- Kuchen
up Trouble in Pierre
-
- Bob Newland,
Hermosa, is the publisher of the
- Pennington
County Atlas, now in
production.
-
-
- Author's note: All events
depicted in this account occurred.
- Attributed quotations are
accurate.
- Descriptions of events are
(very slightly) colored for editorial
clarity.
-
-
- It stormed into
town, angry and red-faced. It stomped around the
capitol, terrorizing children and the faint of
conviction, and coughing up kuchen. It slunk out,
humiliated and red-faced. It was...: Senate Bill
210.
-
- Governor Janklow
asked the Senate State Affairs (and what at the
legislature, pray tell, would NOT be a 'state
affair'?) Committee to introduce SB210: "Any person
who has been convicted of possession, use, or
distribution of a controlled substance or marijuana or
who has received a suspended imposition of sentence
for such possession, use, or distribution, shall, in
addition to any other penalties, serve thirty days in
the state penitentiary, no part of which may be waived
or suspended."
-
- Thirty days in the
Pen for a hempseed in your trunk, presuming the court
or jury decided you knew it was there.
-
- Senate State
Affairs heard testimony from judges and prosecutors
that 210 would clog the system. So Senate State
Affairs drafted a kinder, gentler, 210 -- reducing the
mandatory minimum from 30 to ten days in the custody
of the Department of Corrections (instead of
specifically the state penitentiary), and allowing
judges to depart from the mandatory ten-day sentence
if they filed a written explanation. Apparently for
balance, though, it set a $1000 bounty on the heads of
misdemeanor drug offenders and an open-ended price on
felony offenders, appropriating a million dollars for
the snitch fund.
-
- Having undergone
group therapy, equipped with an attitude adjustment,
210 went to the Senate floor.
-
- The whole Senate
debated SB210, amended it to make the ten days
mandatory for a second offense, removed the $1000
bounty, and sent 210 Lite to the House State Affairs
Committee with a disclaimer written under the title;
"This bill has been extensively amended (hoghoused)
and may no longer be consistent with the original
intention of the sponsors."
-
- About this time,
some good citizens of German extraction from Eureka
came to Pierre serving kuchen, in expectation that the
legislature would resurrect Eureka from ignominy by
declaring kuchen the official State Dessert. Governor
Janklow happened by the kuchen table in the capitol
rotunda, and sampled. "This is wonderful!" he said.
"Let's make Eureka South Dakota's first entirely
drug-free town. When the legislature sets up my $1000
bounty, let's make sure the first snitch payment goes
to a citizen of Eureka."
-
- The Eurekans
looked at each other, then at the floor, and shuffled
their feet. The mayor of Eureka offered Janklow
another helping of kuchen, having noticed the governor
sometimes stopped speaking when his mouth was full.
-
- In anticipation of
210's appearance in House State Affairs, the governor
took the House Republicans to the woodshed,
threatening dire consequences if they didn't restore
the first-offense provision and the bounty. He
threatened not to sign the bill in its Senate-amended
form. He also threatened to take an active role in
defeating Republican defectors in the next
election.
-
- The only
proponents of 210 to testify were Governor Janklow and
his chief-of-staff, Dave Knudson. Janklow said, "I
don't have many moral principles, but I get a visceral
anger when I think about people giving drugs to young
girls and then USING these young girls. That's why we
need this bill.
-
- "Now, when I drive
over the speed limit, which I do a lot, I take a
calculated risk. I know it's gonna cost me $167 if I
get caught. I don't mind that. But if I knew I'd go to
jail for two days, I wouldn't speed. That's why we
need this bill. Everybody knows they've got one free
time getting caught with drugs. We've gotta change
that."
-
- Knudson said,
"We're losing the war on drugs. That's why we need
this bill." When asked the goal of the war on drugs,
Knudson said, "To eliminate wrecking of lives due to
drugs."
-
- First to testify
in opposition to 210, I pointed out that no
prohibition law has ever worked, and, in fact, has
always resulted in an effect exactly opposite the
stated goals. Curt Mortenson, the eloquent Stanley
County State's Attorney, said, "This bill is the
biggest pile of crap I've ever seen." Mike Buenger,
speaking for the Unified Judicial System, said,
"Enactment of this bill will create a backlog of jury
trials which will gridlock the courts."
-
- Tom Barnett,
brother of South Dakota Attorney-General Mark Barnett,
and lobbyist for the South Dakota State Bar, opposed
the bill. Barnett told me, "Alcohol accounts for the
vast majority of prematurely-lost virginity in this
state, not drugs."
-
- Nick Braune,
lobbyist for the South Dakota Peace and Justice
Center, opposed the bill, too, as did state senator
Frank Kloucek, who, in a moment of weirdness hardly
noticed in the context, accused Governor Janklow of
making an offensive phone call to Kloucek's daughter
last year. Janklow denied the charge.
-
- Janklow then
figuratively sank to his knees, "Just give me the
bill," he said. "What we're doing isn't working. Just
give me the bill. Heck, it won't even go into effect
until July 1. You people are all going to be back here
in January. You can repeal it then, if you don't like
it. Heck, you can even put a sunset on it. Just give
the bill. You can't let these monsters be giving
14-year-old girls drugs and then violating them." He
blinked back a tear, staggering a little under the
weight of his convictions as he rose.
-
- Representative
Dick Brown questioned the governor. "This bill gives
judges the option to depart from the minimum sentence
as long as they send a note to the clerk, right?"
"Yes," said Janklow. "So it really doesn't change
anything, right?" continued Brown. "That's right,"
replied Janklow.
-
- "Look," he said,
"it just says we're gonna remand 'em to the custody of
the Department of Corrections. They don't have to go
to Sioux Falls. They might go to Redfield, or
Springfield. They might just clean up the grounds at
the State Fair.
-
- "Heck, it won't
even cost us much. They're not a threat to escape, so
we won't need many more guards. We'll feed 'em a few
meals, that's about it. Then we'll send 'em back home
with a new, drug-avoiding, outlook."
-
- So what had begun
as a get-tough, take no prisoners..., uh..., no, a
get-tough, take EVERYBODY prisoner, shock'em straight,
no-nonsense thirty days in the Pen was now being
touted as a "not really changing anything" bill. And
the governor was begging for it.
-
- House State
Affairs, swayed by the governor's impeccable logic,
and apparently invigorated with new knowledge of their
moral righteousness, reinstated the $1000 bounty and
the first-offense provision and sent the bill to the
House floor.
-
- On Day 37 of the
74th South Dakota Legislature, the House as a whole
agreed with Rapid City Senator Mike Wilson that SB210
was ugly, regardless of Dave Knudson's articulate
explication of the goal of the war on drugs, and
tabled it 40-29, thus killing it. One might
extrapolate that dinner in the governor's mansion the
evening of March 4, 1999, was punctuated by the sound
of plates breaking against the walls.
-
- Oh, the kuchen
bill failed also. South Dakota is still without a
State Dessert, and Eureka still stands the same chance
as it did two months ago of being South Dakota's first
drug-free, but snitch-replete, community.
-
- END
|