From the Attorney General’s office:
AG Issues Official Opinion Relating to “Vote Trading” and “Vehicle Bills”
PIERRE, S.D. – Attorney General Marty Jackley has issued an Official Opinion on whether “vote trading” and “vehicle bills” are prohibited:
AGoffopin1702rel by Pat Powers on Scribd
When it comes to horse trading on legislation – which is common in any legislature in the country – Senator Nelson has now been informed via an official Attorney General’s opinion that compromise is “not illegal.”
So I guess in regard to vehicle bills, essentially the attorney general says that in SD it is legal to replace an already passed out of committee vehicle bill with a completely different subject matter and thus bypass the normal committee testimony and hearing and vote to kill or pass the bill. To me this seems to skirt the actual meaning of the legislative process and allow a bill to get passed without public input. Is this correct? More importantly, is this right??? Apparently a chamber can vote to suspend the rules and allow a bill to be entered after the deadline date, so why the need for a vehicle bill. Why can’t the legislators get their act together before the deadline, or suspend the rules, or wait till next year? Or do the legislators know that an idea would never make it out of committee and thus use a vehicle bill as a go around the normal process? I never liked the idea of vehicle bills and like them even less now. I would like to hear from anyone with an explanation of how I am mistaken.
Springer, replacing “an already passed out of committee vehicle bill with a completely different subject matter” has been around for many, many years.
http://sdlegislature.gov/docs/studentspage/studentguide/StudentReferenceSeries6.pdf
The legislature doing it with vehicle bills is actually a little more recent, and frankly, a little more transparent, as opposed to taking someone’s bill off the table and gutting it.
I know this is nothing new. But my question is whether the contents of the new bill have to pass muster through a committee hearing and testimony, committee vote up or down, and then on to the other chamber for the same thing. My concern is whether a law can be passed without the scrutiny of a true legislative process. Can it?
It depends where it is hoghoused, and what that chamber decides. It’s generally hoghoused in committee, sent to the floor, and then would be sent back to the other chamber for at least a conference committee. It could be hoghoused on the floor, but it still has to go back to the other chamber for a vote.
But it does bypass the public input phase regardless of where hoghoused, right? And it could bypass even the conference committee. So if a subject would be known to be controversial and probably not make it out of committee, this is one way to bypass all that and just vote on it on the floor, right?
It can’t bypass a conference committee if it’s different than what the original chamber passed.
OK, my mistake. I was referring to the original committee a bill has to get through in order to get to the floor of the chamber (including public input and debate). This is what is bypassed with vehicle bills, in other words no public input.
Is testimony from the public allowed during a conference committee hearing?
I think this was a huge mistake the way Jackley handled this. While he covered for legislators trading votes to pass vehicle bills, he opens himself up for the rightful criticism he turns a blind eye to political corruption. Even worse, it appears that he condones it.
I was told by one of the legislators who supposedly traded his vote on that empty vehicle bill, that it is not an excepted tradition in South Dakota for legislators to bribe each other by trading votes. He said the exact opposite, legislators are routinely told that it is unethical and illegal.
This looks terrible in the eyes of this voter.
Springer,
Life is filled with trade-offs including our Legislative process.
We have three choices:
1) Extend the Legislative calendar 15-20 days so an orderly process can handle all items which come before the Legislature as they do all they do win 40 days.
2) Give them some flexibility via vehicle bills and hoghouses to deal with issues outside of the normal and customary timeframe.
3) Just tell the people to wait until next year because the rules don’t allow the Legislature to deal with this issue because the timeframes have passed.
Personally, I find #2 the least objectionable.
Anonymous,
1) Jackley covered for nothing. He did what the Attorney General is sworn to do- assess the legality and Constitutionality of a matter and inform the Legislature. Are you some liberal who thinks judges and Attorney Generals should make up law as they see fit? Sheesh.
2) I get a kick out of all the people who criticize people who “compromise” as unethical. In my faith, it is a sin to believe one is God.
Except, legislative rules allow for a bill to be accepted all the way up to the second they gavel out of session, if they convince legislators in either chamber that the situation warrants it and they get them to vote to suspend the rules. Correct?
Isn’t it a long held conviction in the SD legislature that vote trading is illegal and unethical?
“Long held conviction… that vote trading is illegal and unethical” are two different concepts. As the AG points out, it is neither unconstitutional nor illegal as provided for in the state Constitution or codified laws.
Something CAN be unethical without it being illegal or unconstitutional. As you should be able to read AG Jackley very clearly states: “As members of the legislature, you have the ability to address your concerns about ‘vote trading’ by legislative rule or statutory enactment.” What this says is… if you think it is a problem that needs to be addressed with rules, then do it. The AG does not create law, only enforces it. The legislature is responsible for its own [non-criminal] policing of conduct. If one believes that something needs to be a rule or a law, then go ahead and fix it that way. Do not try to pass the buck to another branch of the government.
I think Marty made a mistake when he claimed vote trading was legal. The statute and constitution he cites indicates no inducements are legal.
I don’t think he had a choice politically on vehicle bills.
