Pure Pierre Politics

A friend asked the other day, “How old is Tim Johnson anyway?” South Dakota’s Democratic U.S.senator turned 65 on Dec. 28. He’s been in Congress since his first election in 1986. The next question people might be asking is the age of Mike Rounds. The Republican former governor turned 57 on Oct. 24. Come 2014, when one or both or neither of the men might be on the ballot for U.S. Senate, they’ll be two years older. And the third question might then be whether the difference of eight years, given their ages, matters more or less than the difference between an eight-year governor and a 28-year congressman who’s the Senate banking committee chairman in a state where banking is big business.

As for their records among voters, Rounds received 56.8 percent of the vote in 2002 and 61.7 percent in 2006. Johnson hasn’t been beaten in eight statewide general elections; in his two most recent, he received 49.6 percent in 2002 (beating John Thune by less than 400 votes in a three-way race) and 62.5 percent in 2008.

Serious question: Is texting an improper practice for a legislator while in a committee hearing or during a floor debate? Cell phone use is banned, but many lawmakers routinely are fiddling with their handheld devices during committee meetings. Messages are being sent and received. Thus there’s nothing stopping one legislator from corresponding with another, whether on current business or otherwise; and nothing stopping audience members or people who aren’t even in the room from secretly sending suggestions and information to legislators during a hearing. I didn’t believe this next point when I first heard of such an event, but I now have been told by several people who use the Facebook technology that they know for a fact legislators have updated their Facebook pages while they were in a committee or on the floor for a debate. On a fully related front, we did learn one useful new fact from the Stace Nelson/David Lust/Val Rausch disputes a week ago: The House Republicans don’t allow texting during caucus meetings.

The South Dakota Supreme Court ruled this week that a circuit judge improperly imposed an enhanced sentence for a third DUI offense because, at the time of the arrest, the defendant hadn’t been found guilty or pleaded guilty  or pleaded no-contest yet to his second offense. The justices unanimously reversed the third-DUI penalty and sent the matter back to circuit court for re-sentencing. The defendant, John Willey, was arrested for DUI in Pennington County in 2008 and was convicted in February 2009. Willey was arrested again for DUI in Meade County in May 2010. While awaiting the outcome of that case, he was arrested again for DUI in Pennington County on Aug. 8, 2010. He pleaded guilty to the second DUI on Aug. 30, 2010, and was sentenced Sept. 27, 2010. Initially he was charged for a second-DUI offense for the Aug. 8 arrest, which was his third in three years, but the charge was later amended to a third-offense DUI after his guilty plea on Aug. 30 to the previous DUI.  This case is the specific reason that the Legislature is considering House Bill 1039, which would clarify it’s legal for a circuit judge to do what the Supreme Court said this week isn’t allowed under existing state law. The state House approved the legislation 49-20 on Jan. 25; the measure now awaits a hearing by a Senate committee.

When you wake up too early you can have too much time to think. With that caveat, let me suggest there might be a danger hidden in the plan to relax mandatory retirement for South Dakota circuit judges and Supreme Court justices. The legislation that flew out of the Senate on Thursday would let the chief justice decide on a year to year basis whether judges and justices can continue to serve out their elected terms past the mandatory retirement age of 70. The danger, of course, is that raises the potential to remove some independence from a judge or justice. He or she becomes dependent on the good favor of the chief justice. At the circuit level that might not seem so clear-cut, but at the Supreme Court, a majority of three among the five can decide things. Would it happen? Rather than ask and speculate over that question, maybe everyone would be better off if the potential simply isn’t there.

Don’t ask me. I just write here. But a variety of comments from various readers vanished from various posts during the past 24 hours. I haven’t heard or seen any black helicopters hovering but in the cyber world you never know. So, if you lost a comment, please accept my apology.

UPDATE: I think all of the lost comments have been restored (or as many as I could track down). There was an interesting pattern. I don’t know whether it’s a coincidence or what… but the deleted comments together formed an intriguing trail, sort of like footprints in the snow, back to a certain time and date that just happened to leave intact  and thereby showcase (temporarily) one person’s comment. Probably just a coincidence, right? Anyway, we march on.

