latest
We had an exciting week in Pierre swearing in a new Governor and Lt. Governor to lead South Dakota for the next two years. Our new Governor, Larry Rhoden, chose Representative Tony Venhuizen to serve as our next Lt Governor and preside over the Senate. I like our new Lt Governor and have served 4 years with him in the House in which he served as the Vice Chair of Appropriations. I respect him both as a person and as a Legislator. I look forward to serving and working with both of these gentlemen to make sure South Dakota stays strong, safe, and free. We had other guests as well this week, Corsica/Stickney school and Armour school both came to visit us and tour the Capital. Like I’ve told you before this is one of my favorite things that go along with my job. It takes a little work to get them to engage and ask questions but once they do it’s great. You never know what they’ll ask or what’s on their mind. That was proven again this week when one young man asked why I was wearing a pink tie that day, to which I responded because I was married and he’d understand someday. As I mentioned in last week's column, things picked up this week with bills being dropped and Legislators running around like their hair was on fire. On the House floor we had around 30 bills this week and a few of them were kind of interesting, like HB 1052 which prohibits the exercise of eminent domain for a pipeline that carries carbon oxide. As you can imagine there was a lengthy debate on the House floor and after hearing the pros and cons, I voted for the bill because in the end I felt it protected landowner rights and makes everyone play by the rules. Also, on the floor we passed HB 1044 which allows the use of newborn safety devices where a parent who feels that they aren’t able to raise their newborn child are now able to drop the child off at these designated safe places with no questions asked. I’ve received many emails, letters, and post cards about the funding cuts for local libraries and I understand how important our libraries are to our communities. Like I said before when Governor Noem announced theses kind of cuts when she knew she was leaving was in my opinion not right. I think all departments of government need to cut spending across the board, but I am not in favor of gutting one or two of them. Some of these cuts were proposed to make room in the budget for the new prison funding, I also do not think that was a smart approach to governing. I’m talking to other legislators and the Governor’s people to see if there is any room for negotiating on these proposed cuts. I almost forgot to mention that I have my first page sponsor working for us for two weeks. Emmie Huizenga from Platte/Geddes school is working hard and hopefully learning some interesting things. The Page program is great and it’s fun to work with these great kids from communities across the state of South Dakota. We always claim Ag as our number one industry but the kids we raise and turn out to the world are awesome as well. That about does it for this week’s column. Remember if you need to contact me, it's Marty.overweg@sdlegislator.gov or call me at 605-680-0304. Always my honor to serve you, Representative Marty Overweg
Read more
Several Charles Mix Electric members took advantage of three local meetings held in January to provide information on rate changes that will take effect on April 1st. In an effort to reach as many members as possible, Charles Mix Electric held district meetings throughout the county in Platte, Lake Andes, and Wagner.
Read more
For the last five years, I have had the great privilege of serving my local health system as Medical Director for Home Hospice. Every week I sit in a meeting with the multidisciplinary caretakers on this team – the nurses who provide the great majority of the handson care, social worker, pharmacist, dietician, and pastor. We discuss all the patients currently under our care and discuss how we can improve each patient’s suffering and maximize their quality of life.
Read more
Week 2 of the 100th Legislative session has come to a close. The joint committee of appropriations had another full schedule! Check out sdlegislature.gov to find the full list of our schedule, or listen back through meetings at sd.net.
Read moreWeekly report #2 Last Friday was our first Education Committee meeting. There are 13 standing committees, and they are assigned bills by the Speaker that come to his attention in the House. We discussed HB1002 which said that all certified educators must take a course in Indian Studies. We voted on a couple of “clean up” bills and adjourned. Fridays are traditionally short days in the House chambers.
Read moreThe 100th Legislative session of South Dakota has begun, we are off and running and the first two weeks are in the books. So, let’s do a quick recap of what’s been happening in those two weeks. The first week of Session is always kind of slow with a lot of speeches and meetings along with old friends getting reacquainted and getting committees organized, so you can also imagine this drives me a little crazy. Let’s talk about week two because this is the week where the session really starts as committees are meeting and we start seeing some bills on the floor. I guess first I should let you know what committees I’m on and how I believe they will affect District 21. It was an honor that the Republican Caucus elected me Assistant Majority Leader for the next two years and with that position comes a lot more responsibilities serving the Caucus and its members. I’ve been given the Chair of Ag and Natural Resources again and I’m very happy and excited to be in this position which gives me the opportunity to promote and safeguard one of our states largest industries and I don’t take that job lightly. I also will serve as Vice Chair of State Affairs committee as well as Chair of GOAC ( Government Operations and Audit ) which mainly meets in the summer when we are not in session. Serving on these committees gives me the insight to know and understand what’s going on in our state and what I can do to promote or protect South Dakota. Ok, enough of all that, let’s look at some bills that came our way this week. We had some interesting bills in State Affairs starting with HB 1053 which would require age verification on websites containing material that is harmful to children. This bill has been named the ‘Porn bill’ by most of the media and passed on a Party line of 11-2. Bills like this can be a little confusing because none of us like government telling us what we can and cannot read or view but remember we show ID to buy cigarettes and alcohol to protect children, so I think this made sense. Now the bad news, we voted to put two Constitutional Amendment on the ballot for 2026. I can hear everyone moaning and groaning as I write this, but I felt both were important. I’ll speak to them more in depth later if they clear the Senate, but one has to do with Medicaid and protects us from spending money we don’t have while the other would require a 60 percent margin to amend our States Constitution in the future. Yes, I see the irony of 50% plus one of us can pass a measure that will require 60% plus one in the future, welcome to politics and government that sometimes doesn’t make a lot of sense. Also, we passed HB 1056 which puts a lot more regulation on Kratom products, Kratom is an over the counter product that one can get high from and has been linked to some deaths and it was time for this bill. It was decided we need to be more aggressive on labeling when it pertains to fake meat products that are being developed and grown in labs, so we passed HB 1022 which makes it illegal for those products to be labeled as real meat. Like I said its just getting started so not a lot to report this week, but something tells me next week will be more interesting. By the time you read this we should have a new Governor and Lt Governor serving South Dakota which means yours truly gets to go to another Inauguration Ball, lucky me. Until next week stay warm and as always it’s my honor to serve you all and if you need to reach me my contact information is Marty. overweg@sdlegislature.gov or call me at 605-680-0304.
Read more