Legislature Kills School Admin Consolidation, Free Delivery, and Kids Texting-Driving Ban

A couple things you won't have to worry about state government doing:

• HB 1247: Pierre won't be consolidating school administrations. The House Education Committee cared enough to water the bill down with a couple amendments, but then gave up and deferred it to the 41st day. The only folks voting to keep this bill alive and reduce local control: three Republicans, Reps. Bolin, McLaughlin, and Sly. Darn: I was looking forward to Dr. Fahrenwald's promotion to Tri-County Superintendent.
  
• SB 193: Three Dems took the pro-life position of helping pay for healthy babies; four Republicans thought otherwise and killed the bill. Erika Powell will be relieved that we won't ruin personal responsibility with more government health care; now if we could just get Grandma and Grandpa off that soul-sapping federal money. Oh, wait, I hear Republicans are working on that....
• HB 1133: Your kids will still be able to call you from the road to tell you where they are. House Health and Human Services defeated this bill, which would have banned kids with learners permits from calling or texting while driving. But sit tight: the House is working on better legislation, HB 1178, that will apply said ban to every driver. Remember: talking on the cell phone quadruples your risk of having an accident. Texting sextuples that risk (for truckers, the risk 23-tuples). Behind the wheel, that Blackberry in your hand might as well be a bottle of beer.
  

Legislature Notes: Lange & Kloucek Advocate Income Tax Repeal...

Yes, you read that right. That and more excitement from the South Dakota State Legislature:

• South Dakota has an income tax... but maybe not for long! My neighbor Rep. Gerry Lange wants to repeal South Dakota's income tax on banks and financial corporations. To that end, he and Senator Kloucek have floated HB 1123. They also want to repeal insurance taxes with HB 1124. I think Gerry's messing with us....
  
• Thank you, Reps. Bernie Hunhoff, Marc Feinstein, and Larry Lucas for voting against HB 1095, Senator Russell Olson's silly bill to allow economic development corporations to play bingo. Unfortunately, 10 reps voted yesterday to move this bill forward to the full House.
• Bigger thanks to the House Judiciary Committee, which gave a 41st-day thumping to HB 1068, Rep. Verchio's ill-conceived bill to cap medical malpractice awards at $100,000.
• HB 1133 would ban kids with learners' permits from using cell phones while driving. Funny: we don't apply DUI penalties only to teenagers... but it's o.k. to let adults choose to drive while texting and sextuple their risk of a wreck? I move to amend!
• HB 1135: Some of our legislators don't want a Constitutional Convention. Call off the Tea Party....
• HB 1140 bans red-light cameras and photo radar for law enforcement! Back to the beat, copper!
  

Klobuchar Joins Movement to Ban Texting While Driving

In other news, senior Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is proposing legislation that would cut federal highway funds by 25% to states that don't ban texting while driving. (That will be on top of whatever money Tim Rounds will lose us with his drinking age proposal.)

Klobuchar joins Senators Hagan, Landrieu, Lieberman, and Menendez in co-sponsoring Senator Schumer's S. 1526, the ALERT Drivers Act. No SHS on the House version yet, but given data that texting while driving makes it 23 times more likely that drivers will run over liberal bloggers and their families, expect more Democratic co-sponsors shortly.

Also expect more silly grumbling about nanny-statism from the Right. That darned nanny state with its drivers licenses and stop signs and speed limits....

Teen Driver Texting Almost Puts Madville Times on Hiatus

This letter may run in Tuesday's Madison Daily Leader.

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To the Editor, Madison Daily Leader:

The Letters to the Editor section regularly features glowing thank-yous to the wonderful citizens of our idyllic community. Permit me to dabble in the genre...

I want to thank the teenage driver who managed not to kill my wife, me, and our three-year-old daughter Friday night.

My wife and I were bicycling around Lake Herman Friday night, with our daughter in our bike trailer. Around 6:40 p.m., we were eastbound on 233rd St., the road between the lake and the golf course. Ahead we saw a black 4-door vehicle coming north up Herman Drive toward the road. There appeared to be two teenage boys inside. The driver rolled through the stop sign and turned east onto the pavement. Had I not hit my brakes and swerved, or had he turned west, he'd have crumpled my bike and perhaps my daughter in her trailer.

The driver did not look either way, west or east, as he pulled out. He did not look up at all until my shouts finally penetrated his rolled-up window. (And yes, I did shout, vigorously, and with colorful language. I publicly apologize to my neighbors and any golfers with whose swing I may have interfered.)

Yes, the young man was texting. His eyes were on his phone.

But hey: he didn't actually hit us. He came to a complete stop, kittywampus halfway into the eastbound lane. He waited patiently as we wheeled around him and as I pointed to the stop sign fifteen feet behind him. He even had the courtesy to change directions after we'd passed and go the other way, the long way around the golf course, so he and his friend could still get to town without subjecting us to his exhaust fumes or a closer look at his license plate number.

If I had the young man's number, I'd call and thank him personally for sparing our lives... but I wouldn't want to cause a traffic accident.

So I'll say it here:

GET OFF THE PHONE AND DRIVE.

Sincerely,
Cory Allen Heidelberger

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Update: MDL ran the letter right away. Thanks, Jon!

AT&T Buying Alltel-SD: Users Not Only Get to Buy iPhones, They Have To...

AT&T's impending purchase of the South Dakota chunk of Alltel from Verizon has some cell phone customers here excited. Assuming the FCC approves and AT&T gets all the necessary gear installed, South Dakotans may finally be able to use the iPhone... by the end of 2010, by which time some new device may well have relegated the iPhone to 8-track status.

But whatever whizbangs operate on the network AT&T installs in South Dakota, Alltel customers won't just have the privilege of upgrading; they'll have to buy new phones. As noted on a new fact sheet from the Public Utilities Commission, AT&T uses different network tech (GSM/UMTS 3G instead of CDMA, if you must know). Your Alltell phone won't be able to talk to the new owners' gear.

The forced switch would torque me off... if I had a cell phone. I tend to hang onto my gear longer than others (I relied on my NEC Ready 120LT for seven years—not one catastrophic crash, not one trip to the factory). But I'm at the far cranky end of the consumer bell curve. The average lifespan for cell phones is a measly 18 months, or maybe less. (Think back: how long did Grandma have the same dial phone on her end table?). By the time AT&T gets everything wired up, most South Dakota users will be ready to trade up anyway. So here's hoping the switch really is an improvement.