The state Senate just approved letting South Dakota’s circuit judges and Supreme Court justices serve longer. The legislation, Senate Bill 76, would allow the chief justice to decide if a judge or justice could remain in office past the mandatory retirement age of 70. The bill’s prime sponsor, Senate Republican leader Russell Olson of Wentworth, noted that the chief justice already has the power to appoint retired judges and justices to fill in when circumstances require. “Now doesn’t that seem like a conflict?” he asked. The vote was 28-6 in favor. The House of Representatives takes it up next.

Rep. Justin Cronin, R-Gettysburg, is leading an effort to expand the definition of cigarette manufacturing in South Dakota. A hearing date hasn’t been publicly posted yet on his legislation, House Bill 1138, that would affect any person who maintains or provides a machine at a retail business for the purpose of allowing consumers to roll their own cigarettes. Cronin’s bill is intended to classify rolling-your-own as cigarette manufacturing.

The state House of Representatives did its part to put Gov. Dennis Daugaard into a tough spot today with its passage of a bill that would prohibit businesses and employers from prohibiting people from bringing fireaarms and ammunition into their parking lots, so long as the weapons and ammo are out of sight and locked in a trunk, glove-box or other storage place. Among the business organizations battling to stop the bill are the Retailers, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, South Dakota Trucking Association, Sioux Falls chamber, Absolutely Aberdeen and the South Dakota Innkeepers. Also opposed are the South Dakota Network Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault, and the South Dakota Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The legislation, HB 1132, goes to the Senate next. If senators pass the bill, it heads to Daugaard’s desk for a decision whether to sign it into law. The House vote was 49-15. This matter really is political cover in the deepest sense. House and Senate Republican leadership brought the bill, yet four of the same folks voted to kill a 2011 version of it that was brought by Rep. Lance Russell, R-Hot Springs. Those four were House Speaker Val Rausch of Hot Springs and representatives Justin Cronin of Gettysburg, Hal Wick of Sioux Falls and Charles Hoffman of Eureka. It appears that none of the nearly two dozen Republicans and Democrats who signed their names onto the 2011 version were brought aboard onto the 2012 version, whose prime sponsor is Rausch. Many of the House Republican leaders seem to think they need cover after their votes on other firearms bill in recent years and their 2011 votes on this specific topic (with the exception of Rep. Brian Gosch of Rapid City, who voted in favor of the bill last year in committee, and House Republican leader David Lust, who voted against the bill last year and isn’t on the sponsor list this year).

March 1 marks the end of the extension of federal long-term unemployment assistance, unless Congress comes up with another extension. A report prepared by staff of Congress shows the numbers of long-term unemployed who will exhaust their unemployment insurance benefits by June 2 without an extension from Congress. In South Dakota, the number is 1,200. That is lowest in the nation. North Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming are at 2,500, and New Hampshire is 2,600. At the other end, California has the most with 596,600. Others in six digits are New York 237,000; Florida 216,000; Texas 192,800; Pennsylvania 184,700; Illinois 166,700; New Jersey 166,000; Georgia 130,700; and North Carolina 113,600. Among our neighboring states the numbers are Minnesota 36,100; Montana 7,500; Nebraska 7,600; and Iowa 15,100.

A date hasn’t been posted publicly yet for the Legislature’s first hearing of Senate Bill 10, which would expand South Dakota’s BUI law (boating under the influence). The best way to explain the legislation is that it appears to reduce the threshold so that it’s illegal to operate a boat while under the influence, to any degree, of marijuana or any controlled substance or drug that wasn’t obtained with a valid prescription. Current law appears to require that a person be rendered incapable of safely operating or driving the boat in order to get a BUI. The proposed law also would make it a BUI if a person is under the influence of any substance, other than alcohol and legally-prescribed drugs, that is ingested, inhaled or otherwise taken into the body for the purpose of becoming intoxicated.