Eating Cheerios in Car law fails in Legislature (H/T – Bruce)
l3wis 
Distracted driving what’s that? I have always fantasized about having a milk dispenser built into my dash.
State Legislature
Pre-K education is part of the ‘socialist’ agenda?
Not only would PRE-K education save families millions in daycare it would also better prepare young students for K-12. One of the complaints I have heard from kindergarten and even 1st grade teachers in Sioux Falls is they spend half their time teaching life skills (like wiping kids behinds) that the parents ‘should have’ thought these kids before enrolling them in regular school. All the other arguments aside, I had to laugh about the ‘socialist’ agenda argument.
In case you haven’t noticed our fore fathers based our Republic on a socialist platform. Besides regular public education (K-12) being a socialist program, the US Military is one of the biggest socialist programs we have. Add to that the interstate highway system, the VA, Social Security, Medicare, SNAP, Public Libraries and even locally snow removal and our parks system, the list goes on. We all pay taxes to promote the social welfare of the majority while protecting the rights of the minority, I know that is hard to swallow, but that’s socialism folks.
I had to laugh when recently I heard a local radio host say he was shocked about openly Socialist lawmakers in Washington like Bernie Sanders. Those lawmakers get it, we have been a socialist democracy since almost day one. This is not something NEW that would be ‘snuck’ in on Pre-K education. Let’s admit it, most lawmakers in Pierre hate public education, that’s why they try to starve it every year. They believe only the wealthy deserve to be educated. These same lawmakers also don’t want an educated work force, because they will demand higher pay. We are only shooting ourselves in the foot when we refuse to fund these programs, it hurts the state economically. Who knew that our ‘socialism’ actually benefits our ‘capitalism’.
Rep. Haugaard hates the petition/initiative process because he says ‘Direct Democracy’ doesn’t work.
Haugaard said this, this morning during the legislative coffee; “Direct democracy doesn’t work.” I about fell out of my chair laughing. Once again, another state legislator makes a ridiculous statement NOT based on facts.
First, let’s look to direct democracy in our state. Many of the greatest changes in state law have occurred due to initiatives, some of the worst changes in state law have occurred in the state legislature. I could go thru a long list of examples, but you know what I am talking about.
As for internationally, the Swiss people have had ‘Direct Democracy’ for decades and it works and is very popular. The Swiss people vote on laws 4 times a year and voter turnout is around 50% over the past 30 years (Americans are around 50% over the same time period in national elections). A recent poll shows 65% of Swiss people are satisfied with their government (Americans are at about 58% but another 61% want to see ‘significant changes’). On top of that the Swiss people have one of the highest standard of living in the world. Switzerland rates #2 in the world for per capita wealth.
I challenge Mr. Haugaard to tell a Swiss citizen that “Direct democracy doesn’t work.” They would certainly disagree. Not only does it work, it lifts people up in more ways then you can even imagine. Leave the petition/initiative process alone, it’s not broken and it works extremely well. Our state legislature, not so much.
Legislative Coffee • Sioux Falls • Feb 2, 2019
I guess not all of our legislature is Whacky. It seems (most of) this delegation supports having a Spanish driver’s license test, legalizing industrial hemp, studying making ingestion a misdemenor. But they want to change absentee voting from 45 days to ‘something else’. I don’t agree, leave it as is. As Representative Sullivan said, “I started campaigning and knocking on doors in August.” She also added we need to make it easier for people to vote. 100% Agreed!
I do however think that absentees should be mailed to the SD address, NOT snowbird address. I think if you travel for business and are out of state quite a bit that should be an exception, but if you don’t actually physically live here at least 95% of the time, you shouldn’t be able to vote. A great example is a certain individual who is extremely wealthy who has a SF address, and constantly is nosing around in city government but lives most of the time in California. I don’t agree with this. If you want to participate in state and municipal government, great, but you also have to live here. It is obvious you are keeping your SD address for tax shelter purposes (another law that should change).
Majority of Legislature and Governor must think we are going to be attacked by Canada
As you probably heard, permit-less concealed carry passed the legislature and Donita Trump said she will sign the bill. If you do any REAL research on the 2nd Amendment, you will know that it’s main purpose was to create a ‘regulated militia’ in parts of the country that didn’t have one (We have the SD National Guard) and so slave owners could control their slaves. There of course was killing critters for food. Other than that, there is really absolutely NO reason anyone needs to own a gun. But since it is legal to own a lethal weapon, the permit process is NOT broken and works fine (well, it really should be stricter by requiring owners to get an operator’s license and carry liability insurance on every firearm they own). Why are we going backwards on gun safety? I can’t answer that, even after a large majority of gun owners and non gun owners just recently polled said they are OK with the permitting process.
As we all know, this will open up a whole new market of people buying guns privately and carrying without a permit. Not all of these people could pass a background check. This will only make law enforcement’s job harder, a lot harder. It will also give a free pass to anyone who couldn’t get a gun before. It is complete insanity, and anyone who voted for this needs to have their head examined.
Besides the possible increase in crime, it could also affect tourism in our state, in fact I was surprised that the Chamber, Retailers Association and the Department of Tourism did not oppose such an ignorant bill.
It also proves that our legislature wastes a lot of time on bills that are not only not needed but harmful to the citizenry as a whole.
Once again, they have done nothing to ensure;
More open government.
Eliminating food taxes (and taxes on other necessities like clothing, utilities and hygiene products)
Expanding Medicare to assist with nursing home residents (and frankly help the economy)
Funding ALL education better (Pre-K, Higher Learning, Technical and K-12)
Giving counties more revenue through realigning alcohol taxes.
Cutting the Half-Penny tax due to the new internet sales tax revenue.
Our State Legislature is a black hole of nothingness, it has been horrible for a very long time, and this year will go down in history as one of the worst. In fact, one of the key members went to Texas for 3 days to attend a Mini-Golf concessions conference (Al Norstrup). Will his pay be cut for missing several crucial votes?
It’s time to clean house in the next couple of election cycles.