District 21 does not have a general election for state Senate; actually there wasn’t a primary either. Incumbent State Senator Billie Sutton was the only person to put in a petition for the race. District 21 is on the South edge of the state, just in the east side. It includes the towns of Avon, Bonesteel, Burke, Colome, Dallas, Dante, Fairfax, Geddes, Gregory, Herrick, Lake Andes, New Witten, Pickstown, Platte, Ravinia, Springfield, Wagner, and Winner.
Since Sutton has already won the general election by default I will look briefly at a few bills he has prime sponsored in the State Senate. This will allow constituents to know something about their representative.
Billie H. Sutton
Sen Billie Sutton (D, Dist 21) – Incumbent
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Increasing teacher pay was the big story for the 2016 legislative session. Even though it was the Governor’s solution that won in the end, there were other solutions. The first piece of legislation to look at from Sutton is the Democrat’s bill to raise revenue for teacher pay:
SB 151 (SoDakLiberty Posts) – Lower the state sales and use tax on most food items, to increase the rate of taxation for the sales and use tax on certain goods and services, to increase the amusement device tax, and to increase the per student allocation in the state aid formula.
This bill would have reduced the sales tax on most food down to 0%. Then the sales and use tax would have raised from 4% to 5%. That extra revenue would have both offset the revenue lost by not taxing food and provided more revenue for teacher pay. SB 151 was also amended in State Affairs to dedicate $40,000,000 to property tax reduction. But it is in State Affairs where this bill died. There was no way any bill but the Governor’s was getting out of any committee. Too bad, I think this bill should have been debated on the Senate floor. By keeping this bill in committee the Republican leadership was able to shield their members from having the debate about whether food should be taxed. Personally I think Sutton maybe could have moved this bill onto the floor if he had cut a deal with the more conservative Republicans that weren’t happy with the Governor’s solution.
The next bill is another from 2016:
SB 150 (SoDakLiberty Posts) – Revise provisions related to the legislative intern program.
SB 150 modifies the statutes dealing with allocating interns for the parties in the legislature. It basically removes three statutes and replaces it with a cleaner one that splits interns based upon the size of each party, but makes sure the minority party has at least three interns in each house. This bill highlighted the problems with one party having a super-majority in Pierre; basically it leaves the super-minority party scrambling for resources. The bill easily made it through the Senate with a vote 34-1. But it barely made it through the House with a final vote of 36-31. I actually didn’t think this bill would make it through both Houses.
Finally, there is one more bill to look at from 2016:
SB 149 (SoDakLiberty Posts) – Provide for certain reduced state park entrance fees for veterans.
Here is what I had to say after the bill was defeated:
Before I go on I’ll say that I am a veteran. But I think it might be getting to a point where too many things are being discounted for veterans. I’m not opposed to this bill, or in favor of it. But I do wonder when bills like this are going to end.
The bill failed a Do Pass in Senate Ag 3-5. It was then killed 5-3.
I still feel this bill was unnecessary and am getting tired of bills that pander to veterans. Yes, we all appreciate our veterans. But this legislation didn’t seem aimed at solving a problem.
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