Bill Tracking

House Bill 1006 originally stated the following: “41-12-8. No person may use carp, goldfish, and game fish (except cleanings thereof), except bullhead and cleanings of game fish, in hook and line fishing. A violation of this section is a Class 2 misdemeanor.” 

The bill was first read in the House on January 13 and was referred to the House Agriculture and Natural Resources committee. Our Representative Ron Feickert was on this committee and voted to pass this bill.  The House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee passed the bill with a vote of 13-0. The bills next stop was the House of Representatives floor. Here the bill once again passed with a vote of 67-0 with 3 excused votes. The bill was then sent to the senate. Both Feickert and McCleerey voted to pass this bill on the House Floor.

House Bill 1006 was first read in the senate on January 23 and was referred to the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. It was scheduled for hearing on February 10 and passed with a vote of 9-0. Representative Jason Frerichs was on this committee and voted to pass the bill. The bill was sent to the Senate Floor. The bill was debated on the Senate floor and was passed with a vote of 34-0 and one excused vote. Representative Jason Frerichs vote to pass this bill as well. The bill was sent to the Governor to be signed.

House bill 1006 was signed by the Speaker of the House on February 12 and was sent to be signed by the President of the Senate. The president of the senate signed the on February 17 and the bill was delivered the governor on February 18.  

On February 28, 2015 Governor Denise Daugaard signed HB1006. The bill to allow bull heads to be used as bait will go into effect on July 1, 2015.

Measles Outbreak

1. 13 cases in South Dakota
2. 79 in California/ 382 in Ohio
3. 122,061 in 2014 / 495 in 2015         48 states have religious exemptions
4. Tammy’s story goes to show you the effects of measles. It is a very sad story, the effects that this disease had on this family. They could never live a normal life because of it. This disease doesn’t just affect the person infected it also plays an emotional effect on the family of the victim.
5. Medical reasons and religious beliefs
6. Yes
7. It’s okay to delay vaccinations and let your kids immune system mature/ immigrants are bringing the measles into the US/ more people die from the vaccine than the measles/  Existence of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program proves vaccines are harmful/ People who have been vaccinated can spread measles/ Vaccination is a political debate/ Vaccines cause autism
8. I don’t agree with the law that parents are forced to immunize their children against their beliefs. We live in a “free” country so why are we being forced to give our children something that we don’t believe in. The doctor in the article even said that if your child got the vaccine then they are safe so why do those parents care whether or not mine is vaccinated. Their child has the vaccine so they are safe. I think that it is against the personal freedom to force us to vaccinate our children. I think that these health care companies are telling us to get these vaccines so that we will get more sick forcing us to spend more money on healthcare. They don’t want us to be healthy because if everyone is healthy they won’t make money. I personally will never vaccinate my own children. I think that if people want to vaccinate they can but I do not want to be forced to do something I don’t believe in.
    

Bill

In the Senate
SB52

2-13-15

Senators: Mitchell, Mary, James , and  Toby introduced the following bill that was referred to the committee of Health and Human services on February 13, 2015.

Section 1

Legalization of assisted suicide In the case of terminal illness or a patient that is on life support. Patients must be given a diagnosis of 6 months or less to live.

Section 2

Potassium Chloride will be provided by a physician, the patient must self-administer the drug to his or herself.In the case of life support it will be left to the patient’s next of kin, documentation must be provided proving that the patient does not wish to be on life support.a patient has a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) a doctor will be allowed to perform a mercy killing if at least one other physician agrees that the patient is suffering.

Section 3

Department of Health and Human Services will be in charge or regulating and enforcing this act

Section 4

If doctors are found guilty of performing the killing themselves even with permission from the patient or next of kin the doctor will lose his or her license and will not be allowed to practice medicine If doctors are found guilty of performing this task without permission from the patient or next of kin he will be tried for manslaughter and his license will be immediately revoked.   

