Political Smokeout

Gosch statement on court fees ruling

Yesterday evening, Rep. Brian Gosch emailed the following statement in response to my phone message about the judge’s ruling that Stephanie Strong owes him more than $20,000 in attorney fees:

With regard to Judge Trandahl’s recent decision, I am pleased that the Court has required Stephanie Strong to reimburse me for attorney’s fees. The fees I incurred were expended defending what I feel was a politically motivated and frivolous law suit. I want to be careful not to read too much into Judge Trandahl’s ruling, but I think this is a clear indication from the judiciary that the court system shouldn’t be used solely for mischief and political sabotage. Unfortunately, Stephanie initiated this lawsuit and I was forced to defend myself.

If I hear from Strong I will post her comments as well.

Strong hit with $21,000 attorney bill for Gosch suit

Judge Kathleen Trandahl yesterday ordered Stephanie Strong, who had sued to remove Rep. Brian Gosch from the 2012 ballot, to pay Gosch’s attorney fees.

The bill is hefty — $21,257.50 in fees, plus $57.08 in taxes.

The conclusions of law signed by Trandahl say Strong’s lawsuit was frivolous and aimed at producing media coverage rather than winning.

I’ve left messages for both Strong and Gosch and will post their comments if and when I receive them.

The news of the ruling was first reported by Pat Powers at the Dakota War College.

After the jump, an embedded version of the “findings of fact and conclusions of law” in the case.

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Would there really be legal issues with partisan staff?

In this morning’s paper, I took a look at a proposal to hire partisan staff members to work with political party caucuses in the Legislature.

You can read that here.

Some Republican leaders think having some partisan staffers alongside the current nonpartisan staff would make the Legislature more effective vis-a-vis the executive branch, and lead to more specific and detailed policy debates in Pierre.

Reporter Bob Mercer highlights one concern I didn’t address:

To take any of the $500,000 for the purpose of hiring a Democratic staffer or two Republican staffers seems to beg for a lawsuit under 12-27-21. And for those legislators seeking re-election or election to another office, the assistance they might receive from a Democratic staffer or a Republican staffer seems to beg for a Supreme Court interpretation of the word “influencing” in 12-27-20.

Partisan research staff would be new ground for the Legislature, and it’s entirely possible current law wouldn’t allow the proposal being pushed by House Speaker Brian Gosch and Senate Majority Leader Russell Olson.

But I’m not so sure. For one thing, a majority of other states have partisan legislative staff and have presumably found a way to make that work with their conflict-of-interest election laws. That’s not to say South Dakota wouldn’t have to change its laws to allow partisan research staff.

Except that the Legislature ALREADY has taxpayer-funded staff members in the secretaries (and possibly interns, depending on the details of their  compensation) for caucus leaders. They’re not doing bill-drafting, but they are working on explicitly partisan activities like arranging news conferences, distributing press releases and statements, and even researching issues. Is there a significant difference between those longstanding, presumably legal partisan activities and what would be done by the three partisan LRC staff Gosch and Olson want to add?

Legislature approves $500K hike to own budget

The Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee just approved, after considerable tumult, a $500,000 increase in the Legislature’s budget 2014.

Part of the money will be used to pay for more legislative travel to regional and national conferences. Other amounts will be used to hire more legislative staff — including, intriguingly, possibly partisan legislative staffers to go along with the existing nonpartisan staff. Finally, around $65,000 will pay for the higher legislator per diem authorized in a bill that passed this year.

After the motion was introduced, appropriators paused for a long period of conferencing any lobbying. When they reconvened, Senate Majority Leader Russell Olson and House Speaker Brian Gosch appeared to testify for it.

The Legislature is “by far the least costliest” of the three branches, Gosch said. When its staff are overworked, “they make errors.” Approving extra funding, he said, well make the Legislature “a more effective legislative body.”

Olson praised hiring some partisan legislative staff.

“We have to rely on the nonpartisan nature of the LRC to keep secrets… that puts them in an unfair position at many times,” Olson said.

In the 2011 budget cuts, the Legislature’s budget was cut by around $650,000.

Some lawmakers were highly skeptical of increasing the Legislature’s own budget when K-12 education and Medicaid providers weren’t getting more than 3 percent bumps in ongoing funding.

Appropriations “just decided $500,000 legislative travel money was more important than K-12 and Medicaid funding,” Rep. Susan Wismer wrote on her Twitter account.

But the full committee adopted the proposal on a 12-6 vote.

