PIERRE, S.D. — A measure aimed at giving the Legislature’s joint Government Operations and Audit Committee (GOAC) more authority in compelling witnesses and documents to appear before them is on its way to the House floor.
The House State Affairs Committee voted 12-1 Monday morning to send House Bill 1204 to the full floor for further consideration. If adopted into law, GOAC — the legislative committee tasked with investigating potential fraud and abuses in state government — would no longer require the approval of the Legislature’s Executive Board to issue subpoenas. Instead, they would be able to summon witnesses and examine vouchers, documents, and records only by a simple majority vote of their membership.
The measure’s prime sponsor, Rep. Julie Auch of Yankton, told committee members that for most of the state’s history, GOAC was able to make subpoena requests without running them through the Executive Board — the legislative committee that is made up primarily of legislative leadership from each chamber.
“Subpoenas are powerful, and do hold consequences,” Auch said, citing several instances of fraud in state government over the last year as another reason the committee should support her effort. “GOAC needs to ensure to the people of South Dakota that measures have been put in place to correct these thefts and acts of incompetencies, to make sure that they don’t happen again in the future.”
Although past disagreements have occurred between the executive branch and the Legislature over the power to compel witnesses — measures similar to Auch’s have been proposed in both 2022 and 2023 — the Yankton Republican’s push has gained new momentum. Members of the Legislature seem eager to change the law in response to the state’s Department of Revenue’s refusal to allow two key supervisors to testify about a series of frauds that took place within the department over several years.
The Dakota Scout uncovered last year that a former supervisor with the department illegally obtained bank loans on fake titles that she made over the course of several years. The suspect, Sandy O’Day, was not charged because she was deceased at the time the crimes became known to law enforcement. However, two more former Revenue employees faced criminal charges after the Division of Criminal Investigation looked into the O’Day incident.
Revenue Secretary Michael Houdyshell and Motor Vehicle Division head Rosa Yeager did show up to testify before the committee, but were “unwilling to answer any questions,” according to the former GOAC chair. That led to the committee running subpoenas through the Executive Board, which were approved a little over a week after they were requested. The Department of Revenue has since filed a motion to quash the subpoenas, arguing that the information sought by the Legislature in a closed door meeting is part of an ongoing criminal investigation, and thus cannot be shared.
That legal matter, opened up in December, has not yet been resolved, according to a spokesman with the Attorney General’s office.
Though her legislation would not change what has happened in regards to the Department of Revenue, proponents argued that it would remove a layer of politics from the equation.
“This does cause delay when GOAC has to go to the Executive Board and request permission,” said Speaker of the House Jon Hansen, who made the motion to move HB 1204 out of committee. “It all takes time when you have to get permission, issue a subpoena, and then get into the court process… Too much time, under the circumstances.”
The measure had no opponents speak against it. However, Rep. Tim Reisch, a member of GOAC the previous two years and the only vote against the bill in committee, defended the executive branch’s handling of the Department of Revenue scandals fallout and the turnaround of the Executive Board in approving subpoena requests.
“The reason that we could not go into open session was because there were active criminal charges and people under criminal indictment were innocent until proven guilty,” Reisch explained. “It was proper that the full elements of that particular case not be discussed openly.”
