We have now moved passed the halfway point of the SD Legislative Session. The most difficult part of the session is still ahead, and we will be setting our budget priorities. We look to the future with the requests far exceeding the anticipated revenue we will receive. All the requests are legitimate and worthy of the request, but we will have to sort out which are a higher priority and balance the funding with the other programs. This is just like each one of us must do when we make these same choices with our personal budgets. I will talk about this more next week or share with anyone who wants more information.

We had two main issues this week. One was the eminent domain bills. These were considered by the House State Affairs Committee and HB1230 and HB1133 were advanced to the floor and passed onto the Senate. The first bill encourages settlement transactions between landowners and companies wanting to build pipelines. Institutions where eminent domain is used include water districts, REA or natural gas pipelines. The negotiations must be fair to the landowners in these proceedings from the start of the negotiations. HB1133 defines transporting commodities by pipeline must be intended for commerce to a point of distribution, consumption, or processing within or outside the state. What is very important in this new language was that it does not include a product used in a manner that allows its owner, shipper, or the shipper’s customer to qualify for a tax credit or a direct payment pursuant to 26 U.S.C. $450. I believe these were helpful property rights bills and there was substantial pushback from industry and ethanol groups.

The other big issue was about how elections are conducted and what ways we can improve them. We want to make it easy to vote but hard to cheat according to the author of HB1124, Rep. Chaffee. We’ve heard how elections are conducted and how improvements can be made. After working with county auditors and election officials we passed this bill which guarantees tests for auto tabulation machines and ensures that they are safe. We passed HB1165 which deals with ballot drop boxes be as secure and monitored receptacle or container at the office of the person in charge of the election. Several sections of the bill dealt with absentee voting and clarified the rules and penalties for dealing properly with absentee ballots. This was a very comprehensive bill that includes primary and general elections. It also has the amended rule in 12-19-9.1 prescribing the procedures by which the county auditor will conduct absentee voting, collect completed ballots, and secure ballots at a nursing facility, assisted living center or hospitals. It passed from the House with a 57 to 11 vote.

I would like to encourage everyone to review these two laws and become familiar with our intent to strengthen and bring clarity to our election laws. These security measures make sure our election laws are accurate and trustworthy. One thing I want to make clear is that we are working to improve the election laws now, so they are in place before the next campaign, rather than in the middle of the campaign season. The next Cracker Barrel will be held Feb. 25 in Burke and Winner. We will meet at the American Legion at 1 pm in Burke and the meeting in Winner will begin at 3 pm at the American Legion.

My email is Rocky.Blare@sdlegislature.gov, which is one of the best ways to contact