House Bill 1305, sponsored by State Representative Drew Dennert just earned a sharp rebuke from the South Dakota Republican Party Executive Board this morning, who voted unanimously to oppose the legislation on Sunday.

Why? Partly because according to an e-mail calling for action by the South Dakota Republican Party Central Committee, the GOP noted that the “..measure was introduced without talking with stakeholders,” indicating that the sponsor of the measure took it upon themselves to introduce it without consulting the people it would affect.

SDGOP Chairman Dan Lederman also noted that Constitutional Amendment V, which would have done similar things to the primary process was rejected by South Dakota voters 55-45, and lost in all but three counties in the state.

The party also noted This measure represents an attempt to appease those who want to allow Democrats and others to pick the Republican candidates.   Winston Churchill said it best when he said “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” 

The e-mail encourages members of the Republican Central Committee to call the House lobby at 773-3851 to encourage their State Representatives to vote NO on the bill when it’s up for a vote today on the House Floor.

The e-mail closes by also noting that the Republican State Party Executive Board will also be weighing in on House Bill 1259.

I’m catching info this AM on a bill that’s affecting a group that wasn’t asked about a measure ahead of time. And now they’re not happy.

Stay tuned as I get details.

I’m getting reports early this AM that South Dakota State Student President Taylin Albrecht decided by herself without consulting the Student’s Association to take a stand against the second free speech bill (this one originating in the State Senate) on behalf of SDSU.

Two Student Senators expressed to me their concern noting:

“Our president said that she is a representative of the students’ voice, and therefore, does not need the consent of the (senate) body to act. We have been discussing the issue amongst our senate members who are present in Pierre. Many of us were blindsided by her actions and the stance taken by the Student Federation.

We admire the universities that chose to abstain from the votes tonight in an effort to remain transparent and honest for their students.”

When Senate Bill 198 is heard Senate Education committee, if the SDSU Student Association president offers her opinion, senators should ask her when the vote was held to oppose it. Because it certainly sounds like that’s a vote she does not feel ever needs to take place.

From the College Fix comes a recap on the story on the demise of the first Campus Free Speech Bill, noting that legislators were fed misinformation before they voted against it:

Now a cohort of student government members from South Dakota State has alleged that the student testimony was “misleading.” Six South Dakota State student senate members claim the student resolution against the free speech bill was passed hastily, disregarding typical procedures and without sufficient campus input.

“The testimony and the resolution are in many ways misleading, and untrue because nearly no student organizations or students were consulted on this issue,” the senators stated in a letter, a copy of which was posted on the political website South Dakota War College.

and…

Ryan Sailors, another student senator who signed the letter, echoed similar sentiments.

“I personally would have liked to see the resolution being tabled and give us more time to meet with the student body and get more educated on the legislation,” he told The Fix via email.

In addition to the senators who have spoken out, the editorial board of the campus newspaper, The Collegian, also criticized how the resolution was handled. In an editorial published last week, the newspaper said a vote on the resolution should have been postponed.

Read it here.

They’ll get a chance to set things right via the Senate version of the measure, which is soon to be heard in Senate Education committee.

Noem in Sioux Falls Monday

Sioux Falls, S.D. – Kristi Noem will be in Sioux Falls on Monday, February 12, at 10:00am(CT) to hold a listening session with local business leaders about the impact of rising crime on the area’s economy.

WHAT: Noem to Hold Public Safety Listening Session with Area Businesses
WHEN: Monday, February 12 – 10:00AM (CT)
WHERE: Sioux Falls Design Center (108 W. 11th Street, Sioux Falls)

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South Dakota has a bill – HB1250 – up for approval in the State Legislature to raise the age for the legal purchase of tobacco from 18-21, which unfortunately has passed out of committee and is headed to the House floor.

What should happen to it on the House floor is what happened to it in Maine, where when faced with the measure the Republican Governor killed it on the spot:

Gov. Paul LePage said Tuesday that he has vetoed a bill to ban the use of cellphones and other hand-held devices while driving and another to raise the legal age for purchasing tobacco products from 18 to 21.

and…

Speaking during his weekly call-in appearance on the Bangor-based WVOM talk radio show, LePage said he opposes laws that amount to “social engineering.”

