Rounds Announces New D.C. Deputy Chief of Staff
Mark Johnston will Return as D.C. Deputy Chief of Staff

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) today announced that Mark Johnston has been hired to serve as his D.C. Deputy Chief of Staff. Johnston previously served as Rounds’ regional director in his Sioux Falls office. He will be based in Washington, D.C., beginning Feb. 20, 2018. Rob Skjonsberg, chief of staff, will base in South Dakota.

“Mark’s decades of experience in public service and numerous leadership positions will be a tremendous asset to my Washington, D.C., office,” said Rounds. “His background and knowledge of South Dakota have prepared him well for this new role. I look forward to having him lead our Washington, D.C., team as we continue to do our best to represent South Dakotans.”

Johnston most recently served as Vice President of Advancement at Dakota State University in Madison. He previously worked for Sen. Rounds as Regional Director in his Sioux Falls office, and as press secretary for then-Governor Rounds. He is a former South Dakota State Senator and a retired Colonel in the U.S. Army, serving 28 years in the National Guard and Reserve. Johnston also spent more than seven years as Vice President at Sanford Health, focusing on communications, public policy and development and research.

Gregg Rickman will continue to serve as Legislative Director.

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Noem Endorses SB40, Commits to Further Community Enhancement around Ellsworth

Rapid City, S.D. – Kristi Noem today endorsed S.B.40, saying the legislation will strengthen the community’s ability to support national security missions performed at Ellsworth and preserve the base’s regional economic impact. Noem recognized the step as a move in the right direction, but also committed to further community enhancements, if elected governor.

“Ellsworth Air Force Base is critical to our national security and an economic engine in western South Dakota,” said Noem. “While a land transfer may seem like a minor, technical change, the move enhances the area around Ellsworth and helps ensure the base’s long-term viability. If elected governor, I will work hand-in-hand with the Ellsworth Development Authority to expand on these efforts, ensuring South Dakota continues to play a major role in protecting and defending the United States of America.”

The Ellsworth Development Authority, Governor Daugaard, the South Dakota Congressional Delegation, and other stakeholders have worked closely to protect and enhance the value of Ellsworth Air Force Base. The Ellsworth Development Authority has previously been named Defense Community of the Year by the Association of Defense Communities.

As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and former member of the House Armed Services Committee, Noem has consistently opposed a new round of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) that previously sought to close Ellsworth. She also fought for the expansion of the Powder River Training Complex (PRTC) and upgrades to the B-1 bomber, while aggressively opposing the retirement of aircraft from the B-1 bomber fleet.

Is State Auditor Steve Barnett running for Secretary of State or Congress? Because look at the campaign finance numbers he’s posted:

Steve Barnett 2017 Campaign Finance Year End Report by Pat Powers on Scribd

Now, granted he brought $44K over from his previous committee for Auditor for inclusion in that total. But $94k raised, $10.6K spent, and $83.6K cash on hand is plenty of seed money to start a constitutional office race from.

Especially for a contest that has yet to draw any specific opponents.

Stay tuned.

Circuit Court Judge Rules Berget Does Not Have an Intellectual Disability

PIERRE, S.D. – Attorney General Marty Jackley announced today that 2nd Circuit Court Judge Douglas Hoffman has ruled that death row inmate Rodney Berget does not have an intellectual disability and has dismissed all of his claims challenging the validity of his sentence.

“The Court found that the factual record demonstrates that Berget was a leader and not a follower, recognizing he has a highly developed planning, reasoning and problem solving ability,” said Jackley. “The State can now proceed with obtaining justice for Ronald ‘RJ’ Johnson and his family.”

The matter will be remanded back to the sentencing court where the State will seek a warrant of execution.

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Shantel Krebs has filed her 4th Quarter FEC Report for 2017, and after narrowly winning the cash race in the previous two quarters, it appears that she’s slowing down greatly in the fundraising race.

Krebs 2017 Q4 FEC Report by Pat Powers on Scribd

Krebs took a hit in the fundraising, only raising $77,510.69, spending $26,761.69, and leaving her with $361,619.61 cash on hand. For Krebs, that marks a significant drop from the $133K and $131K she raised in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, and is noticeable with not breaking $100K for the quarter.

