Out of 448 bills in the 2014 hopper, South Dakota's legislators have proposed 17 bills that do nothing. No, I'm not talking about the time-wasting karaoke-session resolutions that got Rep. Spence Hawley so cross yesterday. I'm talking about bills that, as written, take no concrete action whatsoever.
Some policies take time to craft. Since South Dakota's legislators try to cram all their work into eight four-day weeks followed by one five-day week, and since they are distracted by resolutions and crazy ideas from wingnuts, they don't always finish researching, negotiating, and writing the first drafts of their serious policy proposals before the bill submission deadline in Week 4.
Our legislators dodge a tardy slip with what we call, in South Dakota parliamentary parlance, hoghouse vehicles, empty carcasses into which lawmakers plan to stuff their legislative sausage later... once they figure out the recipe.
The Legislative Research Council usefully tags and lists this session's 17 hoghouse vehicles:
| Bill | Title | Status |
| HB 1109 | provide for the enhancement of economic development. | killed in House State Affairs 2/24 |
| HB 1145 | accommodate legislation on medical services. | passed House 2/25 |
| HB 1146 | accommodate legislation relating to education in South Dakota. | passed House 2/25 |
| HB 1147 | accommodate legislation on the state aid to education formula and to make an appropriation therefor. | tabled HSA 2/24 |
| HB 1191 | accommodate legislation relating to the alleviation of livestock losses as a result of the late autumn West River blizzard. | tabled House Approp 2/07 |
| HB 1203 | improve the financial practices of the State of South Dakota. | passed House 2/25 |
| HB 1247 | revise certain provisions for the economic development partnership fund. | tabled HSA 2/19 |
| HB 1252 | improve the work force development in South Dakota. | tabled HSA 2/19 |
| HB 1256 | increase opportunities and funding for school districts to apply for jobs for America's graduates programs and to make an appropriation therefor. | hoghoused House Ed 2/21; killed House Approp 2/24 |
| SB 99 | revise certain provisions regarding self-funded multiple employer trusts. | hoghoused Senate State Affairs 2/19; passed Senate 2/24 |
| SB 107 | accommodate legislation on the state aid to education formula and to make an appropriation therefor. | passed Senate 2/24 |
| SB 108 | accommodate legislation on medical services. | hoghoused SSA 2/21; passed Senate 2/25 |
| SB 109 | accommodate legislation on education in South Dakota. | tabled SSA 2/21 |
| SB 110 | require state employees to make certain payments or contributions for health insurance. | hoghoused SSA 2/24; tabled Senate 2/25 |
| SB 141 | make an appropriation to fund certain scholarship programs and to declare an emergency. | hoghoused SSA 2/21; passed Senate 2/25 |
| SB 146 | revise certain provisions regarding the closure of county and township roads due to high water. | withdrawn 2/19 |
| SB 168 | provide oversight and accountability to certain economic activities. | passed Senate 2/24 |
Seven of these empty bills have been killed. Three have been fleshed out with specifics and passed out of their respective chambers; two were killed once legislators saw the first details.
Yet five hoghouse vehicles have passed out of their chamber of origin in their original empty form. Someone in the Legislative leadership has plans for medical services, education and state aid thereto, financial practices, and "certain economic activities," but after six and a half weeks, these elected officials haven't mustered the data, the consensus, or the guts to put details on paper where we all can see them.
Last year, one hoghouse vehicle, SB 235, carried forward a massive omnibus bill revamping South Dakota's economic development policies. Regardless of the merits and demerits of that bill (which became law), reporter Bob Mercer and I both complained that crafting such important legislation out of sight of the public isn't cool. Legislators, reporters, bloggers, and other interested citizens should all have time to review public policy proposals, seek relevant data, and rouse public activism for or against those proposals.
South Dakota's hoghouse procedure has some merit. Allowing legislators to wholly overhaul (someone in the barn is shouting, "Holy overalls!") bills allows for the possibility that some unexpected information or event might warrant a swift response from the Legislature after Week 4 of the session. Plus, it's just plain fun to say hoghouse! all winter.
But hoghouse vehicles excuse tardiness and shield secrets. Keep the hoghouse, but ban hoghouse vehicles. Forbid the posting of any bill whose text consists of nothing but a general goal statement. Require that by the Week 4 submission deadline, every bill must outline a specific policy action and/or a specific statute that it would change. Such a requirement might sharpen our legislators' focus, get them to beat back attempts by their nuttier colleagues to clog the caucus and committee meetings with fruitless ideological grandstanding bills, and flush more serious policy discussions out into the open, where we all can help.
My blood pressure is sky high right now. I just listened to the legislature talk for 10+ minutes on HCR 1027 - Commending, honoring, and thanking former Congressman Dr. Ron Paul. Tell me - and please be specific - why this matters to South Dakota? And to me? Let's spend time paving roads, increasing our economic development and funding our schools, not saying "Yea!" to the high school bowling champs (HC 1040).
