This interview originally aired on In the Moment on SDPB Radio.
A plethora of new laws took effect on July 1. Mike Card, Ph.D., our Dakota Political Junkie, is here to explain a few.
From Medicaid expansion to a sales tax reduction to a ban on gender-affirming health care, we break down how the new laws could affect the daily lives of South Dakotans.
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Lori Walsh:
You are listening to In the Moment on South Dakota Public Broadcasting, I am your host, Lori Walsh.
Well, during South Dakota's 2023 legislative session, 200 bills made it through every hurdle and vote to reach the governor's desk and the law books. Those 200 bills became law last weekend.
Mike Card is a political scientist and Professor Emeritus at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, but he has traveled to SDPB's Kirby Family Studio in Sioux Falls so we can wade through just a few of these together. Dr. Card, welcome back. Thanks for being here.
Mike Card:
Thank you for having me on your program.
Lori Walsh:
I get a little giddy on July 1st, because we have so much to talk about. That's-
Mike Card:
Well, and it's fiscal New Year among other things.
Lori Walsh:
It's also fiscal New Year. Yeah, exactly. All right, so couple big ones. We should start with first Medicaid expansion.
Mike Card:
Well, that was the one I was going to bring up and try to throw you a curveball, but you're ahead of me and you were waiting for it, so you hit it out of the park.
The voters, through initiated measure, enacted Medicaid expansion. So about 52,000 additional South Dakotans will be qualified for medical care, or at least the payment of medical care, through the Medicaid expansion.
These are for low-income individuals, and this is an important thing because largely, the provision of emergency care to individuals without insurance, and that includes most low-income individuals, cost us about $1,000 a piece, or cost the insurance companies about $1,000 for every insured person. So in many ways, this is a tremendous boon to the people of South Dakota who may get lower insurance rates because of the Medicaid expansion, but it also provides medical care for more individuals in our state.
And the more we can treat medical issues early, the more likelihood that they will be able to live fulfilling productive lives. It's a big deal.
Lori Walsh:
And you don't necessarily have to have children. So if there were rules and regulations that you've checked into this before, that has changed now. So it's time to check into it again if you have not already.
Mike Card:
It is, and it took a budgetary outlay and hiring people to make this happen, but they're taking enrollments, and people are covered as of July 1st.
Lori Walsh:
Now, the governor famously said she didn't want this, but she would implement it, the will of the people, and it's the law, so we go forward.
Have we seen the appropriate investment from state government to reach people and do... To make sure that people have access to this?
Mike Card:
Well, we've certainly seen in other states as... And perhaps on other issues in our state that creation of administrative burdens upon it, both individuals and slow-walking the implementation, but we're ready to go.
I think the closest we would come in South Dakota was as the federal emergency declaration ended, those individuals who had been qualified under one of the many stimulus bills to provide medical care through expanded Medicaid ended, the individuals were dropped off of Medicaid in South Dakota's rolls, and had to re-enroll. But that was a common practice among many states that have similar political cultures as South Dakota.
Lori Walsh:
All right. Let's talk about the reduction in the general sales tax, because that was really the top story coming out of the state legislature this year.
Mike Card:
It was, and it was one that the governor said on, I believe September 29th, the only debate in which she engaged with the other two gubernatorial candidates affiliated with political parties, that this was her primary objective for the session.
And at least during the last week, she worked hard to try to get this passed, but it was also clear that the caucuses in the House and the Senate had decided that they would rather choose other options. One of those options was a reduction in the overall sales tax, and another one was to try to reduce the property taxes that people paid.
There's been a claim that's somewhat questionable that it was the largest tax cut in history, it's certainly the largest state tax cut in history.
The property tax reduction of 30% over two legislative sessions in the 1990s probably reduced people's taxes by a larger amount, but the state had to backfill at least part of what the school districts were missing in property taxes, as well as the municipalities and the counties had to struggle, and every other entity that sends their tax bill to the county commissioners who then apply it to our taxes payable twice a year.
Lori Walsh:
So the governor wanted the food tax reduction or elimination, the lawmakers wanted the general tax reduction. Now, there's petitions trying to get food tax on the ballot, and this general sales tax reduction is not permanent.
Mike Card:
It is not permanent. It has what we call a sunset clause, which means it goes out of business. It literally becomes not law in 2017, the other issue that-
Lori Walsh:
You said 2017?
Mike Card:
I did say 2017, how about 2027?
Lori Walsh:
2027. Yeah, okay.
Mike Card:
Sorry about that. The other issue that we've got going is during session, it was very clear with other expenditures that we were making, that I'm sure we'll talk about later, perhaps the biggest of which is building new prisons. But with these other expenditures, there was money to do one of these, and not two. And so if the initiated measure succeeds, perhaps what will happen is, is the sunset will set sooner than 2027, or that the voters may reject the initiated measure and the initiated constitutional amendment to...
Lori Walsh:
Take care of the food tax, yes.
Mike Card:
Thank you.
Lori Walsh:
I guess the whole thing is all these intersect in our minds, it means we're going to get a very good look at what voters really feel when they go to the ballot box, if this gets on the ballot, which it's not yet. I mean, it's still getting signatures.
Mike Card:
It's still getting signatures.
Lori Walsh:
So if that continues to go forward, we're going to know what the people want. In other words, this isn't the last time we're talking about sales tax reduction in a variety of ways in South Dakota.
