It was an eventful week in Pierre as many bills that have been talked above over the past several weeks and months came to fruition.  Legislators reached the deadline to file bills and we have a pretty good idea now what our bill load will be this session.  About 530 bills are on file and it looks to be an eventful year spent focusing on many of the same issues we’ve discussed before with some new topics thrown in as well.

 

I attended a meeting last Thursday that discussed some of the proposed changes to our campaign finance laws that are being addressed in House Bill 1048.  A few of the highlights include requiring campaign finance reports to be filed in the Secretary of States office two weeks before Election Day.  With this change, constituents will be able to access the information and use it to help them make decisions regarding whom to vote for. The intent of this change is to make the candidates and their treasurer’s more accountable to the public for ways in which they raise and spend money during the campaign.  Also, if a campaign finance report is filed late, there will be a $50 per day fee assessed to that campaign for every day it is late.  These funds will go into the state’s general fund.  Contribution limits have been raised for legislative and state wide races, along with a limit imposed on how much one person can donate to a political action committee.   Full disclosure of campaign contributions and expenditures is also a main focus of this bill.  It’s a pretty inclusive bill that seems to cover all the areas of concern that the voters expressed in our current campaign system.  Anything that can add some integrity and honesty to our political arena is a step in the right direction. 

 

In trying to cover a few areas that Paul or Brock may not, I’d like to fill you in on a few bills we saw in committee or on the floor this week.  There was a bill in taxation on Tuesday that I had a lot of interest in.  The District Conservationists brought us a bill that would increase the amount of funding for conservation and value added agriculture using certain unclaimed motor fuel tax refunds and to make it a continuous appropriation thereafter.  The intent of the original legislation developed years ago was that these unclaimed dollars would go back to the conservation fund, but because a percentage of 35% was set rather than using the actual formula, the majority of these funds were going into the Department of Transportations budget each year.  They were the main opponents to the bill as the dollars that would be diverted into conservation amount to approximately 1% of their yearly budget.  However, if we had followed the original statute, those dollars should have gone to conservation for the past 15 years.  These dollars are used in our local areas to give grants and help cost share practices that preserve and maintain our natural resources.  Without this funding, many of our local projects would not happen.  I supported the bill in committee and will on the floor of the House this week.

 

In commerce committee we discussed a bill that would require retailers to place all tobacco products behind a counter where it would be inaccessible to a customer or in a locked case.  The intention of the bill was to prevent underage persons from stealing the products from the stores.  An amendment to the bill gave an exemption to stores that sell mainly tobacco products and not much else.  I was a little conflicted on the bill.  I did not support the bill in committee as most of the information that I had indicated that almost all underage smokers aren’t stealing the cigarettes.  Either they are buying them from a store that doesn’t card them or an adult.  I also feel that retailers would not put products anywhere they could be easily stolen and expose themselves to losing that profit.  It is tough enough for them to stay in business in these rural areas without us mandating to them how their stores should be laid out and requiring them to purchase more locked cases and shelving.  I also felt that the amendment treated retailers unequally and didn’t clearly define who would be exempt and who would not.  Hopefully, the supporters of the bill will continue to work to determine the need for this legislation and address the concerns of the committee.  It makes more sense to me to enforce stiffer penalties on those who provide our children with these life threatening and illegal products.

 

I’ve taken up enough space for this week, but still didn’t get to property taxes, economic development issues, excise and sales tax bills, and more.  You may access every bill that is being considered at the Legislative Research Council’s website at http://legis.state.sd.us.  Please do.  There is such a wide range of issues; I just won’t be able to touch on them all each week.  As always I can be reached on my cell phone at 881-2526 or email at Rep.Noem@state.sd.us.   Our next crackerbarrel will be this Saturday at the Lake Norden café at 10 am.  Hope to see you there.