Monthly Archives: March 2017

Governor Dennis Daugaard signed Senate Bill 140 on March 10, making South Dakota the 36th state in the nation to require that every high school student in the state receive training in Hands Only CPR prior to graduation.

The new law adds more than 10,000 Hands-Only CPR-trained young adults to South Dakota communities each year by requiring that schools offer a 30-minute Hands-Only CPR training class within a required course at some point in the students’ high school career. Individual school districts maintain control over when the course is offered, keeping local control over curriculum decisions. In addition, the trainings are offered to schools at no charge through a partnership with the South Dakota Emergency Medical Services Association. Local EMS agencies have agreed to provide the trainings to school districts free of charge.

“Having a new generation of lifesavers in our communities will have an incredible ripple effect for years to come,” said Eric Van Dusen, President of the South Dakota Emergency Medical Services Association. “We know that young adults trained in CPR at school will save lives by knowing what to do during those precious few minutes after someone suffers sudden cardiac arrest.”

Nearly 424,000 people have sudden cardiac arrest outside of a hospital every year, and only 10.4 percent of them survive, most likely because they don’t receive timely CPR. Given right away, CPR doubles or triples survival rates. Teaching students Hands-Only CPR in a rural state like South Dakota could save thousands of lives by filling our communities with young adults trained to give cardiac arrest victims the immediate help they need to survive until EMTs arrive.

“In addition to saving lives, this legislation will also give high school students the opportunity to have hands-on training and exposure to a career in healthcare and, possibly, on their local EMS agency. Our rural areas have a need for trained healthcare workers, and by exposing kids to Hands-Only CPR training, we are giving them an important glimpse into a potential career field,” said Van Dusen.

SB 140 unanimously passed the Senate last month and passed the House last week with a vote of 65-3. The bill was originally sponsored by 12 senators and 10 house members. Senator Larry Tidemann was the lead sponsor of the bill in the Senate and Representative Jean Hunhoff was the lead sponsor of the bill in the House.

By Katie Hunhoff

We met the miners early on a Sunday morning on Rockerville’s only street. I was hoping they would look like miners because I knew my eight-year-old son Steven had some colorful preconceptions of how our first mining expedition might go.

Steven, a rock hound since the day he was born, wasn’t disappointed. Don Hamm and Gary Mallams weren’t riding mules or carrying shotguns, but the officers of the Black Hills Prospecting Club do look the part of rugged miners.

Off we drove, deep into the pine forest toward Deadman Gulch. Finally, after 10 miles of rugged mountain trails and a hundred questions from Steven, we arrived at the club’s Garnet Claim.

We parked along the trail, grabbed pails, shovels, pans and a pickaxe from Don’s truck, and hiked down into the cool gulch. A clear mountain stream ran on one side of a 10-foot high bank. “Watch for rattlesnakes and mountain lions,” cautioned Gary. Suddenly, Steven wanted to carry the axe.

At the claim, Don and Gary each shoveled a scoop of clay dirt from the bank into 5-gallon buckets. Wearing tall rubber boots, they stepped into the stream, which was inches deep but flowed fast, clear and cool.

They began the process of panning — swirling the dirt and minerals around and around — as they told their stories. Gary has been in the Hills for 46 years, but still calls himself a Missouri hillbilly. He worked for the U.S. Forest Service, and then became involved in manufacturing wood furniture parts for the lumber industry. “My regret is that I came here as a young guy and didn’t get involved until 10 years ago,” he told us.

They soon encouraged Steven to help. Gary showed him how to let the water fall away by holding the pan at an angle and swirling slowly. I was anxious that any gold specks might fly out of the pan with the muddy water and gravel. Gary insisted that gold is heavy enough to stay put while mica, the legendary imposter known as fool’s gold, will float away.

Gary said the tools of the mining trade can be expensive for serious prospectors. “My wife said, ‘I thought golf was expensive, until I got into this.’ There’s always a new thing to buy. But we enjoy it. It’s just like fishing or hunting, we’re enjoying the outdoors.”

Panning kits for children and adults new to the hobby can be had for the price of a pizza at outdoor stores in the Black Hills. Kids are not likely to find gold without some help, however, so you may want to consider a guided mining trip at the Big Thunder Mine in Keystone, Black Hills Caverns west of Rapid City or the Broken Boot Mine at Lead. Visit the Clock Shop in downtown Rapid City and take a look at the Icebox Nugget, the largest chunk of Black Hills gold found in the last 120 years.

Don was working with a sluice box in the stream as he told his story. He learned to pan and sluice from his father, Bob Hamm, who grew up working around his father’s steam-powered lumber mill in Deadman Gulch and watching miners working Spring Creek.