Comparing that to her competitors, Dusty Johnson, who had $116,715 raised, expenditures of $43,131, and $424,277 in pocket, that marks a $40,000 deficit of money raised in comparison, and an over $62,000 difference of what they have in the bank.

Democrat Tim Bjorkman reported $56k raised, $36k spent and $116k cash on hand, leaving him trailing behind Krebs by $20K in fundraising.

Stay tuned.

(Sorry Neal. I’ve got to side with less government here.)

There must not be enough pressing State problems in the South Dakota to solve this year. Because we have not just one bill, but two, for legislators to drug test each other in a game of “you show me your drug test, and I’l show you mine.”   Except that the measure is incomplete, and will require – you guessed it – more government, and opens up issues of public disclosure, wasted taxpayer dollars, open government, and over-riding federal law:

From the Argus Leader:

On a 4-3 vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee split with representatives who voted down the measure the day before.

Supporters of the bill said the proposal was aimed at demonstrating leadership in the Legislature and providing evidence to voters that lawmakers aren’t using drugs during their time in Pierre. They said voting down the proposal as their peers in the House did would create negative optics for lawmakers.

and..

Lawmakers that supported the proposal also expressed concern about comments made by House representatives Wednesday that characterized the bill as a proposal based on “cynicism or grandstanding.”

“I want to apologize for the way you were mistreated,” Sen. Stace Nelson, R-Fulton, told Goodwin. He said he disagreed with the “mean girl petulant frat boy” attitude of his peer who made the comment.

Read it all here.

Well, call me mean or petulant too, but the measure is nothing but grandstanding. And silly grandstanding at that. Read the measure for yourself:

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA:

Section 1. That the code be amended by adding a NEW SECTION to read:Each member of the Legislature shall submit for a drug test within two weeks of being sworn into office and within two weeks of the end of the legislative session. Any refusal to submit to a drug test or any positive confirmed drug test for the use of a controlled substance that was not prescribed for the member by a licensed health care provider shall be reported to the presiding officer of the house to which the member belongs for appropriate disciplinary action.

Read that here.

If you read the language, all it says definitively is that they have to do a test. Period.  The measure is pretty darned limited in what it lays out for the proposal. It doesn’t say who pays for the drug test, it doesn’t say what kind of test it is, it doesn’t say who administers the test. It doesn’t say who gets the results, it doesn’t lay out any penalties, it doesn’t note whether the results are public, private, etc., and so on.

It just says Each member of the Legislature “shall submit for a drug test.”

For starters, given this is a legislative proposal, let’s assume that it’s going to fall on the taxpayer. Despite it being a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Next, who exactly is going to administer the test? Will it be self administered with the “pee in a cup test strip?”  Or will this be a full blood panel screen administered and conducted by a physician? Because there’s a big difference in price.

And how exactly will this all be determined, because the law is silent? Will the law be amended before it goes to the Governor, or will it just be sloppily passed? Because in either case, we’ll need some government to make it work.

Now, here’s where things get even more interesting.

Who exactly will get the results?  The bill as written mandates testing. It is silent about who gets the results. It says “submit for a drug test within two weeks of being sworn into office and within two weeks of the end of the legislative session.”  Absent rules that would be set by the legislature (more government), conceivably, a person could do the test…. and then not authorize it’s release.

But let’s assume that they would go ahead and create more government and force them to sign a release. Because here’s where Federal HIPAA law – and possibly ADA (Americans with Disability Act) could come into play, depending on what the results show. And in many cases those federal laws supersede state law.

One source notes “According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), “if the results of a drug test reveal the presence of a lawfully prescribed drug or other medical information, such information must be treated as a confidential medical record.”  So, would that prevent full results from being released to the presiding officer of the House the affected member is in?  And the legislature will probably need new rules or procedures (more government) to address those concerns.

If we start thinking about open government, this isn’t exactly a normal employer-employee relationship. It’s involving elected officials. While Federal employment/medical privacy laws will likely enter into the mix, we also have HUGE questions about open government that are going to become part of the conversation as well.

If an elected official is sanctioned as a result of a positive drug test, you can be darn certain that the State’s Media – including myself – are going to want to know who, what, when, and why.  And media that’s better heeled than I will probably ask their legal counsel to bring suit against the state to find out because of the compelling public interest.

There’s an open government concern that’s going to need to be addressed that isn’t mentioned in this bill.

