The South Dakota legislative session has all but wrapped up for 2022, except for Veto Day this Monday, March 28th.
Here’s a recap of how key bills on vaccine mandates fared at the end of the session.
Sadly, while the House passed strong legislation to protect the health care freedom of all South Dakotans, the Senate chose to advance a weak, ineffective bill that was introduced by Governor Noem and supported by hospital and big business lobbyists who apparently think that employees are like cattle that can be injected without any say in the matter.
Let’s begin by reviewing the positive action by the House. On February 22nd the House voted 37 to 30 to pass HB 1258 by Representative Spencer Gosch. HB 1258 stated that any South Dakotan can be exempt from COVID-19 vaccine mandates by objecting to the injection on grounds of conscience. The bill further stated that no person could be subject to any disciplinary action for declining a vaccine on this basis, including being fired from a job, kicked out of school, denied access to a public accommodation, etc. Because the bill defined conscience in the broadest possible terms—“a person’s inner conviction of what is right or wrong in the person’s conduct”—this bill would have offered sweeping protection to virtually any South Dakotan who objected to coercive vaccine requirements. After it passed the House, HB 1258 was sent to the Senate and referred to the Health & Human Services Committee. On March 2 the panel rejected HB 1258 by a vote of 7 to 0, thus ensuring that it wouldn’t come to the Senate floor for a vote.
The Senate chose a different path, opting to support SB 211, Governor Noem’s “fake” vaccine freedom bill, which was so full of loopholes as to be practically worthless. We’ve previously described the problems with SB 211. It would have imposed burdensome repeat testing requirements to make it difficult to claim a “natural immunity” exemption from a vaccine mandate. It contained a “weasel clause” that would have authorized businesses to exempt themselves from the bill’s provisions if it caused any “hardship” for them. (Yet the bill allowed no “hardship” exception for employees). A headline in the Mitchell Republic accurately described the measure as a “watered down” bill.
SB 211 also had a sunset date of June 30, 2023—meaning that even if the legislature had passed it, the bill would have been in effect barely a year, forcing lawmakers to once again grapple with this issue in the 2023 session. Governor Noem apparently had no interest in offering a long-term solution to protect health care freedom for South Dakotans.
Despite our grass roots campaign urging the Senate to fix Governor Noem’s flawed bill, the Senate declined to make any serious changes. It passed by a vote of 31 to 4. SB 211 was then referred to the House State Affairs Committee, which narrowly approved it by a vote of 7 to 5.
On March 7th when SB 211 came to the House floor, things got interesting fast.
Rep. Rhonda Milstead offered a “hoghouse” amendment, which proposed to delete the entire content of the Governor’s bill and replace it with the text of HB 1258 – the bill previously passed by the House that offered true freedom from vaccine mandates. The hoghouse amendment passed by a vote of 39 to 30. The amended bill was then approved by a vote of 37 to 32 and sent back to the Senate.
The Senate refused to concur in the amendments made by the House, and therefore a conference committee was appointed to resolve the differences between the bills. However, members of the committee reached an impasse. As seen in the committee minutes, House negotiators made a good faith effort to fix the problems with Governor Noem’s bill, but not a single senator would vote for such changes. When the differences couldn’t be resolved, the bill died. Hovering around during the conference committee were lobbyists from the South Dakota Association of Healthcare Organizations, the South Dakota Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the South Dakota Retailers Association. These highly paid lobbyists worked throughout the session to ensure that South Dakotans can be fired from their jobs, kicked out of school, and denied entry to certain businesses, simply for exercising their right to decline an experimental medical treatment.
Conclusion
13 states have taken action to protect their citizens from coercive vaccine mandates, including several of South Dakota’s neighbors: Nebraska, North Dakota, and Montana. South Dakota could have been among this group of states. All that would have been required is for Governor Noem to show real leadership and support a bill that would have provided strong, robust, and permanent protections for South Dakotans. Instead, she chose to craft the weakest bill possible, as if her goal was to just sign something – anything—that would generate a photo op and allow her to claim she was “fighting for freedom,” when in reality she was bending the knee to powerful hospital and business lobbyists who give so much money to her campaign.
What Comes Next?
This is an election year. The Primary Election is coming soon on June 7th. There are races in every district. The time to get involved is now! This legislative session took up redistricting. Check to be sure your assigned district has not changed.
Who is running in your district? Contact them and ask challenging questions. When you identify the candidates you support, offer help where you can. Financial support is always welcome, but candidates also need help in a variety of ways. Most of all, we need to work to get out the vote for our good candidates. Spread the word to co-workers, neighbors, friends, and relatives.
During the interim months before the 2023 Legislative Session, Mandate Free SD will be alerting you to opportunities where you can educate legislators and candidates running for public office about the harms of vaccine mandates.
We are not giving up the fight—the stakes are way too high for that. We must continue to press forward and actively engage our elected officials. We must also work to expose the agendas of those special interests that are fighting against your right to make medical decisions free from coercion.