Change possible for petition notarization

 

House Local Government committee members unanimously voted “do pass” on House Bill 1018, which would require independent notarization on an election candidate’s nominating petition.

 

Secretary of State Jason Gant testified the bill would make it clear for candidates that “yes you may or no you may not” notarize their own petitions. Gant said during a court case last year a judge was unable to determine if by law a candidate could personally notarize their petition, which prompted the introduction of the amendment to codified law 12-6-8.

 

The bill will not be placed on a future House consent calendar, which means it likely will face discussion before vote.

The Senate Education committee met this morning for a hearing on Senate Bill 5, which would establish a Council on Higher Education and adjust the funding mechanism for higher education based on work done by the summer committee on Post-Secondary Education-Purpose and Funding.

 

Initially, the bill brought the state’s four technical institutes under the proposed funding umbrella, but an amendment called for their removal and as former Representative Tad Perry said “leave the technical institutes as they are,” in terms of their funding mechanism. An additional amendment called for a change to the bill’s title to swap two instances of “postsecondary” to “higher” education.

 

S.D.’s technical institutes, governed by local school boards in Mitchell, Rapid City, Sioux Falls and Watertown and the state Board of Education, would be represented on the proposed council by one institute’s president on yearly rotation.

 

Senate Education committee members voted to pass the amended version of the bill removing technical institutes from the proposed funding mechanism on to the full Senate.

 

Updates on these pieces of legislation will be posted on the blog and bill tracker.