“I don’t believe that social engineering a society is going to create a good society,” LePage told the show’s hosts, George Hale and Christian Greeley.

and..

LePage said he vetoed the bill to increase the legal age to buy cigarettes or other tobacco products, including vaping equipment, because 18-year-olds are deemed mature enough to join the military.

“I’m not going to strap a gun to their shoulder and go fight a war if they can’t go buy cigarettes,” LePage said. “I’ll tell you, this is just sinful, it is absolutely sinful, and I believe that at 18 they are mature enough to make a decision and I’m tired of living in a society where we social engineer our lives.”

Read it all here.

Just say no – to social engineering and the nanny state!

The Minnehaha County GOP held its first legislative coffee of 2018 this weekend, and as opposed to what legislators had viewed as a more superficial Q&A Session, the legislators liked the new format as a welcome departure:

Republican lawmakers at the GOP forum said they preferred the new model over the traditional legislative coffees, which until this year were sponsored by both Democratic and Republican parties. Answering without a stopwatch ticking down was a feature they said they preferred over the chamber coffee events.

“I hate 90 seconds,” Stalzer said. “Some issues you just can’t handle it in 90 seconds.”

Willadsen agreed: “I like being able to go face-to-face with one of my constituents and be able to say, ‘here’s the deal.'”

Read it here.

The Rapid city journal has an interesting story this AM about Paul Erickson, who has been involved in the Pat Buchanan for President campaign, as well as with John Wayne Bobbit:

Getting entangled in the Trump-Russia investigations would be a strange twist of fate for most South Dakotans, but not Paul Erickson.

For him, it might have been predictable.

In a Dec. 3 news story, The New York Times identified Erickson as a potential connection between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. On Jan. 25, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee addressed a letter to Erickson asking him to submit documents and schedule an interview as part of the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

But before any of that happened, Erickson, 56, of Sioux Falls, had already spent much of his adult life in the orbit of the famous and infamous.

and…

Erickson told the Journal he took no money from Bobbitt and viewed the work as a cause, both to protect a man he thought was wrongfully accused of rape and to stop national interest groups, such as the National Organization for Women, from using the rape allegation against Bobbitt to advance a political agenda.

“The case was a pretty deep dive into the sexual politics of America at the time,” Erickson said.

After Erickson and Bobbitt parted ways, Bobbitt went to Las Vegas, where he hired new representation and veered into a stint in pornographic films.

Olympic Victory Should Be Celebrated, Not Taxed
By Sen. John Thune

It was September 1988 – nearly 30 years ago today – when the torch was lit over Seoul, South Korea, for the Summer Olympic Games, which took place just a short distance away from where the Winter Olympic Games are being held this year in Pyeongchang. Athletes from around the world, including the United States, assembled to compete on the greatest stage on the globe, as they are now, and their countrymen were watching.

As the games were getting underway, President Reagan addressed the nation and described the strength of Team USA, which, as he explained, came “from all over our nation, from the rough and tumble streets of our brawny cities to the quiet lanes of our vast countryside … They represent every aspect of our country’s life and a shining hope, too, a crystalline beacon of opportunity that we know is the heart of America.”

Reagan’s words transcend time, as I’ve found they often do. His description of the 1988 team could easily be affixed to the dedicated, hardworking athletes who are in Pyeongchang this year for what will be the pinnacle of many of their careers – as it should be, for all of the time, money, and effort that has gone into their journey to the games.

As many Olympic and Paralympic athletes will tell you, unlike their professional counterparts, they’re not paid to compete. They have day jobs. They’re teachers, nurses, moms and dads, sisters and brothers. They’re paying their own way for gym memberships, personal trainers, equipment, and travel. Long story short, being on Team USA is a big personal investment, and it can come at a significant cost, too.

