Behind the scenes: District 7 in Pierre

PIERRE – On Tuesday January 11, legislators from around the state converged on Pierre to begin the 2022 legislative session.

Most legislators travel to Pierre the day before the session begins, but the work starts long before that. For District 7 Rep. Tim Reed, he attempts to get most of his bill work done during the summer but says that the last couple weeks are what he calls “crunch time.”

VJ Smith, Senator for District 7, begins meeting with various groups around November, and goes non-stop until the session begins. These can range anywhere from speaking engagements to presentations from various groups, or meetings with the local media.

“It’s a busy time leading up to the session,” Reed said.

“We get invited to so many meetings, and its soup to nuts these meetings about bills that they are interested in,” Smith said. “So from the middle of November until the start of the session, you’re going and listening to groups make presentations.”

Smith says that he loves going to Hy-Vee in Brookings because people will come up and give their two cents about some newsworthy item or bill that is going to be considered.

“I’ll get stopped by a lot of people and they’ll share with me,” Smith said. “What I love about it is that they are respectful – they just want to share their thoughts and move on. They don’t try to take my time and say they got to listen to me for the next half hour. They are very respectful, they share and I think about what people tell me.”

Once in Pierre, most legislators will either stay in hotels or they’ll rent houses. Both Smith and District 7 Rep. Larry Tidemann stay at the Governor’s Inn while Reed opts to rent a house.

“I love the people (at the Governor’s Inn),” Tidemann said. “They treat me like family when I’m there. They take good care of me.”

Going into a session, Tidemann says he has some nerves, but “you need some of those nerves to do the best job.”

“Yes, you do have to have a little nerve tingling there or else your just blasé,” Tidemann said.

“It’s not necessarily nerves but I am going into it with my eyes wide open,” Smith said.

“You are stepping into it and its go time,” Reed said.

The schedule, day-by-day, will vary but often the legislators get to the capitol building fairly early. For Tidemann, he needs to be there by 7:30 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays to meet with a committee so he arrives a little before then. Next to the capitol is an elementary school and Tidemann tries to beat some of the school rush to the area.

“That street really becomes tangled up in the morning,” Tidemann said.

If you are in a committee leadership position (like Smith is with the Ag and Natural Resources Committee) you get a desk in an office, but Smith says that he has never sat in it.

“I like to go to the Senate floor and I like to have conversations with my colleagues,” Smith explained. “I have purposefully made myself available for people to talk to me.”

When there’s no committee meetings in the morning, Smith will get on the Senate floor and speak to other Senator’s. During this time, lobbyists are free to roam the floor in both the House and the Senate chambers.

“When you walk into the capitol building, or to even go into one of those sessions, you have a lot of people who want your ear,” Smith said. “I know a lot of people are not happy with the idea of lobbyists but I think we get that perception from what happens nationally because frankly, most of the lobbyists that I talk to in Pierre are good, honest and trustworthy people because they know if they don’t tell you the truth on something you may not trust them ever again.”

Tidemann says it depends on the day and what bills are coming up but somedays he’ll walk in to the House floor and they’ll be five people wanting to talk.

“They are lobbyists - I call them educators,” Tidemann said. “They’re educating me on the bill. Not all lobbyists agree on the bill. You’ll have one that gives you this input and another that gives you different input.”

Like Smith, Tidemann says that lobbyists in South Dakota get one strike.

“They lie to you one time – it’s done, don’t waste anymore time,” Tidemann said. “Most of the lobbyists, 99% of them, do a great job.”

“They have a line to toe – I’ve always enjoyed my conversations with lobbyists,” Smith said. “They are good people just wanting to do the right thing.”

Smith and the other representatives are also inundated with emails on a daily basis. On most days, Smith says he will receive as many as 300 emails. Legislators will often spend some time in the morning each day going through them as well as catching up on local news.

“Sometimes you are isolated from the rest of the world – you don’t hear the news,” Tidemann said. “You have to keep up with that as well.”

Legislators during session are very busy which means that lunch needs to be quick. Tidemann says that he often brings a yogurt or granola bars and eats while reviewing bills. Others may go down to the café, which is in the basement of the capitol. Some days, lunches will be provided in the president’s lobby or the speaker’s lobby, but that’s not a given, Tidemann said.

Daily sessions begin either at 1 or 2 p.m., depending on the day and will last until the evening. The first week of the session is fairly casual, Reed and Tidemann say. Legislators will hear the State of the State address from Governor Noem, State of the Judicial from the Supreme Court Justice, as well as hearing from the tribal community.

The first week is also when the rules for the session are put in place. A committee from the House and the Senate meet and they decide on the rules that are going to guide the process during the legislative session.

“There are some tweaking on the rules and then they come out with the ‘redbook’ and that’s what we operate on,” Tidemann said. “We operate on last year’s rules until the redbook is adopted by the House and the Senate.”

The start of the second week is when the bills start coming in. Tidemann says the bills show up on the computer and legislators will decide whether or not they want to sponsor the bill. In the past, they would use paper copies of the bill and people would sign on if they wanted to sponsor it.

In other states, like Iowa, legislators are allowed to hire people to help them go through the bills. In South Dakota, that is not the case. The law states that legislators must be by themselves (or with a family member who is not there to help), which makes going through all the bills (500 +) very busy. There is staff in the capitol but the staff serve everyone, Tidemann said.

“You can’t look at every bill, it’s impossible,” Reed said. “You wait until you see which ones are going to be in front of you in committee, then you really have to study the bill. You usually know that a couple days ahead of time so you can really focus on the bills, talk to the people you need to talk to.”

“The beauty of the system in South Dakota is that every bill that is introduced gets a hearing,” Smith said. “You have big impacting bills and you have lesser bills but every one of those bills will be considered in a committee. The system is far from perfect, but every bill is going to bill is going to be heard and the sponsors to those bills will be given the time to state their case.”

Sessions can go late into the evening, depending on the backlog of bills. Reed says he hopes they can avoid this because “you don’t make good decisions after 9 p.m.”

When a daily session ends, legislators will head back to their hotels or houses unless there is a reception, which there often is. Last year, the receptions were limited due to COVID and this year some groups have already cancelled their planned receptions.

“It’s really an amazing thing how busy you are,” Smith said. “That workload is something that I didn’t anticipate when I ran in 2018 because even when you are there, you have these bills you have to go through, the emails, the phone conversations and the personal conversations – it consumes you.”

“You get back to your room and you basically go to sleep or you are prepping for bills that you are going to present the next day or you are reviewing the bills that are coming on the agenda,” Tidemann said. “It’s non-stop.”

Each session will last around 38 days, running from January until early March. After Friday sessions, legislators will often drive back to their home towns, weather permitting. Tidemann remembers a time when the weather was too bad to go home, so legislators stuck around Pierre and held a session on a Saturday.

“We met all five days during the week and because we couldn’t leave, we met on Saturday morning,” Tidemann said. “Don’t do that, 6 days is too much. Tempers….”

Legislators return to Pierre after a short break each weekend to restart the process. This year’s session is slated to end on March 10 (March 28 is veto day). Any bills that pass will be effective July 1.

District 7 can be reached best by email: Larry Tidemann (larry.tidemann@sdlegislature.gov), Tim Reed (tim.reed@sdlegislature.gove), and VJ Smith (vj.smith@sdlegislature.gov).

Contact Addison DeHaven at adehaven@brookingsregister.com.