I agree KWN! Our state has so many real issues to be dealt with and instead we have things like HCR 1027 and time spent on crazy legislation like SB 128 and a similar version that was just passed in Arizona. Luckily it was killed here in SD. They are only in session for a short amount of time.
Will someone please explain to me why we don't just disband the State legislature, (and I guess the federal one too) and let the Governor and the President be benign dictators with a lot more answering to the public? The legislature in both cases, pays absolutely no attention to the voters or should I say the will of the people.
OMG! OMG! It's a Hoghouse...all we can do is wait until they tell us what they are trying to slip into law through the back alley!
Hey media, blogs, citizens...you know the sponsors of these bills! Ask them what is so important that they want to circumvent an open debate. Ask them what the hell they are trying to push through in the 11th hour. Ask them why they chose this route to jam through their proposed law. Ask them why they lack the courage to engage in a public debate! Ask them why they think so little of South Dakotans to take this cowardly route.
The media is acting like this is a game where when someone says "hoghouse" that the rules of good reporting stop like a child in a playground game. "Oh gosh, I'd love to report on that, but I can't ask any questions until I know what they are doing...they declared Hoghouse and that's the rule."
Let's look at the sponsor of each hoghoused bill and ask them point blank why they want to circumvent the process...the citizens of South Dakota and the legislative process.
I've long maintained that politics is more about the game than actual governing in South Dakota. Unfortunately, the media is a patsy player in the game. Shame on them all for being duped out of their journalistic responsibility.
Cory or someone in the media...please list out every sponsor of all those hoghouse bills and brand them with gaming the system and ignoring the people of South Dakota to play their little political games.
Get them on the record!
Sorry for the long post.
I'll simplify it to getting someone on the record for each one of theses bills by asking:
Why did you hoghouse this?
What public debate did you fear?
What are you looking to gain and for whom?
Cory,
I agree with you. No vehicles ever.
Less about the secret issue. When the bill comes out if it is politically controversial, the backlash will be huge.
The reason it is bad is first it means the bill is rushed and likely to be rough and contain in intended consequences. And, as important is it encourages laziness and procrastination.
Just do what you want according to rules and on time.
Weak tea Troy. Get your your full condemnation on and call it what it is, cowardice wrapped in gamesmanship to circumvent the process of responsible governance.
Shifting just a little, why do you think the media is so afraid of calling out these bills?
Sorry for the extra your.
Jana,
Not everything is nefarious. Dems do it too. The only reason you see a lower quantity is they have a lower quantity of legislators. You are way too cynical.
I don't call it what you want because most vehicles are not as you suggest. Most of the times, Legislators have an inkling of what they want to do, haven't flushed out the details yet, and haven't lined up co-sponsors or a workable coalition.
My thought is if you aren't ready by the deadline, wait to next year unless you have a large enough majority to suspend the rules. More a function of procrastination than anything.
I'm mostly with Troy: if you're going to inkle, inkle faster! That's the burden of being a public official.
I differ with Troy on the controversy issue. If you're thinking up a controversial public policy, the best course is to lay it out, take your lumps, and work hard to win the public debate through education (and maybe some political butt-kicking). Remember when Republicans went ape over Nancy Pelosi's comment about having to pass the ACA so we know what's in it? Apply the same thinking to our hoghouse vehicles, and every Republican should demand every bill up front, word for word.
Cory and Troy, On your comment Cory, "If you're thinking up a controversial public policy, the best course is to lay it out, take your lumps, and work hard to win the public debate through education (and maybe some political butt-kicking)."
Kind of like those of us who worked after last session all summer and fall and contacting our legislators on the Death Penalty, only to have the committee defeat the bill without having the full legislature have a voice on this issue. Or maybe the medicaid issue which would benefit every citizen in the State, if the legislature had bothered to accept the federal money, (but they will only take federal money no tied to President Obama). Or how about the uranium mining and water protection issue?
With any luck, with the way they have handled this legislative session, maybe we will finally see that political butt-kicking to which you refer.
"But hoghouse vehicles excuse tardiness and shield secrets. Keep the hoghouse, but ban hoghouse vehicles. Forbid the posting of any bill whose text consists of nothing but a general goal statement."
I remind you houghouse used to happen in a far worse manner. The majority party would find a bill on a certain issue sponsored by someone of the minority party, or by someone of the majority party who wasn't supporting a particular priority bill. They would let it pass as far as they wanted it, then table it---they had their hoghouse vehicle. As well, it sent a message to the sponsor that you can't actually vote your conscience.
The most important thing to have is adequate public notice and adequate public hearings. Any hoghouse should be required to have a committee hearing in each body, so that public testimony is taken and amendments can be proposed. If the public has a fair opportunity to address the bill, I see nothing wrong with this way of doing hoghouses.
