South Dakota legislative session
closer than you think
By Gordon Garnos
AT ISSUE: The annual session of
the South Dakota legislative session is just a little over two
months away. This will be the 35-day session. However, our
legislators are going to take Fridays off to come home and visit
their constituents or have meetings, they say. Consequently, the
83rd legislative session will drag on as long as last year's 40-day
session. There doesn't seem to be any major issues waiting to
confront our legislators, but there are some brewing in the pot and
it needs stirring by all of us.
EVEN WITH NEXT year's legislative
session a little over two months away, it isn't too early to start
thinking about and getting involved in what may soon be going on in
Pierre.
This being the final session for a
number of legislators and the final meeting of our solons before the
2008 elections, there is a good chance that this could be a ho-hum
time in that old town of Pierre. Or will it?
First, regarding the final session: This
is because of term limits. Term limits? The voters of South Dakota
several years ago voted for a constitutional amendment that said no
person may serve for more than four consecutive two-year terms in
the House or Senate, or more than two consecutive four-year terms in
a constitutional office. That means a number of our legislators will
not be able to run for re-election in the house they are now in.
TERM LIMITED AFTER this next
session are Senators Jerry Apa, Brock Greenfield, Gil Koetzle, Mac
McCracken, Ed Olson and Dan Sutton, and Representatives James
Bradford, Burt Elliot, Margaret Gillespie, Mary Glenski, Dale
Hargens, Phyllis Heineman, Al Koistinen, Gordon Pederson, Larry
Rhoden, David Sigdestad, Donald Van Etten, Thomas Van Norman and Hal
Wick.
I think it is important to list those
who will be term limited as the list includes several legislative
leaders.
There are a number of pros and cons for
term limits and while I editorially supported term limits when it
was an issue with the voters, now I am not so sure. Why? While term
limits broke up some very long term legislators who had special
interests in their back pockets, it also took away a number of good
legislative leaders who were just that. Will term limits ever
surface on the ballot again? It's hard to say.
There is still a stigma out there that
politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for
the same reason.
SOMETHING ELSE term limits for
the Legislators brought us was a much stronger governor's office and
a much weaker Legislature. Doing away with legislative term limits
would have to come from the voters. Some legislators feel if they
initiated such a proposal it would be their death knoll.
Secondly, those legislators who will be
seeking re-election next year are not about to rock the boat on any
very controversial issue. That could prove to be ammunition for
whomever their opponent might be.
Yes, the tobacco issue is expected to be
on the scene in Pierre and as I have also discussed a few weeks ago,
the rewriting of the state's liquor license laws will also be a
rumble. But the one issue that I feel very important is for a
document the members of the Legislature must live by. Yes, a code of
conduct.
SO FAR, LEGISLATORS have failed
to write one. Yes, they have had meetings about such a code, but all
the public has seen so far is failure.
The resurfacing of the state Senator Dan
Sutton case through a civil lawsuit will again bring to center stage
about him sharing a bed with a male page. Nor can we forget the case
of state Rep. Ted Klaudt that hasn't been to trial. Yet, he is
charged with eight counts of raping foster children and former pages
under the guise of conducting medical checkups on them.
True, the state Senate censured Sutton
and if Klaudt is found guilty of any or all of the charges against
him, he could be thrown in the hoosegow and the key thrown away.
MENTIONING KLAUDT'S alleged acts
against former pages brings up another issue that could be subheaded
under the need for a legislative code of conduct. As I mentioned in
a column some time ago about the need for legislative pages to have
some sort of a uniform to wear.
As I wrote then, some of the female
pages during the 2007 session were not dressed appropriately, nor
was it on paper about who with and where they stayed during their
sojourn in Pierre. If our legislators can't even come up with a
locked code of ethics to include such items, how in the world can we
expect them to get some of the other issues off their shoulders?
Someone once said that you cannot not
mix politics and morality. I certainly hope that someone wasn't a
legislator....
Gordon Garnos was long-time editor of the Watertown Public Opinion and
recently retired after 39 years with that newspaper. Garnos, a
lifelong resident of South Dakota except for his military service in the
U.S. Air Force, was born and raised in Presho.
