On the wrong side of history

Our neighbor Lorraine Collins always has an interesting perspective on a wide range of topics. Here's another that should catch your interest -- and perhaps spur a comment or two. Her commentaries appear regularly in the Black Hills Pioneer, and she graciously allows us to share them with on-line readers here.

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The first column I wrote for the Black Hills Pioneer in August, 2006, concerned the slow and reluctant implementation of Title IX, which mandated equal treatment for women and girls in schools and colleges. I reported that it was only then, after 30 years, that Black Hills State University was finally making some real progress in offering women's sports programs.~

One thing I noted in that article was that the State of South Dakota had filed a "friend of the court" brief in a case before the Supreme Court of the United States, supporting the city of Birmingham, Alabama fighting against Title IX. I wondered why South Dakota would defend the right of the Birmingham school district to say that it was okay for the school to fire a girls basketball coach when he complained that the girls team had to pay their own way to games and were allowed less practice time than boys and so forth. Why on earth would citizens of South Dakota defend such a thing?

I contacted the Attorney General's office to inquire. I was told that they had undertaken this at the request of the Associated School Boards of South Dakota and that the state did not have to spend any money to do this. The specific argument was that the coach was not covered by Title IX since he was not a girl, just a coach of girls. Luckily, Birmingham and South Dakota lost the argument, but I was pretty embarrassed to live in a state that would join such a lawsuit. It certainly demonstrated that when it came to equality for women, we were on the wrong side of history.

Now, all these years later, I'm embarrassed again. My state is party to a lawsuit to deny implementation of the health care reform act. Apparently this time the lawsuit will cost taxpayers some money, though Gov. Rounds said on PBS that he hoped it wouldn't be more than $30,000. I hope not, since I am told by most sources the lawsuit is frivolous and doomed. Those who think it's a great idea to sue the government cite Medicaid costs or they object to the federal government mandating that citizens buy health insurance. These are legitimate concerns, but since these folks also object to the so-called public option or anything as radical as single-payer health insurance, the only idea they seem to have is to leave everything as it is now.

But so far I have never heard any pundit or political leader claim that what we have now is doing the job of providing health care for millions of people, or reducing costs, or limiting fraud and abuse. Now finally, after decades of inaction, a year of argument, millions of dollars spent on lobbying and advertisements opposing health care reform, we have the beginning of some attempt to do something. At least we are finally on the road to trying to reform a health care system that burdens businesses and families, denies coverage to millions and costs us millions of dollars more than any other country in the world even though the World Health Organization ranks the US only 37th among nations in health care.

There will no doubt be detours and, I hope, improvements. But we have to start somewhere. Because of what seem to be the political realities in this country, and how the system works, we're starting here. Better than not starting at all. It's going to happen, more slowly than we may imagine, less perfectly than we'd like. But we are finally going to achieve something that many other nations have achieved generations ago.

So I'm sorry that the only thing we South Dakotans seem to think of doing is to join a law suit to try to stop it. This does not put us on the right side of history.


Lorraine Collins is a writer who lives in Spearfish. she can be contacted at collins1@rushmore.com.

The FUD factor

Our neighbor Lorraine Collins always has an interesting perspective on a wide range of topics. Here's another that should catch your interest -- and perhaps spur a comment or two. Her commentaries appear regularly in the Black Hills Pioneer, and this one is entitled "The FUD Factor and unintended consequences." Our thanks to Lorraine for allowing us to include her work on Black Hills Monitor.

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It was the last week of the State Legislature and I stayed up late enough to watch the Statehouse report on South Dakota Public Television. I was sleepily nodding through a long discussion about regulating the sale of goat milk when things suddenly got interesting. There was a brief, pungent discussion of HB 1135, a Bill to rescind all previous applications by the Legislature to call for a Constitutional Convention. What was that all about?

I sat up straighter as I heard Sen. Craig Tieszen of Rapid City say he was opposed to the Bill because "I think we are very close to needing to rein in an out of control federal government." He said a lot of things were going wrong in Washington and that we may need the states to hold a Constitutional Convention to fix things. But one of the Bill's sponsors explained that over the last 30 or 40 years 32 states, including South Dakota, had called for a Constitutional Convention for various reasons. If a total of 34 states said they wanted a Constitutional Convention, Congress would be forced to call one. And who knew what would happen then?

By a vote of 33 to 2, the State Senate approved the Bill to rescind all previous requests for what's familiarly known as a "Con-Con." Until that moment, I had been unaware of any serious move to call for a Constitutional Convention or any controversy about who wanted one and why. From Sen. Tieszen's remarks, I assumed that conservative, anti-federal government people were in favor of a Con-Con and liberals were not. However, as soon as I looked on the Internet for more information, I came across a website that insisted that President Obama was trying to get a Constitutional Convention so he could change the Constitution to suit himself. Good heavens! Who knew?

Several right wing websites, including that of the John Birch Society, warn against calling for a Con-Con because such a convention could not be limited to, for instance, passing a balanced budget amendment. The delegates to the convention could do pretty much whatever they pleased in terms of changing our cherished Bill of Rights or any Article of the Constitution. Such changes would become law when ratified by Legislatures in three fourths of the states or by "Conventions in three fourths thereof."

Article V of the Constitution doesn't specify how delegates to the Constitutional Convention would be chosen and I imagine that the selection process itself would be pretty wild and controversial. On the whole, I think it was a good idea for the South Dakota Legislature to draw us back from the brink. Now only 31 states are currently on record as wanting a Constitutional Convention and I imagine other states will be rescinding their applications for one when the possible unintended consequences of such a Convention become more widely recognized.

I had been totally oblivious to the controversy raging on the Internet about whether to call for a Constitutional Convention, but I'm not surprised by it. We seem to have become so suspicious of government and our political leaders that we are willing to believe any conspiracy theory that comes along. This is the result of what's called "The FUD Factor," the spreading of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Those opposed to current issues, whether health care reform, energy policy, or trying to regulate Wall Street, have long been trying to instill fear of government, uncertainty about our safety, and doubt about the integrity of our leaders.

The FUD Factor can undermine our confidence in government and make us cynical and mistrustful of all of our political leaders, no matter what party they belong to. The trouble is that those who foment such anxiety and unrest may become victims of it themselves. Those who believe that the way to political power is to inspire fear, uncertainty and doubt about government may discover some day that they have created an angry mob they cannot control. Anarchy, anyone? How's that for an unintended consequence?

Lorraine Collins is a writer who lives in Spearfish. She can be contacted at collins1@rushmore.com.