Government Trip

I really liked the trip yesterday. I had never been to Pierre before so it was really neat to have been to a new place. I didn’t like the fact that we had to get up so early and that we had to take the mini-bus but it ended being okay. The capital building surprised me a little bit. I had no idea that it was that nice inside. The architecture and the art was really awesome to see. I think it is cool how the architects and designers of the capital got to put their signature in it with the blue tiles and the pillar that was upside down.  The State Affairs committee was interesting to watch because I knew the topic and I could actually follow it. I also liked talking to the representatives. It was really neat to see their viewpoints on the topics brought up. I also like how when an issue was brought up they asked us what we thought about it and almost had a little debate. The House session was neat to watch because it is completely different than the smaller committees. The roll call was really cool I thought too. The geese and the ducks were really cool to see because they are so use to people that they just sit there. I also thought the monuments outside by the lake were really cool.

Capitalism and Socialism

                The definition of Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. The best example of capitalism is the early United States. Many might argue that the United States is still has a capitalistic economy, but I disagree. The United States is moving more toward a socialistic economy and away from the capitalistic economy. Socialism is social and economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy, as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system. Many people would argue this to. When founded, the United States was set up to be a capitalistic economy, but over the years especially starting in the 1900’s monopolies grew and began to take over the economy buying out small businesses.

                If you look at our economy today we see large businesses controlling the majority of the markets and even politics. Almost everything is controlled by either health care systems or oil companies. Oil companies control the gas prices, high gas prices makes shipping more expensive, expensive shipping makes products go up in price. Health care companies also control a large part of the economy. They charge so much for healthcare that many people cannot afford to pay for simple medicines needed. Heath care also makes it hard for some people to get insurance to pay for healthcare. Heath care is so expensive that insurance companies will not cover people because they would lose too much money doing it.

                Wal-Mart is another large company that controls a big part of the economy. Living in South Dakota or any other smaller areas of the country we see how a company as large as Wal-Mart can control an area. I have seen many times how Wal-Mart has come into small towns and put small privately owned businesses out of business. 

                With all of this I don’t think that capitalism is such a bad thing but I do think that the United States has begun to move away from capitalism and more toward a socialist economy. Socialism I think has many up sides to it but it also has many down sides too. The upside the government takes are of its people. The problem is that the government takes care of its people. When the government is in control of people’s businesses they get to control the decisions of the company. The people don’t get to make the decisions that they think is the best for their company.

Democracy

“Democracy ... while it lasts, is bloodier than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”

             -John Adams

 

I believe that John Adams fully knew and understood the true concept of democracy. I also believe that his definition or description of democracy is spot on. When John Adams says, “democracy is bloodier than either aristocracy or monarchy”, he is right. Democracy is not cheap, and I don’t mean cheap as in money, I mean that you have to fight for democracy and the freedom that comes with it. Look at how much it took to gain our freedom from the beginning. We fought the British in the revolution to first gain our freedom. The revolution which cost us over 25,000 lives and took us 8 years of fighting to win was one of the bloodiest wars up to this date. Then again in 1812, when the British tried to regain the land that they lost 30 years ago, we lost another 20,000 Americans. That is why democracy isn’t cheap. But like John Adams said, democracy does not last long as will eventually commit a type of suicide. We see this almost happening today. As Americans we have seen many wars over the years that were fought for our freedom. But when we do this, we almost bite off more than we can chew. We have military based all around the world and control a lot of land, almost too much. What we have makes other countries jealous. Our people are free to do as they please and that makes other countries hate us. So they all want to destroy what we have. As you can see today, America is getting so big that it can’t support itself. We rely on other countries for things that we need to survive. We are going to get so big that we will collapse. It bound to happen in the future, John Adams knew this. Why? It has happened in the past. And every time, it was good when it was good but after a while it began to fade and eventually collapsed. I had never heard this quote before today but I can honestly say that it is one of the most true quote I have ever heard.

Bicameral

The constitution immediately established the bicameral governments because that is what the people were use too. When the original 13 colonies first originated, they originated from Great Britain. Great Britain has a bicameral government and always has so the people used that as an outline for our government today. I think that bicameral government is very effective. It favors both small and large populated states so all states have a fair share in policies that affect their state.