By Libby Skarin, Policy Director and ACLU-SD Lobbyist
Each year, the South Dakota Legislature convenes in January and works through March crafting, debating, and passing laws governing our state. Throughout its history, the ACLU of South Dakota has kept tabs on the goings-on in Pierre. This year, we decided to send our Policy Director as a full-time lobbyist to represent the ACLU and advocate for civil rights and civil liberties.
It's not often that we get to talk about major civil liberties victories after the legislative session, but with hard work and determination we saw lots of bad bills go down in flames!
Here are some of the highlights:
LGBT Rights Wins
During the 2015 session we saw several bills attacking LGBT people. Perhaps most shocking were three bills that targeted the South Dakota High School Activities Associations inclusive transgender sports policy, which allows transgender high school students to compete in athletics according to their gender identity. HB 1161, HB 1195, and SB 140 all tried to accomplish the same terrible goal: to void the inclusive sports policy.
Though it was a fight to the very end (which included lots of procedural tricks on the part of the bills' sponsors) all three were killed.
Religious Liberty Wins
This year we saw two bills that threatened to infringe upon the religious liberty of South Dakotans. The first was SB 114, a bill that seemed innocent on its face but was really an attempt to open the door for teachers to introduce non-scientific evidence against evolution or to "teach the controversy." Not only is there no legitimate debate on the existence of evolution in the scientific community, the federal courts have been crystal clear that efforts to inject religious beliefs on the origin of life into public school curricula are constitutionally impermissible. Thankfully, this bill saw a swift death as it was killed in the Senate Education Committee in early February.
The second threat to religious liberty came in the form of HB 1220. This bill, commonly known as a "Religious Freedom Restoration Act," or RFRA, was South Dakota's attempt at a troubling trend seen nationwide. RFRA bills are sneaky because at a glance they appear to be promoting the free exercise of religion. A closer look, however, reveals their true intent: to allow religious objection lawsuits to any governmental policies that burden religious beliefs at all.
Legislation like HB 1220 could have had disastrous consequences. As weve seen happen in other states, individuals have used RFRA laws to claim exemptions from nondiscrimination laws, domestic violence laws, workplace policies, or any law of general applicability. Here at the ACLU we feel very strongly that freedom of religion is one of our most fundamental rights as Americans, and thats why its protected the Constitution. That freedom, however, doesnt give any of us the right to harm others. For that reason, we were very happy to see HB 1220 die before it could make it out of the House State Affairs Committee.
Reproductive Freedom Wins
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past decade or so you know that attacks on reproductive freedom are commonplace in the South Dakota Legislature. What isn't commonplace, however, is to come to the end of the legislative session without more roadblocks to abortion access.
Anti-choice politicians tried to push a slew of bad bills this year with the intent to make it harder for South Dakotans to determine whats best for their own health and their own families. Among these was a vaguely written bill to extend child abuse law to fetuses, which could have had the practical effect of banning all abortions in the state; a harmful and insensitive bill to ban abortions performed on fetuses with Down Syndrome, which would have added extra stress to families facing an unexpected and overwhelming diagnosis; and an unnecessary and emotionally charged bill to ban the use of "beheading" abortions, which dont happen in South Dakota. That last one put our state in the national spotlight and spawned the embarrassing hashtag on Twitter, #WorseThanISIS.
Despite all that, each and every one of these bills was either defeated or pulled by their prime sponsors, presumably once they became aware of the serious legal problems with their proposed legislation. Were relieved that none of these bad bills became law.
The death of these bad bills is certainly cause for celebration, and we wanted to take a minute to fill you in on what happened in Pierre this year. Well be back there in 2016, working hard to advance and protect the constitutional rights and civil liberties of all South Dakotans.
Have questions for me about the ACLU of South Dakotas legislative work? Join us for a live, interactive Facebook Chat on Wednesday, March 25th at 3:00!