In the end, points to Russell and Nelson in the public eye.
So Troy, would a “trade-off” be: vote my way and I will give you campaign money next year, or vote your constituents way and my campaign money goes to your opponent during the GOP primary?
Steve a quid pro quo as you describe is illegal and not even close to what Jackley was discussing.
Bingo!
Why are you blocking/removing legislators postings from the legisaltivative wifi?
LRC Oahe WIFI to be exact
I’m not (as evidenced by your posting) but Legislators should be using their own name and not posting anonymously.
Vehicle bills started in 2007, in their current form. They, or a hoghouse (which they are) are no different than an amendment. Add a “not” here and a comma there and the bill doesnt mean what it did in the first or second committee hearing. Amendments have always been part of the process. To not allow them, would defeat the nature and reason for the bicameral legislature created in our constitution
Appearances do matter, though. They should just stop doing this.
Otherwise they are just fueling Nelson’s gubernatorial campaign.
He’s already running on a platform of terminating state employees who engage in premarital sex.
Personally I would enjoy helping him with the publicity on that one.
I don’t see the similarity between an amendment and a hoghouse. A hoghouse can gut an entire bill and put in another completely different bill. An amendment just modifies the original bill.
Springer,
Original Bill: The South Dakota Department of Transportation shall plow all major arterial roads in cities with a population of under 2,000.
Is the following a amendment (modification) or a hothouse (completely different bill)?
The South Dakota Department of Transportation shall convert to gravel all major arterial roads in cities with a population of under 2,000.
No matter what you answer, I can argue the other side and that is the dilemma. It becomes a matter of opinion. Thus, at the end of the day, in a Republican Democracy, 50% (or whatever % is required for passage) of the Legislature gets to determine what is permissible because writing rules which objectively only catch what is desired is impossible. In the end, you’d still have to go back to a vote to decide and you are back where you started.
The only thing those two bills have in common is that they deal with roads. A similar analogy would be if the original bill stated “all farm machinery will be taxed at 10% at time of sale” modified to say “all farm machinery will pay no tax at time of sale.” Yes, some of the words are the same, but the intent of the bill is completely different. In other words, it is hoghoused, not amended. It went thru committee hearings and public input as one bill but emerged as a completely different one with no public input, and that is my concern. But I give up arguing, apparently the legislature has done it this way since 2007 and therefore some say there is no reason to question it or change it. Not quite a cogent argument, but whatever. I don’t always agree with Nelson and his stands on issues, but on this one I do.
Springer,
What I described has been done in Legislative sessions since prior to statehood.
You said “the intent of the bills is entirely different”. How do you know that? The first bill was to make the roads less slippery. Well, so does the second bill and I want to have less slippery arterial roads in small towns. I just changed it because I got information it was cheaper to have them all gravel roads instead of plowing them.
Which goes back to what I said before, you can’t draft rules and definitions which are clear without creating matters which have to be decided. Who should decide? Of course the Legislature (unless you want judges to legislate, or the Governor, or a Dictator). Thus, why try to have detailed rules when in the end we get back to what we had before: a majority of the Legislature decides the rules?
Or is your problem that there are amendments to bills after they have gotten out of committee? So, if I’m not on the committee, as a legislator, I can’t propose amendments on the floor? Or are you saying if a bill is amended on the floor, it has to go back to the committee for public comment?
How long do you want the legislature to be in session?
Before I go on, except in the most extra-ordinary circumstances, if I were in the legislature, I wouldn’t vote for a hoghouse or vehicle bill or smoke-out even if I agreed with the subject matter. My rationale isn’t that germane to the subject.
That said, why do we have all of these procedural flexibilities? It to increase the power of the Legislature relative to the Governor because during the course of Legislature, legislators learn of issues they didn’t know about before they came to Pierre and couldn’t draft cogent solutions prior to the various deadlines for introducing bills or their passage from each of the houses.
So, ironically, those who are opposing each of these procedural flexibilities are in effect decreasing the power of the Legislature and increasing the power of the Governor. Not sure that is their desire but I’m pretty sure the people in the Governor’s Office are enjoying this discussion.
“That said, why do we have all of these procedural flexibilities? It to increase the power of the Legislature relative to the Governor”
BS, the governor, along with lobbyists, get to discuss the content of the hoghouse behind the scenes. This puts the taxpayers at an disadvantage. Example, 2013 SB235 used to create the Building South Dakota fund. The hoghouse occurred in the House State Affairs (after the empty bill passed the Senate the month before) where 19 lobbyists (having an interest in the money to be made available) testified in favor with the rest of us in the dark as to the content until after the LRC put up the committee vote on the amendment and the bill itself later that day. Do you think the governor had a good idea what the content was prior to the committee hearing?
This is a textbook example of how crony capitalism works in Pierre.
The real answer – to all forms of amendments — and all bills —- is to resist the Pelosi I’ll-read-it-after-it-passes attitude, or the Nelson its-too-hard-to-follow attitude, and just do your work and read the bills and all of the amendments that you are called to vote upon, I’m pretty sure that’s within the responsibilities accepted when getting sworn in