I could on and on (and on), but this is a simple post about a short piece of legislation.

If as Republicans, we value the government which govern the least, and we believed Ronald Regan when he said “government is not the solution to our problem; government IS the problem,” then why are we looking for more government when there is no real need for it?

There’s no outcry. No one has been arrested. No one has shown the need to spend taxpayer money on this, or to make Government bigger to address it.

In fact, there’s no evidence that anyone in the legislature is using illegal drugs.  If someone actually had any evidence, I’d tell them to go fill out a report with the Attorney General, and let the State Drug Task Force investigate, make arrests where warranted, and move up the food chain to catch the people selling it.

That’s a far more effective use of everyone’s time than asking “random State Representative” to pee in a cup.

Mandatory Drug Tests for Lawmakers Still Alive in Pierre, Headed to Senate Vote

After a similar House bill (HB 1133) was killed in committee Wednesday, another version of a controversial bill requiring mandatory drug testing for South Dakota legislators has now passed the Senate Judiciary Committee and is headed for a vote on the Senate floor. The move comes after Attorney General Marty Jackley proposed new, harsher penalties for the use and manufacture of methamphetamine. Representative Tim Goodwin of Rapid City launched the original initiative to subject the state’s lawmaking body to the same standards and expectations given to the general public.

“If lawmakers are going to send people to prison for long periods of time (for drug use and abuse,) we should be clean ourselves,” Goodwin said.

Congressional candidate and Watertown State Senator, Neal Tapio backs the notion and is cosponsoring the new Senate version of the legislation which proposes drug testing lawmakers once after their swearing into office and once near the conclusion of each legislative session in Pierre. Tapio says simple observation shows the conversation has certain members of both houses of the South Dakota legislature squirming noticeably in their seats. Tapio and Goodwin agree simple deduction suggests anyone not backing the measure might have something to hide.

“There’s no reason in the world for members duly elected to the South Dakota legislature, the very body tasked with deciding the penalties and punishments for those who break our state laws on substance abuse, to oppose equal scrutiny of their own personal behavior,” Tapio said. “I would say that when people are so vehemently opposed to this, it leaves people to wonder about what they might be hiding in their own lives in a very hypocritical way,” Tapio said.

If it passes the Senate, the bill would require House Committee passage before a floor vote could happen. House Majority Leader Mark Mickelson, who stringently opposed HB 1133 has the power of committee selection in determining where the drug testing bill would be heard. Tapio says the bill is an opportunity for lawmakers to set a clear example to their constituents about a high standard of personal conduct.

“South Dakota is in dire need of a wider conversation about the impact of drug usage on our people, schools and businesses,” Tapio said. “The state is facing a drug epidemic, resulting in workforce shortages, increased crime rates, increased costs for juvenile and adult criminal justice systems and requests for more jails in our communities. We should set an example as legislators to have a zero tolerance policy for members of this August body.”

The group behind Marsy’s Law has apparently started a social media campaign against Speaker of the South Dakota House Mark Mickelson for his advocacy for a ballot measure to repeal the victim rights measure passed in the 2016 election.

The media campaign leads people to a website where they can sign up to protest against the repeal effort, which you can read here.

We might be leading up to a new ballot measure fight in 2018 over Marsy’s Law. Stay tuned!

From my mailbox:

Join AFP for the free speech fight here.

With the spotlight on them for policies and actions that have brought a bill to the fray, via the Argus Leader, the University of South Dakota is changing policies in free speech as the Board of Regents are set to answer for them in legislative committee:

The incident, as well as shifting free speech policies on South Dakota’s college campuses – USD just updated its policy – suggest to supporters of the bill that an ironclad state law is needed to ensure the First Amendment is protected.

and..

Back at USD, Haraldson said the university’s updated policy expanded free speech. Previously, there were just three places on campus that were considered free speech zones, where groups could demonstrate or hold rallies. That policy went into effect years ago amid concerns that protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, who protested at campuses and military funerals with anti-gay signs, would show up at USD.

Now, under the new policy, the entire campus is open to free speech.

Read it here.

As the bright spotlight of legislative attention is upon them, USD Changed their policies.  But if that’s all it takes to change them, what’s to stop them from changing them back once the heat is off?

A new state law, perhaps?