With no reconsideration vote in the House, a judicial system-supported bill is dead. It would have created a pretrial supervision program in Pennington County.
While initially on the table for reconsideration, Speaker of the House Rep. Jon Hansen dropped the gavel after no votes were tallied. This comes after Monday’s floor debate put the bill on a fast track to rejection.
Proponent Rep. Mike Stevens, a Yankton Republican, said the program serves as a cost-save for the Sioux Falls area by allowing the courts time to do more meaningful work than serving warrants.
“If you don’t show up for court, then they send out a warrant," Stevens said. "Then, they go arrest you to bring you back, put you back in jail. So, what happens is in Minnehaha County, that’s reduced by 40 percent. So, what this is to do is hopefully to stop that – or at least slow it down – because you know what? If our officers are out there just picking up people to bring them because they didn’t show up, that’s costing the county money and the taxpayers money.”
On the other hand, Rapid City Republican Rep. Mary Fitzgerald, an opponent, says the bill oversteps reasonable policy.
“This bill is simply not a pilot program, it’s a fundamental shift in how South Dakota handles criminal accountability before trial," Fitzgerald said. "It is a shift we’re not prepared to make.”
Further, there is a constitutional question of surveillance of an individual who is not convicted of a crime.
Some, like Aberdeen Republican Rep. Brandei Schaefbauer, took issue with the origin of the grant money, the MacArthur Foundation, and its priorities like racial equity and bias training.
“By the strings attached to this foundation — especially this foundation — I do not believe we’ll achieve our goals of reducing goals of reducing recidivism," Schaefbauer said. "What we will achieve are bringing Marxist, communist propaganda to our state.”
The mission of the MacArthur Foundation, according to its website, is “to build a more just, verdant, and peaceful world.”
