The first week of any legislative session tends to move at a snail’s pace. This generally has to do with various legislative rules and procedures as bills must be officially introduced to the legislature. Then, the presiding officer in each body (the Speaker in the House and the President Pro Tempore in the Senate) assigns the bills to the various committees. Then each committee must post their agendas 48 hours in advance of their next committee hearing. So even under the best of circumstances, the first day a bill can be heard is on the third or fourth legislative day—in this case either Thursday or Friday of the first week. And since some committees may few, if any bills, they may ask various agencies or lobbying groups to make presentations on various subjects (ie. Department of Revenue may brief the Taxation committee; the South Dakota Municipal League may brief the Local Government committee, etc.).

The death of former Gov. Janklow has brought changes to the legislative calendar. The Legislature will cancel their scheduled sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. Janklow’s body will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda on Tuesday morning, followed by a prayer service at 12:30 that day. His funeral will take place in Sioux Falls on Wednesday morning.

The Legislature will meet on Thursday and Friday next week and then will return to their normal schedule the following week. As of now, the plan is work from a 33 day legislative calendar so final day of the main run of the session will still be March 2 with legislators returning to Pierre on March 19 to consider any gubernatorial vetoes.

While most committees will only lose one meeting under the calendar change, the biggest challenge in cutting two days from the legislative calendar will be for those legislators that sit on the Appropriations committee. This committee is the only committee that meets daily and hears budget requests from each state agency as well as considering dozens of bills that have specific funding requests. Taking two days away from this committee will likely mean they will be starting their sessions earlier in the morning and may be forced to add night meetings to their calendar in order to deliver a budget bill by the end of the session.

Greg Dean
Director of Industry Relations
South Dakota Telecommunications Association