The sixth week of the South Dakota Legislative Session ended on Thursday, Feb. 16. With President’s Day on Monday, I had the opportunity to head home for a long weekend.
On Saturday, I met with a few constituents at Gary’s Bakery in Madison, and we had great conversation about a few bills that are up and coming. This is always a great opportunity to hear from the people of District 8. If you are interested in joining me, I will be at the bakery at 10 a.m. again this Saturday and I would appreciate hearing from you.
The Legislature is still working hard to move bills forward in reaction to Initiated Measure 22. Those bills include HB 1073, regarding the limits of lobbyist gifts, SB 131, regarding the time between being a legislator and a lobbyist, and HB 1076/SB 53, regarding the creation of an Ethics Commission.
With 14 days left of the 2017 session, I can feel the urgency as we have much left to accomplish, but my focus will be on the quality of this time.
As always, feel free to reach out to me by email: jry067@yahoo.com or phone: 605-254-3051.

Week six is in the books as we look to clear the calendar of the 400-some bills that get filed every year. Crossover day is coming up this next week, so if a legislator has a particular idea that was filed as a bill, it needs to be acted on, whether passed out of committee or defeated, by this coming week. Then, if successful, that bill will move to the other chamber to be scheduled, in committee, for another opportunity for the public to provide input and testimony before it is voted on and possibly moved to that respective floor for passage.
HB 1074 would provide certain limits for out of state contributions to ballot question committees. Several of you have asked about this. Based on some court rulings, it is very difficult to limit out of state money due to the issue of free speech, however this would be very narrow and would attempt to address those concerns.
HB 1073 would keep the $100 limit of gifts to legislators (from IM 22), but better define what is a gift. The definition was not workable in the ballot question as, even legislators with spouses as teachers would be violating this gift ban. A gift, in that ballot question definition, was any compensation given to a legislator, including his or her spouse.
SB 163, 53, 54, 171, and 131 all deal with parts of IM 22, so I urge you to take a look at them and give me your thoughts.
SCR 11 was a concurrent resolution that passed overwhelmingly this past week in the House, 67-1. It simply stated we South Dakotans oppose physician assisted suicide. You probably won’t hear much in the media about it, but the question of physician assisted suicide will likely be an initiated measure ballot question in 2018, and I wanted to provide information to the public about this subject before the citizens of South Dakota are faced with this question.
As you can see by the vote, including a 32-3 vote in the Senate, our legislators strongly oppose physician assisted suicide. All you need to do is look at what has happened in the Netherlands, where assisted suicide has been legal for  over 40 years, and realize that when more than 50 percent of the assisted suicides there are no longer voluntary, meaning without the patients consent, we do not want to go down that path. If you have any questions on that topic, please contact me.
We have a number of other issues to take up this week. I would encourage you, if you are interested, to log on to www.sdlegislature.gov and you can listen to any of the testimony on any of the above mentioned bills, or any of the others I have not mentioned. It takes some time, but gives you a very important insight to the discussions we have on all the bills.
As always you can contact me at Leslie.Heinemann@sdlegislature.gov. I look forward to your input.

I have now completed my first two weeks of the 2017 legislative session. There is a lot to catch up on as I was not present in Pierre for the first three weeks of the session.  I was honored to be asked by Governor Daugaard to serve for the remainder of the current term.  I have always had an interest in how state government works and now have an opportunity to be a part of the process.
I serve on the Education & Taxation committees and have voted on several bills.  Testimony was offered in support of HB1133 that would develop a plan for testing of high functioning students with learning disabilities that do not qualify for special education services.   It was passed out of committee and sent to the floor for debate in the near future.
On the taxation side, HB1149 was brought forward to  revise fees for telecommunication services.  Interesting testimony was offered by the deaf community.  That bill was also sent to the floor for vote by the full House.
HB 1052 was passed to provide protections for public employees who report violations of the law (whistleblower).  Also under consideration this week is HB 1073 which deals with revision and repeal of certain provisions regarding gifts from registered lobbyists to public officials. These bills were brought to deal with the repeal and replacement of HB1069 issues.
I appreciate the  many e-mails and other correspondence I have received from interested parties from District 8.  I welcome your input on any subject before the House.  Thank you for your patience as I learn more about the legislative process.