Here’s hoping better angels will prevail against mean-spirited legislative proposals

The South Dakota House of Representatives convenes on Feb. 5, 2024. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)

In South Dakota, we like to be good neighbors, helping when we can. We send nice people to the Legislature. So why is their legislation so hard on our low-income population?

Legislators rejected good bills that could help, like expanding free and reduced price school lunch eligibility , eliminating the state sales tax on food, increasing the minimum wage, and allowing tuition-free attendance for tribal members at state universities and technical colleges. They are now on the road to passing bills that would make life even harder.

Some of the meanest bills, keeping low-income people down, are still standing: Senate Bills 89 and 90 , and Senate Joint Resolution 501 .

A recipe for homelessness, Senate Bills 89 and 90 would make evictions quicker and easier for landlords, even in our tight housing market. SB 89 would trim the notice required to eject at-will tenants — who can be asked to leave at any time for any reason — from 30 to 15 days. SB 90 would remove the requirement that landlords give a three-day “notice to quit” before starting an eviction, which would fast-track an already rapid process.

Senate Joint Resolution 501 would ask us to re-vote on Medicaid expansion in November, to allow the state to impose work requirements on it. That would start us down a path to taking away critical health care from people who don’t get enough work hours, don’t get their work report in, or don’t adequately verify a disability or other allowed exemption.

Threatening health, and even life, in this way is extreme and inhumane punishment that does not fit the crime. It should have no place in a pro-life state.

Then we come to House Bill 1244 , which would establish a process for people who sign ballot-question petitions to later remove their signatures from those petitions .

The bill would make it harder for the public to act when the Legislature does not. We had to use ballot measures to approve minimum wage increases, impose a payday loan limit and expand Medicaid eligibility . House Bill 1244 is this year’s idea to disrupt our constitutional right to put petition questions on the ballot.

There are exceptions. A few bills will help. So it is yet possible that legislators’ better angels could prevail, and they’ll protect our neighbors who already have too many challenges in life.

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