How will the texting ban fare in the House?

Here’s my story for tomorrow’s paper, taking a look at whether the texting ban this year will follow past years and go down to defeat in the House, or if it will get the needed votes and become law. I couldn’t track down all the members of the House Judiciary Committee today, but a majority for passage definitely seems possible — six members, one short of a majority, have either voted for a ban in the past or expressed support for it this year; I count four who have voted against bans or expressed opposition; the other three (Erickson, Johns and Stevens, all new legislators) could control the balance.

After passing through the South Dakota Senate with little opposition, a proposed statewide ban on texting while driving appeared before its first House committee — and was promptly killed.

That’s not the story this year, where a ban on texting is still alive — so far. But it’s what happened two years ago with a similar attempt. The House also defeated texting bans in 2010 and 2012. Will 2013’s proposed ban meet the same fate as its House hearing nears?

Rep. Charlie Hoffman, R-Eureka, is hoping it won’t. As the prime sponsor of the texting ban in the House, he’s trying to round up support, and believes the votes are there.

Speculating Thursday morning about whether the ban would be assigned to the Judiciary Committee, Hoffman said if it went there “it will come out with a majority vote, a strong majority.”

Several hours later, House Speaker Brian Gosch assigned it to the Judiciary Committee. 

But passage might not be so easy as Hoffman predicts. Gosch himself has voted against several past texting bans, and he’s the chair of the Judiciary Committee.

Gosch said Thursday he’s still studying the specifics of the bill, and has particular questions about voice-controlled text message technology — which is exempt from the proposed ban.

Other members of the committee plan to vote against the ban, Senate Bill 142.

“I’ve generally been opposed to texting while driving bans,” said Rep. Jon Hansen, R-Dell Rapids. “There’s a multitude of distractions. Rather than singling one out, I would be more inclined to support our existing distracted driving laws, leaving those as-is, and not ratcheting up penalties on one distraction in particular.”

Rep. Don Kopp, R-Rapid City, agreed.

“We have a law on the books already for impaired driving, etc., that I think would be sufficient,” Kopp said. “A lot of other legislators in the committee probably aren’t going to support the ban, for that reason.”

Whether that “a lot” is a majority is yet to be determined. Six members of the committee — one short of a majority — either have declared their support for the texting ban or have voted for one in the past.

Hoffman is one of those committee members. So is Rep. Anne Hajek, R-Sioux Falls, who said the measure “sounds like a pretty good bill.”

Democratic Reps. Kevin Killer, Peggy Gibson and Marc Feinstein all voted for a texting ban in 2010, as did Republican Rep. Dean Wink.

If none of those lawmakers change their minds, only one of the other eight members of the committee would have to vote yes to send the bill to the full House.

Gosch, Kopp and Rep. Melissa Magstadt have all voted against texting bans in the past, combined with Hansen’s planned opposition. If none of them change their positions, the opponents have a base of four votes and would need three more to kill the ban.

Some have yet to make up their mind. Rep. Mike Stevens, R-Yankton, said he’s still studying the bill.

Many members of the committee are new to the Legislature. Stevens and Hajek are in their first years, as are Reps. Christine Erickson and Timothy Johns.

No date has yet been set for the hearing on the texting ban before the House Judiciary Committee.

When it does happen, proponents will likely bring a crowd of supporters to testify in favor. The Senate hearing last week had 17 proponents, including lawmakers, law enforcement, businesses, cities, victims of crashes caused by texting while driving and the driver in such an accident.

But that same array of supporters also testified for the bans in 2012 and 2011, and both times the House committee killed it.

Hoffman is hopeful that a new message and a changing political climate will bring more success this year.

He said more fatal accidents in which texting was at fault, have raised awareness, and said local bans adopted by cities such as Sioux Falls and Huron will let him make the case for having the same law across the state. The proposed texting ban would override all local bans on texting while driving.

Hansen didn’t buy the argument about trying to avoid a patchwork of different texting laws.

“If you’re opposed to the ban in general, I would rather it be banned in select cities than statewide,” Hansen said.

Sen. Mike Vehle, R-Mitchell, took the lead promoting the texting ban in the Senate. Having seen past bans fail, he’s not making any predictions.

“I’ve given up a long time ago trying to predict what one of the legislative bodies is going to do,” Vehle said. “I’m always hopeful that you can break a pattern, especially in this case. But that’s up to those House members.”

