This winter, the South Dakota Legislature decided to spend an extra half-million dollars on itself, even though its own Research Council never said they need the money. House Speaker Brian Gosch (R-32/Rapid City) and Senate Majority Leader Russell Olson (R-8/Wentworth) pressed into law a funding increase per legislator that is twelve times larger than the funding increase they saw fit to dole out per teacher...because obviously Brian and Russ's work is twelve times more important than your kids' teachers' work.

Today the Executive Board of the South Dakota Legislature decided to spend some of that money on sending members to the entirely pro-corporate, anti-democratic meetings of the American Legislative Exchange Council. The E-Board also apparently wants to pay dues to ALEC for every member of the Legislature. $100 a head, 105 legislators, $10,500 trickling up the corporate ladder.

Rep. Bernie Hunhoff (D-18/Yankton) says nuts to that. Your money may already be appropriated, but the House Minority Leader promises the only folks wasting it will be Republicans. Below is Bernie's assessment of the Republican leadership's poor stewardship of your money.

The Republican-controlled legislature hiked its own budget $5,000 per lawmaker last session, and today (Tuesday) they began to spend the money by voting themselves more out-of-state travel, including trips to the controversial ALEC conventions where conservative lawmakers mingle with corporate special interests.

Democrats tried to strike the money for the trips on the final day of the legislative session, and they tried again today (Tuesday) when the legislature's executive committee expanded the travel policy. "When we can't afford to fund our schools or cover other basics of government, we can hardly afford to turn legislators into frequent fliers," said Senator Larry Lucas of Mission, who opposed the measure as a member of the executive board.

Lucas said he and other legislators were blind-sided by the proposal to include ALEC. "That's unconscionable, especially this year when we pushed school costs onto property taxpayers. The priorities of our Republican colleagues are hard for me to fathom today."

Rep. Bernie Hunhoff said the spending priorities of the GOP-dominated legislature are hurting South Dakotans. "On the last day, the legislature couldn't even find $25,000 to help fund a van for disabled veterans. We couldn't find support for scholarship programs or prenatal care to the very poorest young mothers in South Dakota. And yet we have the money to fly ourselves all over the country? This is not a proud day for the South Dakota legislature."

Hunhoff said the 2013 session was remarkable in its lack of partisanship and substantive reforms were enacted. "I'm still hopeful we can continue that spirit into 2014, but today's vote and the way it was conducted is not particularly helpful in that regard."

Sen. Jason Frerichs, the Democrats' senate leader, said spending state tax dollars on ALEC dues and trips is shocking. "This is an organization that has raised more than $20 million over the last several years from the biggest corporate special interest groups in the world. They take great pride in promoting legislation that benefits the coffers of these large corporations, often at the expense of the average American taxpayer."

Frerichs and Hunhoff said they intend to demand that no dues monies be paid for Democratic legislators. "We won't attend the ALEC conferences and we do not want a dime of the taxpayer's money to be used for this biased, extremist lobbying organization."

They said they'll also try to correct the executive board's decision in the 2014 legislative session.

ALEC is an extremist organization supported by the rightwing Koch brothers and a few hundred other wealthy individuals and corporations who seek to promote their political agenda to state and national politicians. The group has raised more than $20 million over the last several years. "They hardly need the hard-earned tax dollars of South Dakotans," Lucas said [Rep. Bernie Hunhoff, press release, 2013.04.23].

In addition to buying our legislators, the Koch brothers want to buy eight major U.S. newspapers. Turn the papers and the lawmakers into puppets—it's hard to beat that strategy.

Update 20:24 MDT: Sourcewatch maintains this list of South Dakota legislators who have mucked or are mucking about with ALEC. Brain Gosch, Stace Nelson, Fred Romkema, Charlie Hoffman....

Update 20:58 MDT: I've updated to press release to include comments from Senate Minority Leader Jason Frerichs (D-1/Wilmot).

One of my Republican friends noted yesterday that a lot of RINO flak around U.S. Senate candidate M. Michael Rounds focuses on his weak fiscal conservatism, not his weak social conservatism. I would welcome a stiff GOP primary where a majority of the shouting was about taxing, spending, and sloppy money management rather than another tired reiteration of the culture war.

Of course, any Republican South Dakota legislators contending that M. Michael Rounds isn't Grover Norquist enough will have to explain why they voted to increase tax rates during the 2013 Legislative session. Josh Verges explains that taxes in the Sioux Falls school district are going up largely because the Republican Legislature approved increased in the property tax levy for schools.

