South Dakota

TexasTowelie

(118,341 posts) Tue Apr 2, 2019, 06:05 AM Apr 2019

Gov. Noem Gets Million Bucks for Pheasant Habitat on Multiple Rule Violations

Kristi Noem demonstrated a failure to understand many things during her first Legislative Session as Governor: facts, consistency, civics education, agri-business opportunity, transparency, the First Amendment, grammar.

Add to Kristi’s portfolio of (probably willful) ignorance the style-and-form veto.

Article 4 Section 4 of the South Dakota Constitution, as amended by the voters in 1972, allows the Governor to return “Bills with errors in style or form… to the Legislature… with specific recommendations for change.” The Legislature may pass any such recommended changes by amendment on a simple majority vote.

On Tuesday, Governor Noem issued a style-and-form veto of Senate Bill 176, her own proposal to spend a million bucks to restore pheasant habitat. In her veto message, Governor Noem explained that she intended SB 176 to give her one million dollars right now… or at least in this fiscal year and not in the 2020 budget:

Throughout the legislative debate on this bill, it was understood that these funds would come from dollars available in Fiscal Year 2019. That was how the bill was originally proposed and how it was explained throughout the legislative process. Even in the last week of the legislative session, materials prepared by legislators and legislative staff included these funds in the Fiscal Year 2019 budget.

As Senate Bill 176 passed in its final form, however, it did not include an effective date in Fiscal Year 2019. To carry out the objective of this bill in a manner consistent with the Legislature’s clear intent, I recommend the following Style and Form correction to the Enrolled version of Senate Bill 176:

On Page 1, after Section 5, insert “Section 6. This Act is effective on June 28, 2019” [Gov. Kristi Noem, veto message to SB 176, 2019.03.26].