Texting ban will head to House Judiciary Committee

Speaker Brian Gosch has assigned the ban on texting while driving to the House Judiciary Committee.

Gosch is the chairman of that committee, which also includes Jon Hansen, Christine Erickson, Marc Feinstein, Peggy Gibson, Anne Hajek, Charlie Hoffman (the House sponsor of the texting ban), Timothy Johns, Kevin Killer, Don Kopp, Melissa Magstadt, Mike Stevens and Dean Wink.

Hoffman told me earlier today that if it goes to the Judiciary Committee, he’s optimistic it will pass and head to the floor. But the last two attempts at texting bans have gone down in House committees, so it’ll be interesting what happens.

More on this bill’s House chances later.

Razor-thin defeat for ‘text colloquy’ open government bill

An open government bill fell a single vote short of passage Tuesday, after a spirited debate that divided both parties in the South Dakota House of Representatives.

House Bill 1113 would require members of public boards to treat discussion of official business through email, text messages and other electronic means as public records.

A product of an open government task force assembled by Gov. Dennis Daugaard and Attorney General Marty Jackley, HB 1113 faced opposition from some lawmakers who view it as a dangerous overreach.

“It’s a solution looking for a problem,” said Rep. Charlie Hoffman, R-Eureka.

He and others alleged that the bill would make boards less efficient by barring innocuous emails seeking clarification about something discussed at an official meeting.

Supporters of the bill said they were trying to prevent board members from using email to decide important issues in private.

“This bill is targeted at addressing the increase in the proliferation of technology,” said Rep. David Lust, R-Rapid City. “We should be for openness, and that’s what this bill does.”

HB 1113 split the House Republican leadership. Lust, the House majority leader, was a vocal supporter, as was Rep. Scott Munsterman, R-Brookings, and another member of the GOP leadership team. Meanwhile House Speaker Brian Gosch, R-Rapid City, was a vocal opponent, along with Rep. Kristin Conzet, R-Rapid City, another member of the leadership team.

The final vote had 35 representatives in favor and 34 against. A bill takes 36 votes to pass, meaning HB 1113 failed.

Three Democrats and 31 Republicans voted against the bill, while 14 Democrats and 21 Republicans voted for it.

After the razor-thin defeat, Munsterman notified Gosch of his intent to reconsider the vote. That gives supporters another day to round up one extra vote and try again.

This was the second extremely close vote on HB 1113. It passed out of the House State Affairs Committee on a 7-6 vote.

That gutted open government bill

The recommendations of the open government task force assembled by Gov. Dennis Daugaard and Attorney General Marty Jackley didn’t fare too well in the Legislature so far. Four of the eight bills are dead, while one more passed out of committee by a divided vote and will run into determined resistance in the House with Rep. Brian Gosch outspoke in opposition. Two have cruised through the House, one a very minor change and the other actually opposed by some open government advocates as a step in the wrong direction.

It’s the eighth bill, House Bill 1108, that is chiefly interesting right now. That’s the bill that was gutted in committee to remove its substance, leaving only a minor clerical fix. At the time, supporters said the amendment neutering the bill could give them time to work out a compromise with opponents, which include groups like electric cooperatives — private organizations with some public authority, who worry they’ll fall under the purview of the bill.

The intent of the bill is to open up to the public the actions of subcommittees created by sovereign bodies such as cities or counties. In recent years some of those groups have passed off work to non-public subcommittees, pushing much of the opportunity for public examination and input behind closed doors. 

When the bill came up on the House floor yesterday and passed without debate, David Bordewyk of the South Dakota Newspaper Association was confused. There was, he was told, an amendment negotiated by the governor’s office that was supposed to be offered on the floor.

But that didn’t happen.

Rep. Mike Verchio, R-Hill City, who presented the bill, said that amendment was considered by the House members, but deliberately not offered on the floor.

“It was a last-ditch amendment that was brought to us an hour before we can down here on the floor,” Verchio said. “There was quite a bit of resistance to it from some organizations and also from some House members. We decided not to bring it on this side, and if it wants to be pushed on the Senate side, they’re sure welcome to do it.”

Tony Venhuizen, Daugaard’s representative on the task force and the primary supporter of the open government bills, said he will encourage the Senate to adopt that amendment.

“We believe the current bill language is problematic, and are working with some of the opponents to craft an amendment that will make sure the bills fulfills its original intent,” Venhuizen wrote in an email. “I will offer that amendment as a part of my testimony in the Senate committee.”