Take a look at this year's Senate Bill 28, which increases the maximum school general fund levy 6.6%. Of the thirteen South Dakota listed as signatories of the Grover Norquist no-taxes pledge, eleven voted voted for this tax rate increase. The House roll call vote shows that Reps. Craig, Hickey, May, Miller, Olson, Schremp, and Westra violated their pledge to Grover. In the Senate, Senators Lederman, Monroe, Otten, and Peters broke their promise to "vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes."

The only two South Dakota legislators who stuck to their word (at the expense, of course, of practical budgeting for our K-12 system... but dangit, pragmatism is a dirty synonym for liberal!) are Senator Phil Jensen and Rep. Stace Nelson.

Stace Nelson... haven't folks been talking about him as a guy who could challenge Mike Rounds in the primary?

Remember the half-million dollars that the Legislature added to its own budget, giving themselves twelve times more money to play with than they could find for each K-12 teacher in South Dakota. The Legislative Research Council never said they needed that money, so what on earth could fiscal conservative Republicans Speaker Brian Gosch and Senate Majority Leader Russell Olson have wanted that money for?

Why, to attend ALEC meetings, of course. Here's Rep. Kathy Tyler's account of the LRC's Executive Board's first meeting on how to spend that new mad money:

Our inaugural meeting saw the election of chair and vice-chair and a discussion of legislative travel. There are three organizations to which South Dakota belongs: National Conference of State Legislators, the Council of State Governments, and the Midwestern Legislative Conference.  One trip per year per legislator is the current policy.  There are also four national projects or forums that appointed legislators can attend.

The travel policy used to be much broader—go to wherever and you’ll be reimbursed.  Of course, without any restrictions, things got a bit ugly, and travel was restricted. After much discussion of increasing the number of trips to three and adding ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, as a destination, time forced the final decisions to be made at the April meeting. The inclusion of ALEC will be an interesting discussion.  While the organizations currently approved are run basically by dues and have legislators’ issues in mind, ALEC is funded about 98% by corporations and tends to have its own agenda—HB1234 for example [Rep. Kathy Tyler (D-4/Big Stone City), "Summer Break?" Kathy's Corner, 2013.04.01].

Rep. Gosch and Sen. Olson wouldn't want South Dakota to fall behind the faux-conservative pro-corporate agenda. So they want to use your money to send their minions for marching orders from ALEC. I'm sure you won't mind if your legislators pay less attention to you and more attention to the Koch brothers.

Governor Dennis Daugaard is asking you to nominate qualified District 16 residents to replace Patty Miller, who resigned from her House seat this week for personal reasons.

Ann Tornberg for District 16 House!

The obvious choice is long-time educator and dairy farm wife Ann Tornberg. She has run twice for a District 16 seat in the Legislature. She's smart and passionate about public service. Her experience in education and agriculture make her an expert on two of the biggest issues with which the Legislature deals. Plus, Tornberg was a debate coach, and I guarantee that debate coaches make for better government. Ask Mel Olson.

Tornberg is a Democrat, but she has shown her willingness to support good ideas and good people regardless of party label. Governor Daugaard, return the favor. Appoint Ann Tornberg to this vacant District 16 House seat.

If you agree that Tornberg would make a rock-'em-sock-'em legislator, call Daugaard aide Will Mortenson in the Office of the Governor at 605-773-5999 and tell him to pick Ann!

So the Displaced Plainsman noticed last week that Rep. Mike Verchio (R-30/Hill City) was kicking up a fuss about Agenda 21 in the Custer paper. Rep. Verchio was complaining that his fellow legislators failed to do anything substantive against the conspiracy he and modern John Birchers think the United Nations is waging against us:

Verchio said HCR 1008 is well-meaning, but is “useless because it is toothless.” HB 1190, which failed in the Senate State Affairs Committee Feb. 15, would have had the force of law behind it.

“It prohibited the State of South Dakota and its political subdivisions from adopting any Agenda 21 policies,” he said. “This may lead us down the slippery slope and bears watching at the state, county, township, city and town level. I hope we can bring it back next session” [Jason Ferguson, "Legislators Concerned about Agenda 21," Custer County Chronicle, 2013.03.14].

That's funny: Rep. Verchio says HB 1190 would have done what he says needs to be done about this conspiracy he imagines. But if you check the House State Affairs committee roll call vote from February 15, you will see that Rep. Verchio voted to kill HB 1190.

Don't ask me to make sense of either Verchio's vote or subsequent statements. Expecting sense from anyone perpetrating the Agenda 21 myth is a fool's errand.

