Page 11 - 072817

Groton Daily Independent
Friday, July 28, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 028 ~ 11 of 54
Under the plan, the commission would redistrict in 2021 and every decade after.
Supporters would have to submit nearly 28,000 valid signatures to the secretary of state by November 2017 for the new amendment to appear on the 2018 ballot. Passage of the amendment requires a simple majority.
The South Dakota Republican Party opposed the unsuccessful 2016 amendment. GOP Sen. Jim Bolin said the measure would give away power to non-elected of cials to decide on something the Legislature did well in 2011.
“It’s the most bogus, unnecessary thing that is out there,” Bolin said. “It was defeated decisively last time, and I hope it’s defeated decisively this time.”
Redistricting will not affect federal races in South Dakota because the entire state is one congressional district.
In South Dakota, it’s pols 2, rattlers nothing
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — Tough enough to serve in Congress? Both of South Dakota’s Republican House candidates have checked that box — by killing rattlesnakes.
Dusty Johnson’s congressional campaign tweeted a video Thursday of him dispatching a snake at a youth camp with “courage and a dull axe!” The move causes onlookers to scream and then cheer and chant his name.
Johnson, a former public utilities commissioner, says he last killed a rattler in high school.
Secretary of State Shantel Krebs last year shot a rattlesnake with a pistol because it got too close for comfort. Krebs says that was the rst time she killed one.
Tim Bjorkman is a Democrat in the 2018 contest, while George Hendrickson plans to run as an inde- pendent.
Worsening drought conditions in parts of US stressing crops By DAVID PITT, Associated Press
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Drought conditions worsened in several states over the past week from ex- treme heat and weeks with little rain, raising the prospect that grocery staples such as bread and beans could cost more as the region that produces those commodities is hardest hit.
Drought conditions have begun to stress corn, soybeans, wheat and livestock in some areas, according to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Nearly 11 percent of the continental United States is in moderate drought or worse, said Richard Heim, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in this week’s drought summary. The report is compiled weekly using data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and NOAA.
“Much of Montana and parts of the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas had no rain this week; some areas have been drier than normal for the last two to three months; and some drought indicators re ect dryness for the last 12 months,” Heim wrote.
About half of the nation’s spring wheat, 13 percent of winter wheat, 15 percent of corn and 14 percent of the soybeans are in drought, the report said.
Consumers could see the price of bread at the grocery counter rise, said Doug Goehring, agriculture commissioner for North Dakota, the nation’s largest producer of spring wheat and second largest grower of wheat generally after Kansas.
“There have been people in this business for ve decades who have said they have never seen condi- tions like this,” Goehring said.
North Dakota farmers also lead the nation in production of navy beans, pinto beans and canola used for vegetable oil, and prices of those products also could be affected, Goehring said.
USDA has designated numerous counties in the three states as natural disasters, paving the way for emergency loans for producers, and governors of some states including Montana, Nebraska and North Dakota have declared some counties disasters to provide state aid.