South Dakota’s legislature in recent years has served a laboratory for extreme conservative policies, and that has one Republican lawmaker in the state worried.
Among state Rep. Anne Hajek’s (R) concerns is a proposed bill that would allow businesses to deny service to same-sex couples.
“The media picks up on these bills and people think about moving to South Dakota and they say, ‘Oh, crazies are out there,” Hajek told television station KELO.
She called the legislation, currently being taken up in the state Senate, “scary.”
Hajek also wasn’t a fan of a bill that would have authorized elected officials to carry guns in public buildings. The House bill was rejected last week.
“I think there is legislation brought with the purpose of having a lot of discussion and having people spent a lot of time on it. It’s frivolous, but it will keep us from doing the work we’re supposed to be doing,” Hajek said.
Such proposals are typical for the GOP-dominated legislature. State lawmakers passed legislation last year that extended what was already the longest abortion wait period in the country, as well as a bill to allow armed volunteers in schools. Each measure was signed into law by Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R).
(Above, a woman in Rapid City, S.D. rolls her shopping cart after an early autumn snowstorm pounded the state in October 2013.)