Bob Mercer looks at David Montgomery's coverage of the proposal to spend your money on partisan staff for our legislators, then looks at state law concerning state contributions to political parties and says Holy Lawsuit!

 To take any of the $500,000 for the purpose of hiring a Democratic staffer or two Republican staffers seems to beg for a lawsuit under [South Dakota Codified Law] 12-27-21. And for those legislators seeking re-election or election to another office, the assistance they might receive from a Democratic staffer or a Republican staffer seems to beg for a Supreme Court interpretation of the word “influencing” in 12-27-20 [Bob Mercer, "The Color of Legislative Politics," Pure Pierre Politics, 2013.03.21].

I can see an argument for providing more staff to help legislators research and craft good legislation. But Legislative Research Council director James Fry says his non-partisan staff has never seen working with members of both parties as a problem, suggesting there's no practical need for partisan staff. Mercer's legal note makes taxpayer-funded partisan staff look not just unnecessary, but illegal.

The Displaced Plainsman finds Rep. Mike Verchio (R-30/Hill City) flecking John Birch spittle all over the Custer County Chronicle about Agenda 21, the non-binding United Nations document created in 1992 to offer guidelines for countries trying not to die from environmental degradation. Rep. Verchio, like other Birchers and nutcases with too much time on their hands, thinks Agenda 21 is a nefarious United Nations plot to turn us into Soylent Green.

Rep. Verchio says he's disappointed that all the Legislature did about Agenda 21 is pass the "useless" and "toothless" House Concurrent Resolution 1008, a silly measure by which big majorities of both chambers of our Legislature declare combatting poverty and pollution "destructive and insidious". Rep. Verchio says he wants real legislation, something like this year's HB 1190, which would have forbidden South Dakota governments from acting Agenda 21-ish.

Mike Verchio and Bruce Rampelberg, the Tinfoil Twins

Senator Bruce Rampelberg (R-30/Rapid City) joins the madness as well, telling the Custer County Chronicle that Agenda 21 ideas like walkable cities, urban housing, resource conservation, and decisions made for the greater good are all evil. But read carefully: in neither the Custer article nor in HCR 1008 do we hear one specific example of South Dakota state or local government implementing one specific policy that (a) can be tied directly to the Rio 1992 UN document or (b) has done harm to a single specific South Dakotan.

The Displaced Plainsman aptly skewers Verchio, Rampelberg, and the rest of the tinfoil hat club by pointing to Rob Sisson, former mayor of Sturgis, Michigan. Sisson says he implemented sustainable development policies to lower costs and conserve resources. That's real conservatism, not the baseless, time-wasting conspiracy theory with which Representative Verchio and Senator Rampelberg are embarrassing their district and the state of South Dakota.

A blog post from Louisiana gets me thinking about Teach for America and its success in winning funds from the stingy South Dakota Legislature.

As it did last year, the South Dakota Legislature appropriated $250,000 (via HB 1137) to help Teach for America bring low-wage rookie teachers to South Dakota. I seek to cast no aspersions on those who dedicate two years of their lives to serving students in South Dakota school districts that have a hard time recruiting teachers. But Teach for America is one more way our Legislature manages to get by on the cheap instead of paying full value for education.

I am surprised to learn, however, that Teach for America has pretty substantial financial assets. Its 2010 IRS Form 990 (the most recent one I can snag online) reports $373 million in assets. $39 million of that is buildings, equipment, and other property; much of the rest is cash, investments, and pledges and grants receivable. Take away $22 million in liabilities, and you get $312 million in chits Teach for America could call out of reserves pretty quickly for a rainy day.

Teach for America's total expenses in 2010 were $219 million. That $312 million of reasonably available reserves is 142% of annual expenses.

Our Legislatures and Governors have grumbled hard about local school districts maintaining what their Republican sensibilities deem excessive reserves... and by excessive, they used to mean more than the 25% of annual expenditures that they forced schools by law to spend their reserves down to by 2012. Apparently, there's a bit of wiggle room: according to the state Department of Education, at the end of 2012, South Dakota's K-12 school districts held collective general fund reserves of $210 million, a touch over 26% of their $805 million in general fund expenditures.

The Legislature cudgels K-12 budgets for years over reserves that wouldn't get most districts through a school year. But it continues to hand money to Teach for America, which has enough assets stockpiled to get it through a full school year and to the Christmas Party after that unassisted.

I'm sure there's a logical explanation. Historians, accountants, legislators, straighten me out.