• Last week, I made two bill presentations in committee. HB 1143 was before the Commerce and Energy Committee on Wednesday. This bill attempts to repeal a law that was passed in 2010. At that time, the federal government had made millions of dollars in "stimulus" money available to the states. In order for South Dakota to accept $11.7 million of the manna from...Washington, D.C., the federal government forced our state to expand unemployment eligibility in two of

four categories. Many times throughout the process in 2010, legislators were told that we could come back in the future and repeal the expanded categories. We merely had to comply for one year. In 2011, there was an attempt at repealing the newly adopted language, but it was killed. Six different opponents made arguments against that repealer, saying that the law had only been in effect for a short time, and we needed to have more of an opportunity to evaluate the impact. When I testified in committee last week, there was only one opponent. Again, that opponent said we should keep the expanded unemployment eligibility

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