SOUTH DAKOTA HB 1223: UP FOR RECONSIDERATION TODAY

NEVER MIND: I no sooner got this up than we learned that the bill is DEAD. RIP HB 1223, SB 152 and South Dakota’s civil rightless bastards.

South Dakota HB 1223 was defeated Friday and is supposedly being reconsidered today. Please go to below to the original action alerts and send a message of support for a clean bill and reconsideration.

It’s been very confusing. The bill’s sponsor who claimed to want a clean bill, voted YAY for the corrupted amended version and the sponsor of the corrupted version voted NAY against his own amendment!

Please contact the House and asked members to

(1) strike the amendment on the floor

(2) if the amendment is not struck on the floor, urge members to vote NO.

Contact information: http://legis.state.sd.us/email/LegislatorEmail.aspx?MemberID=30s

Here is my letter:

I understand that HB 1223 is scheduled for reconsideration today. This bill started as a clean bill to restore the right of all South Dakota adoptees to access, with no restrictions, their own pre-adoption (originial) birth certificate upon request. The bill was amended with adisclosure veto (under a false title of “birthparent contact preference,”) that creates a special right for birthparents to ban access–a special right that no other parent or adult has over the birth certificate of another person. This ban guts the purpose of the bill and creates more bureaucracy and government control over the lives of individuals and families in South Dakota.

Please support reconsideration and then:

(1) strike the amendment on the floor and return the bill to its clean status and vote YAY

or

(2) if the amendment is not struck on the floor, vote NAY.

Thank you.