What the fight on HB 1281 was all about and why it still matters

Letters to the Editor

HB 1281

(letters reprinted with permission of author)

 

If a large industrial feedlot wants to come into an area, the local zoning commission holds hearings. Even if an overwhelming majority of local residents oppose an operation, commissioners may ignore them and approve it. Residents can now put the issue on the ballot and bring it to a vote. That will soon change.

Industrial farmers went to court to stop any vote. When the South Dakota Supreme Court ruled people have a right to vote on such matters, they lobbied the Legislature and got a law passed saying once commissioners decide, citizens can’t vote.

A fair law would allow county voters at least 90 days to collect signatures to put an issue on the ballot after a permit was approved. Then producers would know what to expect before breaking ground and people would still have a say. Instead, the legislature outlawed democracy.

Meanwhile, last month people did get to vote on the two industrial farms that caused all the fuss. Even in two poor counties, 66% and 80% of voters said they didn’t want 3,200-head hog farms. Unless you sign DRA’s petition to stop the new law from taking effect, it will be the last time local residents are ever allowed to vote on what goes on.

Bill Du Bois, Brookings, SD -- Published Argus Leader, May 2003
Note: more than 25,000 signatures were collected which stopped HB 1281 from becoming law and got it placed on the November 2004 ballot. However, citizens never got to vote. In February 2004, South Dakota lawmakers withdrew HB 1281 repealing it. They then tried to pass SB 163 which essentially did the same thing. (It passed the Senate but was killed in House committe.)

 

Family Farmer Speaks Out.

Charlie Johnson, Madison, South Dakota, January 9th, 2004

Op Ed, Argus Leader (reprinted by permission of author)
It does matter what corporate farming laws do or don't do especially when South Dakota voters in two state-wide elections have voted to restrict non-family corporate entities(E) and have rejected a measure to allow non-family limited liability entities(A). When twenty plus pieces of legislation concerning corporate farming and the environment were before the 1997 legislature, the overall theme was of individual responsibility. How and in what fashion would participants take responsibility for South Dakota production agriculture and the environment, was the big question. In a November, 1996 letter from Murphy Farms to the South Dakota Pork Producers Association concerning proposed legislation to protect livestock growers, Reef Ivey stated, "You cannot say that in agriculture contracts only are we going to pierce the corporate veil." Rather than listen to South Dakota residents, the legislature got Reef Ivey's message. They voted down virtually every proposal to restrict non-family corporate farming and measures to protect our clean environment.

Left with no other course of action and the indifference of the legislature, people of South Dakota took government into their own hands. By the summer of 1997, hundreds of volunteers were sacrificing days and weeks of time to gather petition signatures on a measure restricting non-family corporate farming. In November of 1998, South Dakota voters acting as their own legislature enacted Amendment E to the state's constitution. The people of South Dakota laid out a very clear and defining message. They wanted production agriculture to be in the hands of those who will take on individual responsibility for their operations. The "corporate veil" would not be available to shield risk and responsibility from the individual.

There is nothing modern nor progressive about segregating responsibility within business activities. Turning back to a economic and social structure that our own ancestors left behind in Europe takes us back 300 years not forward.

Some would argue that corporate farming laws is a form of protectionism. May I suggest "the shoe fits the other foot". Actually it is the proponents of corporate farming seeking protection by asking for the use of artificial entities to protect themselves from responsibility. Over 99% of South Dakota farmers and ranchers operate as a sole proprietor, general partnership, or family corporation. All of which are legal under Amendment E. Everyday these operators put their name, their reputation, and their equity on the line in order to protect the environment, strengthen their communities, and improve their operations. South Dakota farm operators are not asking for undue protection. They are asking for the opportunity to be profitable and responsible stewards of the land.

The real problem in agriculture is not one of capital access but one of profitability. Issues of market concentration, trade, technology advances, and escalating land prices are of great concern. We don't need artificial entities entering agriculture using the "corporate veil" bringing with unwarranted capital.

The voters of South Dakota laid out a mission statement for South Dakota agriculture. we need to accept the mandate that farming and ranching will be done on a individually responsible basis. When it comes to corporate farming laws, the legislature should do no harm to that vision. The people of South Dakota do not use GPS(greed and power structure) to guide their moral and political course. Neither should the legislature. Media, farm groups, legislators, and other interested parties need to stay true to the message laid out by South Dakota residents-protect the environment, strengthen our communities, and improve farm and ranch opportunities.

 

All of us watched Gov. Mike Rounds send our National Guard off to secure freedom and democracy for Iraq.A few years ago, legislator Mike Rounds and the Legislature passed the gag law, so people wouldn't know what's going on in Pierre. Then this year, Rounds signed into law House Bill 1281 taking away the vote in counties where undesirable development would come, like corporate hog farms.If we can send troops to Iraq to restore voting rights and make the government accountable to the National Guard comes home, we dispatch them to Pierre to restore democracy. Democracy hasn't been practiced in Pierre for a long time.While 5 percent of our population ˆ the special interests-- is served well, the rest of the population is held in contempt by most of our politicians.

When someone asks you to sign a referral petition for 1281, do it and practice democracy. When it comes to a vote in 2004, it will go down by 70 percent or more and will again show how out of touch our governor and Legislature are with the people.

Gary Heckenlaibl, Rapid City -- Published in Argus Leader, Thursday May 22, 2003

 

HB 1281 IS A LAW THAT TAKES AWAY DEMOCRACY

by Guy W. Larson, Argus Leader, June 8, 2003 (reprinted by permission of author)

The Governor introduced, and the legislature passed, HB 1281, which is billed by its supporters as an effort at “local control.”

