PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — A bill that would ban state Game, Fish and Parks officers from entering onto private lands has become the first bill of the session to be ‘smoked out’, or brought back to life, on the floor of the South Dakota Senate Wednesday, after it was deferred Tuesday to the 41st legislative day.
The bill, HB 1140, was introduced at the request of the Office of the Governor and was killed in a 7-0 vote in the Senate Judiciary. It has been called a “poacher’s bill” by those who oppose it, such as former Game, Fish and Park secretaries John Cooper and Jeff Vonk.
Those who have testified in favor of the bill include multiple west-river landowners, as well as current interim Secretary of the GF&P Kevin Robling.
The motion to resurrect the bill came from Sen. Gary Cammack of Union Center. He was joined in support of bringing it back by senators Maggie Sutton and Brock Greenfield, the later of whom compared it to the legislature’s ability to attempt to override a Governor’s veto.
This defense of the smoke out came in the face of opposition from Senators Lee Schoenbeck and Arthur Rusch, who pointed out that the bill failed 7-0 and urged their colleagues to respect the committee process.
That request went unheeded, as the motion to resurrect the bill passed with 17 senators voting in support. The smoke-out rule only requires that one-third of the chamber’s members support the measure, meaning only 12 senators were needed to bring it back.
