Thank you, Madville Times readers, for your enthusiastic response to my grassroots legislative project. On Christmas Day, I opened the comment section to your suggestions for practical bills for the 2014 session of the South Dakota Legislature. You've responded with a big bucket of good ideas on college tuition, physician retirement, public records, industrial hemp, and more!
You still have time to submit your legislative proposals. Review the comment section to my December 25 post, see if anyone else had your idea, then share your suggestions.
Now the comment section is sprawling, so here's how I'll proceed:
- On New Year's Day (Wednesday! 2014 already!), I'll pick five proposals that strike me as practical and good for South Dakota.
- By Friday, January 3, I'll put up a separate post on each proposal.
- We'll use the comment section under each proposal to discuss and refine each proposal into clear, workable language.
- Once we've reached rough consensus in the comment section, I'll prepare final bill text for each proposal and post that text in the comment section.
- By Friday, January 10, I will forward those bill texts to the majority and minority leaders in the Legislature: Senators Rave and Frerichs and Reps. Lust and Hunhoff. I will also send copies to my legislators from District 8: Reps. Parsley and Heinemann and newly appointed Senator Chuck Jones.
Readers, you're welcome to send any of the proposals discussed here to your local legislators. So jump in! Send your ideas for good practical South Dakota legislation!
Oh no, democracy in action in South Dakota? Way to go Corey.
My suggestion for legislative action is that the primaries be open and that voters could vote across party lines. That is, if one is registered a Republican, they could opt to vote for a Democrat primary candidate. Of course, only one vote per primary election. I believe this is an option in some states. Thank you for this opportunity.
I disagree Mary. In true democracy, one should be able to vote in all primaries. I understand why one can't. It is a comment on how much we trust one another. The parties think that people from another party would vote for the worst candidate so that the candidate of their own party will have the best chance to win. This mistrust says more about the parties than it does about democracy. I would suggest it would make the country stronger, because if one were being truly honest, he or she would vote for the best candidate from each party to ensure that we would get the best representative possible in our Federal government and I guess to be legitimate in our State government as well. But I guess it just shows how much folks have gotten to where they put the party ahead of the country. That is probably why so many people have switched to independent and then they really become disenfranchised as they can't vote in either party's primary, oh that's right the Dems did allow independents to vote in their primary last time.
Sunshine Law!
We need Sunshine---especially this winter. Happy New Year.
Cory-
I say we get some real results. Let's form a Superpac.
great idea Mary, If the republicans see some one on the democratic ticket that worries them they can jump over and vote for a less possible candidate to get on the november ballot!!!!!!!
Mr. Stricherz, it is refreshing to read on this blog why so many here "support" Mr. Nelson. You hit the real reason right on the noggin with your word mallet.
grudz,
To this point in the blog, I have not read Nelson's name anywhere, let alone anyone supporting him.
grudz, you must have posted on the wrong blog.
1. I'd like to see legislation that would allow South Dakotan's to enroll in wine/beer of the month clubs...or any of the "of the month clubs" we are forbidden from joining.
2. I'd like to see legislation that corrects the hiding of money in South Dakota by the rich.
3. I'd like to see legislation that supports/increases funding for education.
4. I'd like to see Medicaid expanded, better yet, I'd like to see us follow Vermont's lead and move toward a "Medicare for all" system.
5. Marriage equality would be nice, but that is so far in the future that it seems a waste of key strokes to mention.
Speaking up for equality is never a waste of keystrokes.
Thanks for the suggestions, MRH! Got a specific dollar figure or funding mechanism you'd like to see applied to education funding?
And really? We can't enroll in wine of the month clubs? Is that just a shipping-across-state-lines issue?
It may be. I have tried to enroll in some wine clubs several times in the past and was told they couldn't ship to South Dakota. Maybe that's changed, but I don't think so.
I really haven't thought that far ahead for education funding, I just feel that students in South Dakota are getting the shaft.
I did find this researching clubs again today:
http://www.wineofthemonthclub.com/shipping_info
MRH: I agree on the shipping wine. Also, if you visit a winery somewhere, they will tell you they cannot ship wine to South Dakota. Actually, I agree with most of the list.