Mike Card:
That's correct. And in a sense, this is an issue why the single measure for both bills in the legislature and initiated measures is so important, is there's a single issue. You voted up, yes or no. This gets more complicated because the voters have to think, if we're going to reduce the food tax, that means that the sales tax will likely go up as the legislature won't have the resources, given current projections.
Lori Walsh:
Can the voters reduce the tax? Can the voters spend money? Can the voters make a decision at the ballot? Because when we went through IM22, which had democracy credits, and it was about ethics and elections, lawmakers took that apart and said, "The voters can't decide to do something that we can't pay for," and we were having a lot of those conversations now. So what happens... I mean, we're way ahead on the hypothetical, so maybe we'll talk about that in the future, but-
Mike Card:
Well, I think the other part is to remember that the law was declared unconstitutional and unenforceable, because of particular measures dealing with unelected individuals having control over elected individuals, which was found to be unconstitutional by a state court judge, and likely would have been found unconstitutional had it gone to the South Dakota Supreme Court.
Now, what the legislature did was take apart most of the rest of the Initiated Measure 22, and put in its place the four retired judge panel that would then do the adjudication over claims of wrongdoing. And it's not clear that the public is completely satisfied with that, as they were to refer for prosecution, and they didn't do that. They referred it to a local prosecutor to determine if there was evidence to prosecute.
Lori Walsh:
All right, if you don't know what we're talking about now, you're really lost. And if you've been a close student of South Dakota politics, you're like, "Oh, I remember that, and that connects with that." So let's move on, because we'll have plenty of time to talk about in the future, but right now, how are people going to see that tax reduction?
Mike Card:
Well, it'll be a relatively small tax reduction. If you spend $100, it's probably 30 cents on whatever you purchase, so you may not even notice that it was a fairly large tax bill across all purchases in South Dakota, and those individuals who file or use tax for purchases made elsewhere, but don't claim the sales tax. So it's going to have a small impact.
And politically, I mean, you almost have to be happy with our legislature because we're not going to know it individually on each transaction, where if you wanted reelection, you'd want something you could say, "Look at what I did for you." And you see it every time you make a purchase, or in the case of the property tax reduction, the twice a year big checks that we write for that.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah, all right. Gender-affirming care ban. This is becoming news as other states grapple with this same issue and are unsuccessful. What did we ban and is it legal? What are we seeing as far as what's happening in other states?
Mike Card:
Well, let me try to tackle the part of what we are banning, and that is treating minors, as opposed to adults, with puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgery as a treatment for a medical condition called gender dysphoria. It's distress caused by a sense of conflict between their sex assigned at birth and the person's gender identity. Providers who are already treating transgender individuals with puberty blockers have until December 31st. The challenge to this law is-
Lori Walsh:
Until December 31st to wean somebody off of medication? Yeah, okay.
Mike Card:
To wean... Right, I'm sorry. I'm glad we're doing this together, Lori. And there are penalties for physicians and healthcare providers who might still engage in these practices, including losing their medical license, and the like.
The challenge to these laws has been, at least in four states, Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, and Florida, federal judges have been striking these down saying they violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment for treating people unequally because of a gender-based condition. And I want to point out that these are states where to be appointed as a federal judge, your senators could put a hold... Senators from the state as the custom could put a hold on these judges. So these aren't just people who might be favoring this, these are issues that are going to be decided on the constitutionality of the provision based on Supreme Court precedent. And it seems that in all four of these states, these bans have not held up.
At the same time, there are working groups of medical doctors, and doctors of osteopathy, and psychologists, and other specialties within this, that are trying to develop what the standard of care would be and should be. The legislature has spoken. Otherwise, it would be the Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners that would determine what the standard of care would be, but they're trying to deal with those issues.
Lori Walsh:
All right. Let's talk about prisons, and we have time for one more topic. You think it should be what we're building and how much it costs?
Mike Card:
Well, it's tied to a lot of things. It's just like people are complicated, so are making policy for the state. So along with building prisons, because I was fortunate to be able to tour the South Dakota State Penitentiary last Thursday with the class I was teaching, and it's crowded, and the wards that are the most crowded are the ones dealing with the most severe offenders, in my estimation.
The statistics could be used to verify or contradict that, but it's a crowded place, and it's old in many parts. That it requires more staff, that if we had a modern design for a facility to incarcerate people who need to be kept apart from the public for a period of time to rehabilitate themselves and prepare for a more productive life than the one they lived before, this is going to be a real challenge. At this same time, it costs a lot of money, but most of this money has been set aside during the years when we had lots of federal money flowing through the state.
And so our legislature decided that they were going to tighten up on parole this year, meaning that for violent offenders, you would serve your complete sentence. For a number of other serious offenders, you would complete 85%, and the presumption of parole is no longer an automatic one. It will go through the parole board, and they will be somewhat more limited than they had been in the past because of these new statutes.
That's likely to increase our prison population even more, probably exacerbating the need or making greater the need for more prison space. We're building a new women's prison in Rapid City, and somewhere here in the southeast corner of the state, we're building a prison for men.
Lori Walsh:
With the population increases, then just statistically also you need more jail cells, and unfortunately prison cells.
Mike Card:
Well, and if we're going to not just turn people out, we need to give people job seeking skills, a basic general education through a general education exam, a GED, as well as perhaps actual job skills, so that they could compete in the market and won't have to turn to a life of crime.
Lori Walsh:
Mike Card, Professor Emeritus from the University of South Dakota and one of our dearest Dakota Political Junkies, thank you so much for this update. We appreciate it.
Mike Card:
Well, thank you for having me.
Lori Walsh:
We'll talk to you next time.
