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Why legislators love social issues |
Cash crunch leaves few other ways for lawmakers to leave mark
It's almost as if there are two concurrent legislative sessions in Pierre this year. In one session, state lawmakers are wrestling with competing ideas of how to erase a $127 million structural deficit without tapping reserve funds or raising taxes.
The other session, however, has dealt with several socially oriented proposals such as legislation that attempted to safeguard South Dakota from Sharia law, allow for justifiable homicide in the protection of an unborn baby, set mandatory gun ownership - a proposal that was introduced as a protest to the federal health care law - and bring an Arizona-style immigration law to the state.
One former Senate leader sees the spate of social issues as the product of one-party domination, though other observers say the social legislation merely repeats history while reflecting the fact the state has precious little money to spend this year.
"The big gorilla is the budget cuts," said William Richardson, a political science professor at the University of South Dakota. "You are not going to get any of your favorite programs funded, so what else is there to which one can attach one's name and be reasonably assured of getting some notice and reform that appeals to your constituents?"
Legislators know that pain from budget cuts is coming, and it is going to be big, Richardson said.
"So take your pleasure now," he said.
Jim Fry, director of the Legislative Research Council, has seen sessions such as this year's in the past. He and others reference the state's abortion battles of the 1990s.
Fry said that sessions heavy on social issues tend to develop when big, new classes of legislators come to Pierre.
"There are new ideas about how public policy should be implemented," Fry said. The state's new lawmakers are expressing those ideas.
'There were some extremists elected'
That theory makes sense to former longtime legislator Dave Knudson, a Sioux Falls Republican who served as Senate majority leader from 2007 to 2010.
"I think there were some extremists elected in November. That they would come in with agenda-driven bills is not surprising," Knudson said.
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