Happy new year—for the state, anyway

What kind of headline is that? Crazy, isn’t it? Well, leave it to the state and federal governments to mess up our calendar. Our normal citizens’ calendars go from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31. Our state year is from July 1 to June 30 and our federal government year is from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30. It seems like a governmental bureaucratic shell game to me, but I didn’t get to decide. So, of course, the reason I’m saying Happy New Year is that our state’s new year just started July 1.
When legislation is passed during our 40-day session which takes place January, February and part of March, that law doesn’t go into effect until our state new year July 1. The only exception is if that bill has an “emergency clause.” Then it goes into effect immediately. To pass with an emergency clause, it needs a two-thirds vote in each chamber, (47 out of 70 House members and 24 out of 35 in the Senate). Of course, the governor needs to sign it also.
More than 200 bills were signed into law by either Gov. Rhoden or former Gov. Noem during the 2025 session. That doesn’t seem possible to me and I was there for every one of them. A lot are what they call “clean-up” bills, which means they clean up language of a law passed previously. I get a kick out of bills that are announced as just clean-up bills because sometimes it is much more than that.
Regardless, in South Dakota every bill gets a hearing. Every single one— and usually there are around 500 bills dropped by the 105 legislators. As I’ve written about in the past, once a legislator has gotten a final draft from  Legislative Research Council (LRC) it is formally turned in.
Here is where we’ve made a big mistake. When I arrived at the legislature in 2017, the same year Pres. Trump became president No. 45, every bill was in hard/paper copy and the legislator who was the prime sponsor had to take a hard copy of that bill to get signatures (co-sponsors) for the bill before turning it back into LRC.
The beauty of that system was the interplay with all the legislators. We had to go introduce ourselves and give our elevator pitch on the merits of the bill and then ask other legislators to sign on with us (co-sponsoring the bill).
I remember my first year. I had several bills and was over in Senate chambers introducing myself and asking senators to become co-sponsors of my bill(s). I did the same in the House chambers but it seemed easier because I was with the other representatives more and knew most of them rather quickly.
So, here’s where automation isn’t always better. Now, a new bill appears online and the legislator sends it out to whatever legislators they want to sign on via internal internet. No meeting in person. No elevator pitch. No developing relationships. No getting to know the other legislators like the hard copy system forced us to do.
In my opinion, this new, automated system is a joke. You can even sign on to a bill after it passes using your laptop and the same with taking your name off  a bill. I get a chuckle (it seems sad and fraudulent) when report cards are published, as the bills that you didn’t or did sponsor can be adjusted with the push of a button on a laptop.
The only thing that can’t change is the vote. Once the votes are cast it becomes permanent record and you can’t unring that bell. Well! Wait a second! After the vote is cast if you did or didn’t like the outcome, you can ask right after the final vote is announced that you want to change your vote. I’m not making this up!
I’ll discuss the 200 new laws in upcoming articles. Until then.