"State Senators Art Rusch, left, and Gary Cammack."
CREDIT: SD LEGISLATIVE RESOURCE COUNCIL
The “open fields” bill has been resurrected, amended, and passed in the South Dakota Senate. House Bill 1140 puts restrictions on Game Fish & Parks officers entering private land. The Senate Judiciary killed the bill in committee last week, but the full Senate smoked the bill out the next day and voted on an amended version on Monday.
The open fields bill, in its original form, limited Game Fish & Parks access to private land without permission of the landowner. The bill also said any <evidence gathered and arrests made> are invalid if conservation officers didn’t abide by the law.
The amended version removes the exclusion of evidence and arrests, and clarifies that conservation officers can enter private land with a warrant.
Senator Gary Cammack speaks in favor of the amended bill before the Senate votes on it. He says tensions between landowners and Game Fish & Parks in the past led landowners to completely cut off all recreational access to their property. But he says Game Fish & Parks changed its policies more than 10 years ago and repaired those relationships.
“This bill codifies how the department has essentially been operating based on the current policy. This policy has been in place for over a decade. The policies can change over time, and to preserve good policies, codifying them makes common sense legislation.”
The bill’s primary critic has been Senator Art Rusch, a retired judge. He speaks against the bill once again, saying that the amendments don’t eliminate confusion.
“If the department wants to have this in their regulations and their rules for their employees, nobody has any trouble at all. But once they put this in the law, then what does a judge do where it says the game warden can’t enter the property, but he did enter the property, but there’s no consequence for it.”
Senators passed House Bill 1140 by a vote of 21 to 14. The bill now goes back to the House for approval of the amendment.