BROOKINGS – When South Dakota lawmakers gather in Pierre for their annual legislative session, the business they do and how they do it will be impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. 

To get a take on that impact, The Brookings Register spoke this past week with District 7 legislators, all Republicans: Sen. V.J. Smith, Rep. Tim Reed and Rep. Larry Tidemann.

Issues that came to the fore and how COVID-19 affected some of them included the budget, with its “one-time dollars”; marijuana, both medicinal and recreational; infrastructure, particularly broadband; and issues on which they took a personal interest – including the personal safety of the legislators and their fellow South Dakotans coming to the capitol to visit or do business. 

CARES brings $1.25B

Of the $1.25 billion that came to South Dakota from CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act funds, Tidemann explained that $250 million to $275 million would be used to replace general funds.

“That’s a lot of money to be given out,” said Tidemann, whose House committee assignments are Military and Veterans, Taxation, Retirement Laws (vice chair), and Transportation. “Again, those all have to go through the appropriations process, but also through the vetting: Are these the right ways to use those monies?

“If for a one-time purpose, there’s investments in facilities, there’s things that can be done, paying off bonds, those types of things.”

“This year we have a lot of one-time money available,” Reed said, citing COVID-relief money coming into the state budget. Add a plus to that.

“The positive part is that we’ve seen good growth in the ongoing budget, which is a surprise to all of us. We thought we wouldn’t be dealing with that. We thought COVID would have a harder effect.

“We’ve been lucky in South Dakota. It hasn’t had that much effect on us; so we’re seeing good raises for teachers and all of state government.”

Another big expenditure from what Reed called “that one-time pot of money” will be $100 million for broadband (high-speed internet). “Broadband is somewhat popular with folks,” he explained. “But there are always a few that ask why we have to subsidize it so much.”

Federal subsidies, internet providers

In her budget address, Gov. Kristi Noem noted that the goal to expand broadband to underserved and unserved parts of South Dakota would cost $200 million: $100 million of that would come from state dollars; the other $100 million would come from federal subsidies and internet providers.

“I agree that to get broadband 100 percent across the state to the extent that you can, it’s great for business; it’s great for education; it’s all good,” Reed said. “The questions are: How do you do it efficiently? How come it’s $100 million? That’s going to be questioned. That’s a big chunk of change for what you would think is just laying fiber-optic cable across the state.”

“It’s going to be worked on; it’s going to be discussed. I’m in favor of broadband, but we’ve got to find out if that’s the right amount of money and how it’s going to work,” Reed said.

Two biggest elephants

While popular votes gave approval to both medical (Initiated Measure 26) and recreational marijuana (Constitutional Amendment A), some Yogi Berra wisdom might be applicable here: “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” 

Gov. Kristi Noem is opposed to both issues at this point.

“The two biggest elephants in the room are going to be the marijuana bills that were passed by the people,” Tidemann said. “The amendment to the South Dakota Constitution is in the court system. Until that is decided, there’s not a whole lot that we can do with that one.

“The initiated measure, we’re going to be looking at some of the things that we have to put in place. That passed by a fairly large volume, and so there are things that are going to have to be put in place: on taxation, on how they are going set up the rules.”

Reed sees marijuana as “a hot topic.”

Smith foresees a lot of discussion on both medical and recreational marijuana, but “much more on the recreational side. Of course, there’s the court challenge on that.”

Wide range of other issues

In addition to the big issues that capture the attention of all the state legislators, District 7 lawmakers will champion or weigh in on a variety of personal issues. And again, the impact of COVID-19, short term and long term, is part of the equation. 

“Some of that is going to be tied to education,” Tidemann said. “There were about six or seven months that students were not in the classroom. How did that work out? Are the students on par or are we going to have to help them catch up?”

“We have to look again at the impact of COVID-19,” he explained, turning to issues impacting transportation. “People didn’t travel as much; people didn’t buy as much gas. That’s nationwide. That has an impact on the roads.”

“So, transportation, you deal with roads, you deal with all those things. There’s some concern with township roads, county roads not having enough funds to get some things done,” Tidemann continued.

“How do we deal with that in the future? Farm equipment is getting much larger, the trucks moving the products (are getting much larger). If you can’t move the products, the people can’t make money.

Both are extremely important in our rural state.”

Reed is working with the South Dakota Newspaper Association on a transparency bill dealing with public notices. “It modernizes public notices,” he explained. “It modernizes the payment portion of them and makes sure that they’re going to be electronic.”

He’ll again be dealing with sexual assault issues, “helping to better define some of the elements of rape. A lot of times a judge or jury wants to know what a term means; but there’s no guidance, there’s no definition. What does it mean to be ‘incapacitated?’”

While the Electoral College vote count by Congress is now over and the win by the Biden-Harris ticket firmly cemented, Reed believes there may be some discussion as to the role played by and the stance of South Dakota’s federal delegation.

“I think we’ll deal with that,” he said. “I think the first few weeks there’ll be some things on that. I think that will be a short-term issue that will happen right at the beginning.”

“COVID-19 relief will be out there,” he added, of the use of the state’s CARES dollars. “We’ve seen some issues on the expediency of the money being dispersed to the businesses that need it. And then it’s the budget.”

Smith sees “a lot of ‘big-ticket items’ and CARES one-time dollars could be applied to some of them. We have a lot on our plate, more than I thought there would be.”

He’ll weigh in on bills that address first responders suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), which he called “an area that we can no longer neglect. We have to take care of it.”

Additionally, he will sponsor a bill “to finish the Veterans Cemetery in Sioux Falls. There’s a road issue there. And we have to shore up the endowment.”

“We’re now burying the last of the World War II (veterans),” Smith explained. “We have a lot of Korean (War veterans). And now unfortunately, the next group will be the Vietnam War (veterans).

“To a lot of people those cemeteries are a source of pride. Even though there’s a lot of sadness attached, when you drive Interstate 90 outside of Sturgis, you can’t help but see those tombstones and be grateful. This (Sioux Falls) cemetery would be for the eastern part of the state. It’s a debt that we owe to our veterans, that we’re there when they need us.”  

“You know what I do for a living. I talk, that’s what I do,” Smith said, addressing his constituents. “As a legislator, I learned that in order to be a good legislator, you have to listen. It isn’t speaking; it’s listening.

“I know in the past two years, on specific bills my thinking was changed because the people back home enlightened me on issues. The people’s voices matter.

“Send me an email. I respond to every email I get from District 7 constituents. What they share, I want to read and understand. People’s thoughts change my thinking; not all the time, mind you.”

Keeping the lawmakers safe

“It’s going to be a different session, obviously because of COVID,” Reed said. “We’re all wondering how this is going to work. I think it’s important that we go there and we get the people’s work done. There is going to be some risk to that, but I think those risks have to be taken.”

“The capitol is a Petri dish,” Tidemann said, referencing operating and doing business in the presence of the coronavirus pandemic. “People are coming from all over the place, bringing all sorts of things in.

“All the safety measures are going to be put in place; but you still have to have the input from the people, the real people, the lobbyists, the people who have a vested interest in those bills. So how do you do that, maintain that safety?”

As to the impact of the pandemic, Smith explained that some bills, “the larger issues, take an extraordinary amount of time. And in the environment that we’re going to be operating under and the protocols, I don’t know what conversation you can have with legislators when you’re 6 feet apart. It just isn’t conducive to that.”

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.