2014 Senate Smarter than House?
The Legislative Research Council provides the 2014 Statistical Comparison, which tells us how our Legislature performed in passing bills compared to past performance. The following chart shows the number of bills floated and enacted in the Legislature last winter, along with how this year's bill tally compares with last year's, with the historical average, and with the historical highs and lows.
| Bill Tally | Legislature | Senate | House | Enacted |
| 2014 | 449 | 188 | 261 | 248 |
| 2013 | 492 | 242 | 250 | 260 |
| % annual change | -8.7% | -22.3% | 4.4% | -4.6% |
| average | 513 | 252 | 328 | 321 |
| % off average | -12.5% | -25.4% | -20.4% | -22.7% |
| hi | 929 (1957) | 405 (1913) | 576 (1957) | 505 (1957) |
| lo | 432 (1964) | 187 (2002) | 212 (1905) | 104 (1897) |
We pass more bills than we kill: the 2014 Legislature enacted 55.2% of the bills in its hopper, just a snudge under the historical average of 55.4%.
Now passing more bills than we kill doesn't mean South Dakota legislators are a bunch of radical activist policy addicts. It could be that our filters are set higher to start with: maybe legislators generally don't put up bills without greater confidence that it's worth rousing the slumbering state to action.
Whatever the filtering process that goes on before bills are introduced, once they hit the hopper, the House more avidly kills off its own proposals than the Senate. The following chart shows where bills from each chamber get killed:
| Bill fate | House | Senate | ||
| failed own cmte | 93 | 35.6% | 36 | 19.1% |
| failed own floor | 15 | 5.7% | 11 | 5.9% |
| failed opp cmte | 12 | 4.6% | 8 | 4.3% |
| failed opp floor | 7 | 2.7% | 8 | 4.3% |
| withdrawn | 2 | 0.8% | 8 | 4.3% |
| vetoed | 0 | 0.0% | 1 | 0.5% |
| enacted | 132 | 50.6% | 116 | 61.7% |
The 2014 House killed over a third of its own bills on their first hearing, in House committee. The 2014 Senate shot down fewer than 20% of its own bills in its committee. Both chambers had similar floor-kill rates for their own bills. Add chamber and floor killings, and the House rejected 41.3% of its members' proposals, while the Senate rejected only 25.0% of its members proposals. Overall, Senate bills this year had a 61.7% chance of passing, while House bills had a 50.6% chance of passing.
Now you might look at that data and think Senators are either smarter, pushier, or luckier than Representatives and lean toward taking your favorite legislative ideas to your Senator for a better chance of passage. But the difference in pass rates between the 2014 House and Senate are anomalous: since 1890, the House has had a tiny edge (within a percentage point) in getting its bills passed.
Aside from the shared-parenting guidelines and the budget, I really don't have a lot to say about all of the new laws.
How many of those 449 bills were totally unnecessary?
The most effective legislator is not the one that can introduce and pass the most bills.
One thing to keep in mind for the last couple of years is the "Red Tape Review" process. That means a very large amount of the bills originated from state regulators to get rid of outdated and/or unnecessary regulations. There were also some that were submitted by regulators that "updated" codified law. There simply isn't enough resistance in the legislature to go against any bills originating in the executive branch. Most of those bills were good, some were iffy, and a couple were downright bad. But no matter what is thought of those bills, few of them actually received any real resistance or true analysis in the legislature.
If I recall correctly, although there were fewer bill proposals submitted, there were a record number of "resolutions" submitted (not necessarily passed, but still took up the legislators time.
We don't need resolutions wasting the legislature's time either. Maybe it's time that they get the message that it is not their time to waste. Each and EVERY year they wait until the very last minute to pass the budget. They then rush the most important decision. How many times have we read of the tape over the clock BS?