues relating to Family, Faith and Freedom? I see Duhamel, Schoenbeck and Soholt. All of them owe the voters an expanation. Their progressive voting record is equal to that of Heinert.

    1. They are the ones trying to destroy Greenfield and Langer so they can move the party to the left.

      1. The only ones trying to destroy Greenfield and Langner are Greenfield and Langner. Alcoholics are self-destructive.

        1. I hope we see breathalyzers for all of the intoxicated public servants we see next session. Maybe the SDDP will even use an iPhone to film them at events. It would be great for their elections.

  6. HB 1277 to prevent trafficking, coercion, and expectation that occurs under the guise of obscene content. This is definitely an ideology ding against us as Republican Senators over actually governing on behalf of the state. Over the past few years, we have dealt with a series of bills that have tightened up laws on sexual exploitation and trafficking which I believe I’ve always supported. This bill was amended in House State Affairs and passed off the House floor 63-5. It was then heard in Senate State Affairs where it was also amended, passed 9-0 and placed on our Consent Calendar. Consent is a procedural matter that any Committee can place a bill on if it is uncontested or has no opposition in the committee. Due to concerns, it was moved off the Consent Calendar and placed on the Senate Debate Calendar. When I first read the bill, I didn’t understand what it was trying to achieve. A Senator who works in law enforcement sent the bill to some of their investigators. The investigators reported back that they were not sure what the bill was attempting to solve. When I checked on why the bill was amended in both committees, it was believed that there were Constitutional issues involved and amended to help resolve those conflicts. As I read the bill in its amended form, I still didn’t believe that the amendments resolved the Constitutional conflicts. I spoke against the bill and helped defeat it on the Senate floor. The vote on the floor was 15-19. There was a lot of pressure brought by religious organizations who supported the bill; but even though philosophically I could agree with the bill, my responsibility & the oath I took to uphold the Constitution took precedence. Most of the Republican Senators who voted against this bill, including me, didn’t want the State spending untold monies to defend something that we believed would have been overturned by the courts as unconstitutional – especially with the budget shortfalls (and this was before the devastation of Covid19 on our economy) .

    HCR6005 Israel Resolution. Again, I have always & will always vote pro-Israel and was in fact a co-sponsor. If you look at the actual vote, I was excused. I was in the Governor’s office; I had not left the floor so I didn’t have to cast a recorded vote. Yet, I was again dinged.

    1. Dont get too wrapped up in the scorecard. God forbid voters read a little bit about the bills and not take the FHA as gospel.

    2. Hi Senator Otten,
      For the vote on HCR6005, we did not count your absence as a ‘no’ vote, and you were left blank on our scorecard.

      With regard to HB1277, we have always held the position that when we disagree with a Legislator on an issue, we are quick to move on and work together on the next issue. Unfortunately, because of the low number of bills we were able to use for the Senate scorecard this year, disagreeing on one issue changed the results of the scorecard substantially.

  7. That’s interesting, Sen. Otten. I don’t know anything about the Family Heritage Alliance specifically but their name leads me to distrust them and suspect I oppose them. And what you have to say about their scorecard reinforces that, at least for the distrust part.

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