Calling this bill “local control” is like calling slavery “freedom.” It is the best example of double-speak since George Orwell’s novel about 1984, where dark was light, and bad was good.

Instead of granting local control, HB 1281 does two principal things to citizens of counties: (1) It takes away their right to vote in a referendum when they disagree with a decision made by their county commissioners; and (2) It creates a “compensable property interest” in any permit granted by a county commission.

Presumably, those who drafted the bill wanted to make certain that corporations and others could sue county governments in the event the commissioners decided to withdraw a permit for a factory hog farm, for example. Imagine the additional tax burden on residents of counties if such lawsuits were permitted under HB 1281.

What the Governor and the legislature really want to do is to prevent anyone from protesting at the ballot box against those county commissions who are willing–-in spite of popular opposition--to grant permits to smelly hog factories who want to establish themselves in farm neighborhoods. There is both scientific and medical testimony that the hydrogen sulfide emitted in large quantities from these farms’ waste systems is damaging to the health of the neighbors.

The law came about as a result of two recent Supreme Court decisions where the South Dakota Supreme Court ordered both Bon Homme and Hutchinson Counties to allow the citizens of those counties to vote on whether or not they wanted hog factories to be built within the boundaries of the counties. Even though the farmers in those counties had gathered more than enough signatures to put the issue of the hog factories on the ballots, the commissioners refused to permit a vote. After the Supreme Court ordered the vote to take place, the citizens overwhelmingly voted against allowing the hog factories by three-to-one and two-to-one majorities.

This, of course, is what the Governor and the legislature want to prevent–citizens from having the right to vote on issues that directly affect their lives. It’s obvious that neither the legislators nor the Governor have to live near the smell and the pollution caused by giant hog factories.

And what citizens–both farmers and city folks–want to do is to have a statewide up or down vote on HB 1281, so that we can keep our hard-earned democracy in South Dakota. We were the first state in the union to adopt the initiative and referendum. It would be a travesty if we were the first state to abolish one of these methods of direct democracy.

We ask that you study the issue very carefully and that you not be taken in by such weasel words as “local control,” and other euphemisms that will only take away your right to vote.

 

The are two kinds of Republicans -- the old Republicans who cared about small business and local farmers -- and new Republicans who sell out our democracy to large corporations who care only about greed and plunder.

The corporations have found a way around democray. One of the latest trends is to pass laws and sign treaties that forbid democracy by local residents. International treaties are signed which forbid state governments from regulating companies to protect consumers or public safety.

In South Dakota, Mike Rounds and the "new" Republicans have been working to pass bill 1281 to create "democracy-free" zones where local people no longer have a say over their lives. Rich large farmers will be able to become their own zones no longer subject to local wishes and regulations. A large farmer can pollute the area, become a nuisance to neighbors and break all local ordinances. All they have to do is send campaign contributions to some official in Pierre and flaunt local wishes.

Bill Du Bois, Brookings, SD -- Published Argus Leader, March 2003

 

Law takes away local control

By Charlie Johnson, a Madison farmer and member of Dakota Rural Action.

from Rapid City Journal, May 24, 2003

MADISON - HB 1281, which was passed during the 2003 legislative session, does away with the referendum process for local county zoning decisions on variances and conditional use permits. The elimination of this democratic process at the local level was a "sour grapes" response to two recent South Dakota Supreme Court decisions to allow local residents in counties to vote on county zoning decisions. Last April 15, residents in Hutchison and Bon Homme counties voted by wide margins to overturn county commission zoning decisions that would have allowed the construction of large, factory hog farms.

On July 1, HB 1281 will become law unless 17,000 petition signatures are gathered to put the issue on hold. It has become apparent that officials at the state level mistakenly believe that doing away with the democratic process is somehow a legitimate tradeoff for their idea of agriculture development in this state.

Rather than eliminate the referendum process, why doesn't the Department of Agriculture seek the kind of genuine livestock development that will not cause referendums in the first place? But then development, which is profitable, has control by local residents and which requires individual responsibility, may be a hard concept to embrace when your agenda is greed, power and bending down to special interests.

As a lifelong farmer and a county commissioner in Lake County for eight years, I appreciated the fact that there was always a system of "check and balances" to local government. The ultimate litmus test of whether the board I served on made the right decision was the fact that the local voters had the final say.

Proponents of HB 1281 state that zoning ordinances can be written where there is no discretion in the decision making. That being the case, let's do away with the voting rights of the county commissioners if we are going to take away the right of referral by local voters. Reality is that variances and conditional use permits are discretionary zoning decisions that are in some cases contrary to zoning regulations and codes. HB l281 doesn't eliminate the need for decision making, it does away with the system of "checks and balances."

We need an agricultural development policy that unifies people, not divides them. Presently, the S.D. Department of Agriculture is recruiting dairy people from other countries while highly efficient and hard-working third and fourth generation S.D. dairy people are under stress with the burdensome cost/price squeeze. What is our next approach? Do we recruit cattlemen from Australia to replace our ranchers? Do we recruit producers from Brazil to replace our grain farmers?

This illogical approach to agriculture policy is wasting valuable time and resources. We need to develop agriculture in this state where the solutions are driven by local residents and not outside capital. We need enterprises that have local control, are profitable, respect the environment and embrace the concept of individual responsibility.

Again and again, South Dakota people pride themselves on a focus for strong rural communities, viable family farms and a healthy, clean environment.

HB 1281 is hostile to these goals. Keeping the democratic process alive at the local level will foster the right kind of growth we want and deserve.

 

 

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