Round three for fight commission bill Monday as Hickey readies counter-punch
A proposal to regulate fighting sports in South Dakota has a key hearing Monday as opponents prepare to try to derail the most controversial part of the plan.
Sen. Mark Johnston, R-Sioux Falls, and others support creating a South Dakota Athletic Commission, which would regulate sports such as boxing, kick-boxing and mixed martial arts. South Dakota currently has no such commission, meaning those events either avoid the state or happen without oversight.
The result, Johnston argues, is people getting hurt or even killed fighting in unsanctioned bouts. The athletic commission created in Senate Bill 84 would have the power to create rules, such as requiring medical testing and banning fighters who’ve suffered blows to the head.
But Gov. Dennis Daugaard and others say the athletic commission would legitimize these violent sports and lead to more, not fewer, people getting hurt.
“I’m offended that the state would legitimize cage-fighting and the bloody violence that those kinds of spectacles create,” Daugaard said in January. “I think it’s interesting that we declare that it is a crime for one human being to strike another, and yet the state now proceeds to legitimize, and label a sport, cage-fighting.”
Rep. Steve Hickey, R-Sioux Falls, feels the same way. When SB 84 comes up for a hearing at 10 a.m. Monday, he plans to offer an amendment he sees as a compromise — creating the athletic commission, but limiting it to sports such as boxing and traditional martial arts such as karate and judo. Mixed martial arts would be banned in South Dakota.
“The conversation on violence in society needs to start somewhere. Why not with our most violent entertainment, and that’s mixed martial arts,” said Hickey. “There’s a reason two governors have been reticent to appoint a commission: it’s because they agree with me that elbowing a guy in the head, kneeing him in the face, is beyond where we need to go.”
Hickey compared violent sports to smoking and pornography and said in all three cases, society needs to draw a line.
“With smoking we drew a line at pot, and with adult entertainment we’ve drawn it at child porn,” Hickey said. “I say that mixed martial arts is the child porn of sports.”
The supporters of the athletic commission proposal aren’t getting on board with Hickey’s alternative. They defended mixed martial arts from Hickey’s characterization of it as unusually brutal.
The supporters of the athletic commission proposal aren’t getting on board with Hickey’s alternative. They defended mixed martial arts from Hickey’s characterization of it as unusually brutal.
“I think once we get the rules in place it’s going to be as safe as a lot of the other sports we have nowadays,” said Rep. Dean Schrempp, D-Lantry. “But it has to be regulated.”
Johnston said he appreciates Hickey’s “societal concerns” but disagrees with his judgment.
“The sport of mixed martial arts is not cage-fighting. If he were really concerned about cage-fighting, he should support the bill in its current form because that’s really what we’re trying to stop,” Johnston said. “Mixed martial arts is just that: it’s an art. It’s a combination of boxing, kickboxing and wrestling.”
Schrempp doubts banning mixed martial arts would stamp it out, despite the felony penalties for organizing or participating in those events in Hickey’s amendment.
“It’s going to go on anyway whether we try to stop it or not,” Schrempp said. “Even if he gets an amendment on it, it’ll be like it is now — people will still have them.”
If Hickey’s amendment were adopted, it could save SB 84 from an anticipated veto.
“It looks like something the governor could support,” said Tony Venhuizen, a senior adviser to Daugaard, about Hickey’s amendment.
Supporters aren’t worried. They believe they have the votes to pass the bill and override any veto. It passed the Senate with 29 votes, above the 24 needed to override a veto. Schrempp said he’s confident the support in the House will also be over the two-thirds threshold.
Lawmakers at Saturday’s legislative forum in Sioux Falls were split on the matter. Several agreed with Hickey that mixed martial arts is beyond the pale.
“I don’t think this is a healthy thing we should be encouraging,” said Rep. Isaac Latterell, R-Tea.
Rep. Anne Hajek, R-Sioux Falls, said she had clashed with mixed martial arts in past years when it went on at the Minnehaha County fairgrounds.
“Why in the world would we ever think this is entertainment?” said Hajek said.
But Rep. Herman Otten, R-Tea, said he had mixed feelings. He disapproves of mixed martial arts and doesn’t let his son watch it, but said that might be a decision best left up to parents.
(This post has been updated to expand a quotation.)
