Week 7 in the state legislature has come and gone just as quick as last week. Crossover Day happened and with as many new members, like myself, there wasn’t nearly as many bills introduced, so it wasn’t quite the extravaganza as years past. Crossover Day was the final day for bills to crossover from their chamber of origin. House bills will need to be sent over to the Senate and vice versa. As the final weeks are upon us I just want to remind everyone that the www.sdlegislature. gov website is a great website for following all the bills, committees, and more.
I believe we have gone through all the bills for House Transportation, so I there’s not much to report from there.
Commerce and Energy still has a fair amount of bills coming through, but I think we are nearing the end. The first one was to allow insurance providers to give people the option to opt in to receive their documents for the coverage electronically. I voted for this because it didn’t force anyone into anything; it was opt in rather than opt out, which was a sticking point for me because a lot of folks that aren’t on the internet might have a hard time trying to understand getting these documents electronically or trying to opt out. Another was to allow for South Dakota agencies to be able to accept license qualifications from other states. It doesn’t mean that state agencies shall issue licenses to people, but it does mean that the agencies are permitted to see if the license applicant’s qualifications from another state meet our qualifications, and if the agency licensing board believes that they do then they can grant a license to the applicant that recently moved here. Another one we heard about was a really bad bill to ban the use of freon in new equipment installations by next year without any guarantees or idea of what will replace it. Freon is the refrigerant that makes your air conditioner work in your home, your car, and makes your refrigerator and freezer work. Even though I don’t work specifically in HVAC my profession is closely aligned with it, so I spoke out against this bill, but unfortunately, the committee members took the word of paid lobbyists over someone in the industry, and then it passed. We also heard one that would increase the value amount of tax exempt property held by a development corporation. This one was tough for me, I understand the good work development corporations do, the jump from $750,000 to $5,000,000 seemed like a massive jump. Besides, the deferred property tax would mean that schools and counties would lose out on funding and/or the loss would have to be picked up by the rest of the residents through increased property tax. When word of the tax cut proposals this year was for property tax relief, I couldn’t bring myself to vote for increasing property taxes when people are asking for them to be lowered.
The full House chamber heard several bills. The first was another tough on crime bill for people that had received 4 or more DUI’s they must serve a minimum sentence. I voted for this bill because we’re not talking about someone that made a mistake once or even twice; this was about habitual offenders. We also took up a bill that was to eliminate ballot drop boxes and also brought the amount of time to vote early back within a reasonable amount of time, it reduced it from 45 days to 30 days. I voted for this bill, but unfortunately it came up one vote short. We also voted to increase the rate of tuition reimbursement for National Guard members from 50% to 100%. I absolutely voted for this because I believe it’s always our duty to help those that defend our country. The next one was to regulate synthetic pot made into candy, which was being used as recreational marijuana. There was an amendment to fully outright ban the synthetic pot. I voted for the amendment, but unfortunately the amendment failed. I think the amendment made the bill much better by banning the synthetic recreational pot, but I figured the bill in the original form was better than nothing; I voted for it and the bill passed in its original form. A bill to create a Center for American Exceptionalism, which was a pilot program to create material for K-12 and college classes that could be used to teach students about the greatness of America so they would love this great country rather than be taught to hate it; unfortunately this vote tied twice, which sadly caused it to fail.
This week we had the big one, the tax cut bill. The House voted for the largest tax cut in state history. We passed cutting the state sales tax and saving the taxpayers over $100,000,000 dollars! I would have been in favor of any of the tax cuts, but this one was the one I had received the most and best feedback from. Everyone agreed it was the simplest and most even across the board. The other tax cut proposals had their own unique challenges, but this one made it simple and easy for everyone. It was definitely a great day in the House to pass the largest tax cut in state history.
We only have two weeks left in this legislative session. I like hearing from everyone, so please keep emailing me about bills. My email address is Ben.Krohmer@sdlegislature.gov.