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HB 1234: Constitutional Questions on Single-Subject Bills and Uniform School System

Last updated on 2016.11.25

Late in the debate on HB 1234, Reps. Shawn Tornow and Lora Hubbel tossed a little Tea Party fundamentalism at Governor Daugaard's package of education reforms. They contended that HB 1234 is unconstitutional because it addresses more than one subject.

This argument is a word game. The South Dakota Constitution says "No law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title" (Article 3, Section 21). The title of HB 1234 reads thus:

An Act to provide incentives to teach in critical need areas, to provide for rewards for the best teachers and those teaching in math and science subject areas, to revise certain provisions regarding evaluation of teachers, to create a system for evaluating principals, to distinguish between tenured and nontenured teachers, to revise certain provisions regarding the employment of teachers, and to repeal provisions regarding the teacher compensation assistance program [HB 1234, as enrolled, 2012.03.01].

That sounds like a lot of different subjects, but the Governor's House waterboy on HB 1234, Rep. Tom Brunner, responded in floor debate on February 29 that "There's one subject: Student achievement." HB 1234 supporter Rep. Steve Hickey elaborates that the single subject is "teacher compensation as it relates to student achievement."

Now from a word-game perspective, I'd point out that the phrase "student achievement" does not appear in the title. From a snarky perspective, I'd point out that the Legislature gave nearly unanimous approval to HCR 1010, a time-waster from Rep. Jon Hansen clamoring for Congress to stick to single-issue bills.

But I also see a single-subject challenge to HB 1234 as a waste of time. The subject of the bill is obviously education. I understand that education policy is complicated. If there are problems in this complicated field, they may well require complicated solutions. Some bills may well need to do several things and take several pages to explain them. Welcome to modern government.

However, Donald Pay, one of the sharper nodes of the South Dakota Blogosphere, suggests a more tantalizing route for a constitutional challenge to HB 1234 based on Article 8, Section 1, our state constitution's education clause:

An argument could be made that the HR 1234 violates Section 1 of Article 8 of the South Dakota Constitution, which states "it shall be the duty of the Legislature to establish and maintain a general and uniform system of public schools".

After nearly 50 years of trying to assure greater uniformity in the system of public schools, this bill seems (perhaps unintentionally) designed to unbalance that system. Since no money is dumped into this scheme by the bill, perhaps the bill survives a constitutional challenge, but without funding the program, the bill is appears to be an empty shell.

I'm sure the argument will be made next year that the money can be added in by majority vote, since the program has been established. That, too, might be Constitutionally improper, but I think it's been done that way in the past. Once money is distributed through this program, it will lead to a lack of uniformity and generality.

This is a bad law, not very well thought out [Donald Pay, comment, Madville Times, 2012.03.08].

I'm not convinced uniform-system argument would win, either: our current K-12 system has plenty of non-uniformity with some schools offering French, some offering debate, some offering welding, and all offering a wide range of pay to teachers to make those vital classes happen. But I find the uniform-system argument more appealing than the single-subject argument. Single-subject is a pure word game; uniform-system deals with the concrete actions and results of the law. Some districts get money, some do not. Teachers in different districts get different payments for different value-adding activities.

When I judge high school policy debate, I prefer to vote on the stock issues: Is there a big problem? Is the status quo unable to solve the problem? Does the proposed plan solve the problem? HB 1234 fails on all three of those counts. To repeal this bill (I'll be knocking on your door next week with a referral petition), we don't need to resort to "Topicality" arguments, in which we argue that the proposed plan falls outside the parameters of fair debate established by the resolution... or in this case, the Constitution.

But if anyone does want to run "T" (and I do get excited about really good "T") I would strongly recommend skipping the single-subject word game and focusing instead on the practical impact of HB 1234 on our uniform system of public education. Debating that side of the issue invites a much broader, more interesting, and more educational discussion of the merits of Governor Daugaard's education reform plan.

11 Comments

  1. Steve Sibson 2012.03.16

    "Reps. Shawn Tornow and Lora Hubbel tossed a little Tea Party fundamentalism at Governor Daugaard’s package of education reforms."

    Lucas, and your minority leader of the House made the same arguments on other legislation, so are they Tea Party fundamentalists too? Perhaps, I argue that populist Democrats and Conservative Republicans are of the same fold.

  2. LK 2012.03.16

    I hate T debate, but since the legislators like most South Dakota debate judges rejected the kritik and slovency press out of hand, I will submit that judge adaptation might require dropping the K in the block and closing for the T and hollow hope DA. Offering the promise of student achievement without funding provides the link.

    All non debate coach readers may now go about their day.

  3. Steve Sibson 2012.03.16

    So Larry, a woman has the right to kill her kid, but not the right to educate them?

  4. Troy Jones 2012.03.16

    Asking for a constitutional question is always within one's right who thinks it is against the constitution. I'm like you Cory. I don't think it violates the Constitution but like you I'm not a lawyer.

    Further like you, I think it is good to debate the merits of the plan. Better education is everyone's goal. The question is what it takes to get there.

    As a former debator though, I have no idea what you and LK are talking about. Either I forgot it or it explains why I wasn't any good.

  5. caheidelberger Post author | 2012.03.16

    LK: "slovency"? That's what you get from freshmen first time out, right? :-D

    I'm running straight stock issues for the conservative judges: no prima facie case. I may not go for the disad, because the impacts are not unique; plan simply fails to stanch the harms caused by lowest teacher pay in the nation. PMA, right?

    Troy: agreed! I welcome folks to raise constitutional questions, but I won't be discussing them when I knock on doors with petitions, or when I campaign my keester off this fall. I also will not clutter any public speeches with debate jargon... at least not beyond basic stock-issues analysis which I won't label stock-issues analysis (see penultimate paragraph in original post!). Merits debate, here we come!

    Troy, I suspect you were pretty good. You probably just didn't let the jargon distract you from the real world.

  6. grudznick 2012.03.16

    I know a bit about slovency.

    But I just sit and chuckle into my soup about how bad this 1,2,3,4 thing has all your undergarments bunched into knots. Can't you see that was its intent? Masterful. Masterful. That young Ms. Shop really distracted you from the meat on the bone and kept you fiddling with the pudding.

  7. Roger Elgersma 2012.03.17

    Whether it is one issue or seven, if there is one part that you do not like make an amendment to delete that part. If you have a good enough reason and get the votes you will have eliminated the bad part. Whether that part is important to the bill or not related to the rest of the bill is not the point. These people should propose amendments to change or eliminate the parts of the bill that they do not like. Actually in this bill I see no correlation that any one part needs another part to be workable.

  8. caheidelberger Post author | 2012.03.17

    Where's the beef, Grudz? What's this brilliant plot really about?

    Roger, you are correct: HB 1234 consists of at least seven distinct policies:

    1. summer study
    2. scholarships
    3. statewide teacher evals
    4. statewide principal evals
    5. state merit pay/local reward plans
    6. state merit pay for math/sci teachers
    7. ending continuing contract

    These policies certainly interact—e.g., merit pay is based on the new evals—but each policy could be enacted independently. But that severability doesn't trigger the single-subject constitutional critique, does it?

  9. mike 2012.03.17

    Grudznik bugs me. Just wanted to get that off my chest.

Comments are closed.