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Lawmaker Tries To Require 30 Percent Turnout For School Bond Elections

Legislation limiting school bond elections to June or November took an unexpected turn Thursday before it was defeated. 

The bill came from state Rep. Tim Goodwin, R-Rapid City, in direct response to Rapid City’s Feb. 25 election on a $190 million school bond issue. 

The bond issue was supported by 56 percent of voters, but state law requires 60 percent for school bonds, so the measure failed

Nevertheless, Goodwin said the school board engaged in voter suppression against opponents of the measure by scheduling the election during the winter. He noted that about a foot of snow fell the night before and the morning of the election. 

So, Goodwin filed a bill requiring June or November dates for school bond elections. That bill passed the House of Representatives last month.

Then, during a Senate committee hearing Thursday, Goodwin surprised committee members with a rewrite of the bill. The rewrite threw out the June-November requirement. In its place, Goodwin substituted a 30 percent voter-turnout requirement for school bond elections to be considered valid. Rapid City’s turnout was 23 percent. 

Goodwin said a turnout threshold is another way of discouraging boards from scheduling bond elections in the winter. 

“I did have a lot of heat on the old version of the bill that we’re taking control away from the local level by saying you only could have an election in June or November,” Goodwin said. “This way here they’ve got 365 days – except in a Leap Year they’ve got 366 – to pick the date.” 

Several people testified against the bill. One was Rob Monson from the School Administrators of South Dakota, who said a 30 percent turnout requirement could result in absurd scenarios. 

“I would ask you if this law were to pass, and we had a bond election on some capital outlay certificates, and we had 25 percent of the people show up for this election, but they voted 100 percent in favor of the project, what do we say to that?” Monson said. “We’d say, ‘Sorry folks, we know we need this in our schools, we know we need this in our community, but we only got 25 percent even though you were all in favor of it. We have to reject this.’” 

Several members of the Senate Education Committee said they were surprised by Goodwin’s rewrite of the bill and were unprepared to debate it. But they approved the rewrite at his request, and then rejected the bill 6-0. That means Goodwin’s attempt to change bond-election laws is probably over for this legislation session, which has only about a week left. 

Seth supervises SDPB's beat reporters and newscast team. He works at SDPB's Black Hills Studio in Rapid City.
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