Bob — now 92 and still panning — and Don mined 50 ounces of gold in 1972, enough to give them bragging rights as the third largest gold producers in South Dakota for that year.” Though they still find gold on their private claim, Don said, “You’re not going to get rich.”

Steven was sorry to hear that, but Gary regained his attention when he said, “Look at that!” He pointed to a flake of bright yellow mineral in the bottom of Steven’s near-empty pan.

‘There are a lot of things that look like gold, but gold don’t look like nothing else,” said Gary as he scooped the flake and a bit of water into a vial and gave it to the happiest kid in the gulch.

The South Dakota Retailers Association (SDRA) today welcomed a summary judgment by Circuit Court Judge Mark Barnett regarding South Dakota’s lawsuit against three large online retailers. SDRA says the ruling is precisely what is needed to move South Dakota one step closer to tax parity between South Dakota brick and mortar stores and giant out-of-state companies.

Although the ruling resulted in the entry of a judgment in favor of out-of-state online retailers, Judge Barnett’s Order specifically recognized that he was bound by existing United States Supreme Court precedent “…even when changing times and events clearly suggest a different outcome; it is simply not the role of a state circuit court to disregard a ruling from the United States Supreme Court.”

This week’s decision by Judge Barnett is an important and necessary step toward U.S. Supreme Court reconsideration of now-outdated tax precedents set by the Court in cases from half a century and a quarter of a century ago.

Last year, South Dakota passed a law, SB 106, requiring large out-of-state companies that sell goods into the state to collect and remit South Dakota sales tax on those purchases. The law applies only to businesses whose sales in the state exceed $100,000 annually, or that make 200 or more separate transactions in the state in a year.

Following passage of SB 106 last year, the State of South Dakota filed a lawsuit seeking a determination that the state may validly require out-of-state retailers that conduct significant business in the state to collect and remit the state’s sales tax on purchases made in the state, even if they do not have a physical location in South Dakota.

The state’s lawsuit was filed one year after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy recognized in his concurring opinion in DMA v. Brohl that, “[t]he Internet has caused far-reaching systemic and structural changes in the economy” so that “a business may be present in a State in a meaningful way without that presence being physical in the traditional sense of the word.” Justice Kennedy called on the “legal system [to] find an appropriate case for this Court to reconsider” its prior decisions in 1967 and 1992.

When SB 106 was enacted last year, the bill itself and the State of South Dakota acknowledged that only the U.S. Supreme Court can overturn the 1992 Quill v. North Dakota decision that restricts states from requiring remote sellers that do not have a physical presence in the state from collecting the taxes already owed on those purchases. To reach the U.S. Supreme Court, however, the case must first go through the South Dakota circuit court and the South Dakota Supreme Court. Today’s ruling checks off that first step.

The South Dakota Retailers Association played a key role in the discussions that led the state to pass SB 106 and to file suit against out-of-state online retailers.

“Right now, giant out-of-state conglomerates are able to avoid collecting and remitting taxes only because of a loophole that was created before there was an internet, and before e-commerce,” said SDRA Executive Director Shawn Lyons. “Online commerce is expanding dramatically, and the tax inequity gap between in-state retailers and out-of-state online retailers is widening. We are encouraged that this ruling gets us one step closer to having the U.S. Supreme Court take another look at this crucial tax issue, and one step closer to tax fairness.”

State Senator Gary Cammack, owner of Cammack Ranch Supply in Union Center, South Dakota and president of SDRA’s Board of Directors, agrees.

“Only the U.S. Supreme Court can overturn the 1992 court decision, and Judge Barnett’s decision helps us move the issue along,” Cammack said. “Larger online retailers should play by the same rules as the small businesses on Main Street, and this ruling is one of the necessary steps in accomplishing that.”

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley also praised the decision.

“South Dakota retailers should have a fair and equal playing field with other large out-of-state companies that have been benefiting from an outdated sales tax structure,” said Attorney General Jackley. “The South Dakota Retailers Association and their retail partners should be commended for their diligent work on this case and serving as a strong voice for South Dakota’s retail industry.”

Lyons said it’s important to note that the law passed by South Dakota last year did not implement a new tax.

“When South Dakotans make purchases, whether that’s in a store in their hometown or online from a company based in another state, the consumer has a legal obligation to pay taxes on those purchases,” he stated. “The law we passed in South Dakota in 2016 says the burden shouldn’t be on the customer, it should be the responsibility of those huge companies to collect and remit the tax. When you get down to it, this is just simply a matter of fairness all the way around.”