Latest news with #MichaelRohl
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Legislature sustains veto of geographic signature requirement for constitutional amendment petitions
State Sen. Michael Rohl, R-Aberdeen, speaks on the South Dakota Senate floor on March 3, 2025. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight) Petitioners hoping to put state constitutional amendments on the ballot won't need signatures from each of South Dakota's legislative Senate districts. After the governor vetoed a bill containing the requirement last week, the state Senate sustained the veto Monday at the Capitol in Pierre. The House voted earlier Monday to override the veto, but agreement from both chambers is required to overturn the governor's action. Michael Rohl, R-Aberdeen, was among the senators who opposed the bill and supported the veto. While the bill's sponsors said it would force more inclusion of rural areas in the political process, Rohl said the bill could harm rural voters. 'It gives every district veto power,' Rohl said. 'That means that we, as a small community, don't have a voice unless we get Sioux Falls to agree.' Governor vetoes effort to restrict constitutional amendment process with geographic rule The legislation, House Bill 1169, would have required constitutional amendment petitions to have signatures from registered voters in each of the 35 Senate districts spread across the state. Petitions would have needed a number of signatures from each district equal to 5% of the total votes cast for governor in that district during the last general election. That would have been an addition to the existing requirement that petitions have a total number of signatures — from anywhere in the state — equal to at least 10% of the votes cast statewide for governor in the last general election. House Bill 1169's main sponsor, Rep. Rebecca Reimer, R-Chamberlain, said Monday she's willing to work on the legislation's language and bring it back next year. Reimer and other lawmakers who wanted to override the veto said voters are tired of the number of constitutional amendments showing up on their ballots, that the state constitution should be reserved for matters pertaining to the structure and powers of government and not for specific policies, and that the constitution should be harder to amend. Multiple lawmakers referenced an amendment last year, rejected by voters, that would have inserted abortion rights into the constitution. Legislators considered numerous bills this year to restrict citizen lawmaking. Among those that passed into law were a bill to move the deadline for submitting petition signatures for citizen-initiated ballot measures from May to February, which will shorten the signature-gathering window by three months. Legislators also sent a measure to the 2026 ballot that will ask voters to raise the approval threshold for constitutional amendment ballot questions from a simple majority to 60%. Monday was the last day of this year's legislative session, set aside to consider any remaining vetoes from Gov. Larry Rhoden. Earlier this month, legislators sustained Rhoden's only other veto, which would have offered additional child care tuition assistance to child care workers for their own children. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
SD Senate votes to let 17-year-olds drop out with parental consent
South Dakota Sen. Michael Rohl, R-Aberdeen, listens to testimony in the House Judiciary Committee on Jan. 17, 2024. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight) South Dakota teenagers with parental consent could test out of high school at age 16 or opt to withdraw without testing at 17 under the terms of a bill advanced by the state Senate on Thursday in Pierre. Senate Bill 71 was born of entreaties from administrators who struggle to manage certain students in the face of South Dakota's requirement that all kids stay in school until age 18, according to its sponsor, Sen. Mike Rohl, R-Aberdeen. Lawmakers endorsed compulsory attendance for those younger than 18 in 2009. Visit our 2025 South Dakota Legislature page. That stricture causes problems for students who are ready to test out of high school but are too young to do so without administrative permission, Rohl said, as well as for the teachers who may find themselves wrangling students who don't want to be there and intend to exit the school system as soon as they're able. 'They're making it so these other kids can't learn, and they're honestly wasting both our time, their time, and the teacher's time,' Rohl said. The choice to allow a student to leave school before adulthood, Rohl told the Senate on Thursday, belongs with parents. Legislative efforts to undo the school attendance rule have bubbled up and fizzled out multiple times since 2009. Most recently, former Watertown Republican Sen. Lee Schoenbeck tried to convince his colleagues to lower South Dakota's compulsory attendance age to 16. That 2023 iteration of the bill failed to clear a Senate committee. Unlike the 2023 version, SB 71 requires parental consent, and opens the door for an exit at age 17, not 16. It also clears a path for parents to let their children leave school to pursue a general equivalency degree (GED) once they reach age 16 without seeking a waiver from the state Department of Education, provided they pass the test. SB 71 passed the Senate 34-1 and now heads to the House. The lone no vote came from Sen. Curt Voight, R-Rapid City, a former school administrator who made no remarks about the bill on the Senate floor. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lawmaker tries to revive bill that would open public officials' calendars, but fails in SD Senate
State Sen. Michael Rohl, R-Aberdeen, testifies before the South Dakota Senate State Affairs Committee on Jan. 22, 2025. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight) An effort to revive a bill that would open the calendars and appointment logs of statewide officeholders to the public failed Monday in the South Dakota Senate with a 16-18 vote. Sen. Michael Rohl, R-Aberdeen, used a procedural maneuver to force the State Affairs Committee to send Senate Bill 9 to the Senate after the committee rejected the bill last week. But he did not garner enough support Monday to have the bill considered on the Senate floor. Some state officials raised concerns with the bill in last week's committee hearing, including increased administrative burdens and the bill's potential to compromise the safety of elected officials. South Dakota lawmakers advance several transparency bills Rohl's options now include refiling the bill or 'letting it go,' he told South Dakota Searchlight after the vote. While he was disappointed a majority of senators 'feel government transparency isn't worth debate,' he's grateful for other senators who supported his motion. 'I might make it even more narrow in scope, which would be pretty hard,' Rohl said. 'This was pretty much the first baby step you could take toward public transparency.' Some other bills intended to support open records and open meetings are still alive, including Rohl's bill to open the records of governors and lieutenant governors after five years instead of 10, a bill supported by the South Dakota NewsMedia Association that would require public boards and commissions to annually review open meetings laws, and a bill from Rep. Mary Fitzgerald, R-Spearfish, clarifying that electronic communications conducted among all members of a public board or commission are subject to open meetings laws. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