Lanny,
I'm strongly opposed to the death penalty. I also think as much as possible we need to respect the committee process. It is the committee members who work the hardest on the bills that come before their committee and listen to the public testimony. I think that it is only the rarest of occasions when a Smoke-out is appropriate and only in the face certain evidence of a non-fair hearing.
Let me touch on one of the issues you mention but in my mind it applies to them all. For several years, I've been behind the scenes talking about the death penalty. I agree this was the year for the debate to begin but I seriously didn't think it was the year it was going to pass. Debating it this year, having it fail, more public debate over the year, and bringing it back next year was always my expectation as the public better began to revisit their current position (if for the death penalty) and reach a new position.
In short, unrealistic expectations is premeditated resentment/frustration. Big changes don't (and shouldn't) happen overnight but over a period of percolating debate. If you expected the death penalty to end this year and form opinions about the process with those unrealistic expectations, nothing positive is served. Instead, let's take what we learned from its non-passage (not defeat), hone the message, and work hard for next year. Resentment only takes you out of being part of the solution.
Yes Troy and in the meantime more are or may be executed. Not sure if you know Deacon Denny Davis. He traveled the state this past year talking in churches and other place regarding the repeal. I always get a kick out of when people say that quick change is not a good thing or also that it is not possible. But that is like the Catholic Church. Never changing, unless they decide to. Or Countries going to war. THose decisions made by the powers that be with no input from the people. Oh I know that is why we elect those that we elect, to make decisions for us. But, hey, war is a life and death issue just like the death penalty and that is often made in a matter of days if not hours. A good example is the almost attacking Syria this past August, when we "thought" that Assad had gassed his own people. The American people finally said no, and I am not sure if that is why we didn't or if it was because the Russians moved in a flotilla in defense of Syria, but at any rate we didn't attack only to find out that the gas attack was probably by the rebels, not the government forces. When the State or Nation kills, and I am a member of that State, or Nation, they are doing it in my name, and I don't appreciate that.
I agree and that is why I am opposed to the death penalty, among other reasons. And, I don't know Deacon but have heard of him.
I don't know if a repeal of the death penalty could withstand a ballot initiative right now. We have to move both the people and the Legislature. This year was the first volley. It did better than many thought. People in the streets who used to support it are re-visiting the issue which is good.
Two approaches: The Stace Nelson yell, scream, and get mad at everyone who opposes you approach. Or, the long-term patient approach which goes back again to try to reconvene people. I prefer the one that gets results.
Troy, the only problem with that approach, and you certainly aren't the first one from whom, I have heard it. I cannot remember if it was Jason Gant or Tim Rave, before the session started that said essentially the same thing.
But, you may have seen a post that I had on earlier, regarding your champion M. M. Rounds. In 2005 and 2006 Clarence Kooistra and Maggie Gillespie had a bill in that would have mandated that at some point after their return from a theatre of operations where depleted uranium had been used, all veterans would be tested to see if they had in fact been affected by that DU, which would have changed their chromosome structure. The biggest champion of the bill was Roger Andal, who had himself been affected by the Agent Orange to which he had been exposed during the Viet Nam War.
The Governor's office opposed the bill, because the Defense Department asked all state legislatures to do so for fear that they might lose the use of DU in their weaponry and munitions.
I sat at my computer in Sisseton SD, to where I had moved when I retired, listening to Gordon Peterson testify against the bill prior to the vote. He said, and I will have to paraphrase, "I was on a plane during Viet Nam and asked what all of those barrels were with the different colored tops. The guy who was handling them said that they were varying strengths of defoliant to be used on the jungles. I asked what was in the one next to me with the orange top on it. He said that it was agent orange the strongest one. And look at me I rode right next to the stuff and it had no affect on me."
This from a State Legislator and 30 year veteran, he had to be pulling the leg of the other legislators, but I'll bet that most of them didn't have a clue, that one had to inhale the stuff after it was sprayed on the jungle to defoliate it in order to be affected. I remember my reaction, I wished I could have gone right through my computer and choked the guy.
Okay Troy after a long winded diatribe, this is my point. Roger Andal died that year, and Clarence and Maggie were not back in the legislature. So if a bill that is that important doesn't get passed before its champions are no longer around, it goes by the wayside.
Would you do that to someone in critical condition in the hospital, wait until all the doctors from around the world had been consulted? Sometimes issues are too important to be laid aside until the whole world is convinced. With the committee not even letting the whole legislature vote, there is no way of knowing whose mind would have to be changed before the next session.
Well Troy, Since you did not respond to my last post, I will try another tack. I have not looked yet, but I certainly don't remember a bill in the hopper that last couple of sessions to stop local communities from putting restrictions on a particular breed of dog, and yet today, the committee in the State Senate passed such a bill out for the entire Senate to vote on. As I asked before, why couldn't the State Affairs committee at least allow Rep Rev Hickey's bill out for the entire House to vote on it?