When these mentors to the next generation of Olympians return home from the games, their success should be celebrated with friends, family, and communities. They deserve it. Unfortunately, up until just a few years ago, in addition to the parades and other celebrations, these athletes were also welcomed home with a victory tax, as it became known, courtesy of the IRS.

I can’t think of anything more unpatriotic than the federal government profiting off of the success of Olympians and Paralympians by taxing the value of their medals and prize money. That’s why I helped lead a successful effort to repeal the victory tax once and for all. As a result, victorious Olympians and Paralympians with an adjusted gross income of $1 million or less – the bulk of the amateur athletes who are the heart of Team USA – will not be taxed on their Olympic success. Guys like the University of South Dakota’s Derek Miles, to whom I was lucky enough to present an overdue Olympic bronze medal last year.

While I believe this is an important issue, nothing accomplished in athletics is as important as how a person responds when an abused child asks for help, which is why the Senate Commerce Committee, which I chair, has been working closely with the Senate Judiciary Committee to address sexual abuse in the Olympic movement.

We’ve made important progress, most recently with the passage of the bipartisan Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act, which combined legislation I authored with a provision spearheaded by the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. These reforms are happening because brave athletes had the courage to stand up and call out wrongdoing to stop abuse, which I hope serves as inspiration to some and a serious warning to others.

President Reagan ended his 1988 address with a message as applicable then as it is now: “So, as you watch these Olympics, remember – win, lose, or draw – how much we have to be proud and thankful for. After all, we’re Americans.” Good luck, Team USA. You’ve got 300 million fans in your corner.

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Providing Obamacare Relief for South Dakotans
By U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.)

Obamacare premiums rose 20 percent for South Dakotans this year, and I continue to hear stories of fewer health care options and out-of-control health care costs as a result of the ill-advised Affordable Care Act. While repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a consumer-driven, truly affordable system remains a top priority for me, we continue to take meaningful steps to provide Americans relief from this law.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act helped relieve Americans from Obamacare, by including provisions to delay the Medical Device Tax and the Cadillac Tax for two years and by delaying the excise tax on health insurance plans for one year. Importantly, this legislation also repealed Obamacare’s individual mandate, so that nobody will be forced to pay a tax penalty if they don’t want to purchase health care coverage that they don’t want or need. The individual mandate was an unpopular tax in an unpopular law that disproportionately hurt low-income families. We’re glad to see it go away. We were also able to successfully repeal Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board, which is a special panel of unelected bureaucrats tasked with finding savings in Medicare by rationing health services for seniors.

The Trump administration has also taken steps to give states more flexibility in administering federal mandatory spending programs. Most recently, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it will give states more flexibility regarding work requirements for certain Medicaid beneficiaries. This will allow governors and state government leaders to shape state Medicaid policies that work best for their state rather than following rules issued by Washington bureaucrats. Already, nine states have applied for work requirement waivers to implement these new flexibilities and two waivers have been approved, including South Dakota’s.

President Lyndon B. Johnson created Medicaid in 1965 as part of his War on Poverty. The intent of the program was to provide health services for low-income children, seniors in need, individuals with disabilities and pregnant mothers. It was designed to be a pathway out of poverty.

As Americans, we take care of the most vulnerable in our society—the very young, the very old and those who cannot take care of themselves. The Affordable Care Act opened up Medicaid to include healthy, able-bodied, working-age men and women, which has added to the high cost of the program. In 2015, an estimated 70 million people were enrolled in Medicaid. That is 21 percent of our entire population!

Medicaid and other mandatory spending programs like Medicare and Social Security are on an unsustainable path. In the long-term, Congress needs to reform the federal budget process so that it can exercise greater control over the sustainability of mandatory spending. In the short-term, giving states the flexibility to manage Medicaid in new, innovative ways will help make Medicaid more manageable.

These are important steps toward our goal of eliminating the unpopular aspects of Obamacare, but the fact remains that premiums are still too high, insurance companies are leaving the marketplace and millions of Americans have been forced off plans they liked. I will continue to work with my colleagues to relieve hardworking families from Obamacare’s perils as we seek to make health care truly affordable and accessible for all Americans.

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