SD Legislative Update - Week Seven

Week 7 of the 2017 South Dakota legislative session was marked by crossover day on Thursday.  Crossover day is the last day for a bill or joint resolution to pass its house of origin.

Also on Thursday, AARP South Dakota testified in support of adopting House Bill (HB) 1080, the Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (UFADAA).  With AARP South Dakota’s support, HB 1080 has passed through the House of Representatives and has been placed on the Senate Consent Calendar which means next week HB 1080 will go to Governor Daugaard’s desk for his signature.  UFADAA is yet another consumer protection and financial security policy win for AARP SD members and all residents of our state.

To refresh your memory of HB 1080 and UFADAA, click here to review our week four blog.

House Bill (HB) 1090 and Senate Bill (SB) 166 which AARP SD worked to amend in committee to ensure payday lenders stay out of South Dakota, passed the House of Representatives and Senate respectively this week.  These bills are being applauded as examples of parties coming together to provide a legislative solution to fix the unintended consequences of Initiated Measure (IM) 21 while still preserving the intent of IM 21 and supporting the will of the people that overwhelmingly voted to cap pay day lending rates at 36% in November.

As the budget discussions continue in Pierre, the Appropriations Committee is set to begin setting agency budgets.  At this point, the 1% funding increase for healthcare providers the Governor proposed in his budget next year appears to be off the table.  Even more than in previous years, the budget discussions will dominate discussions in Pierre over the last two weeks of the 2017 legislative session.

The AARP South Dakota Question of the Week for your legislators is:
With crossover day behind us, what are the 3 most important issues/bills facing the legislature before the 2017 session ends?

Here’s a list of local cracker barrels with legislators being held across the state this weekend and throughout the rest of this legislative session.