South Dakota Searchlight-Dana Hess commentary
The South Dakota Legislature, usually noted for the decorum of its public meetings, punished one of its own last month for being out of order. It’s hard for anyone but Republican legislators to know if the punishment fit the crime.
During the House debate on Senate Concurrent Resolution 604, a measure admonishing South Dakotans to pray always and fast in July, Rep. Phil Jensen, a Rapid City Republican, questioned the religious beliefs of some of his House colleagues. For this infraction he was barred from the House Republican caucus for two weeks.
It’s difficult for anyone who’s not in the Legislature to understand the severity of Jensen’s punishment. Each day during the session, Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate hold caucuses right after lunch to discuss their strategy for the afternoon’s floor agenda.
Since the Republican caucuses are closed to the public, there’s no way to tell if Jensen is missing out on a valuable debate on the issues of the day or just happy to have some time after lunch to catch up on his reading. Since the caucus is closed to the public, we don’t know.
The Republican super-majorities in both chambers have grown so large that factions have emerged within the party. This means that the GOP caucuses have the potential to be the most informative or perhaps the most entertaining meetings of the day.
Jensen is the chairman of a group called the Freedom Caucus. Recent elections have seen an influx of new Republican members in both chambers. Rounding out the enrollment are more traditional Republicans who aren’t as great in number as they once were.
Perhaps the caucus discussions are a study in gentility and grace. Maybe they resemble a pro wrestling cage match. We don’t know.
For their part, Democrats have much smaller caucuses with just three members in the 35-member Senate and five members in the 70-member House. Democrats keep their caucuses open to the public and also to journalists, but with a caveat. Journalists, it seems, can attend as citizens but any comments made by caucus members would be off the record. That’s an odd policy since journalists are the ones who are supposed to provide information to citizens so they won’t have to make the trip to Pierre to find out what their government is doing.
The disturbing thing about the GOP caucuses is that their super-majorities in the House and Senate allow them, behind closed doors, to make decisions about how South Dakota will be governed. Sure, it all plays out during the floor session, but the secret nature of the caucus meetings tramples the old-fashioned standard that the public’s business should be handled in public.
That standard is exactly what legislators insist on when they make the laws governing how local governments conduct their business. Somehow they can keep a straight face while admonishing city councils and school boards to embrace more transparency, knowing that after lunch they will go into their daily secret meeting.
Let us know what you think…
When lawmakers start to wax poetic, they often refer to the Capitol as the “people’s house.” Well, it may be the people’s house, but the vast majority of people are shut out of the Republican caucuses that take place there. We may not be able to attend the meetings, but we get to pay for the heat, lights and upkeep. We are landlords, denied access to our own property.
Holding the caucuses away from the Capitol complex may seem like a logistical nightmare. However, lawmakers are somehow able to get across town en masse easily enough when a lobbying group is offering a free lunch.
The South Dakota Legislature generally gets high marks for openness and transparency. Every bill, no matter how goofy (see SCR 604) is aired in at least one committee hearing. Citizens have access to all committee meetings and floor votes via South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
That transparency ends when Republicans shut the door for their closed caucuses. The people’s business should be conducted in public. Jensen was shut out of the GOP caucus for two weeks. That’s nothing. Taxpayers have been shut out for years, with the future of the state being decided in secret.