S.D. legislative Democratic leaders say session moving at a faster pace. House minority leader Lesmeister:

We are off and running this year at a faster pace than anyone has ever seen, which is great. We started discussing bills almost immediately. In the past, we waited until the second week to do so. This has been looked at and talked about for the past few years, and everyone appreciates the fast start to work through the bill load.

One of the bills that I will be carrying this year again will be the update to the Industrial Hemp Statute. We are No. 1 in the nation in production and processing. We are going to grow our acres to more than 6,000.

This industry is going to be huge with uses like animal bedding, herd for hempcrete and fiber. The South Dakota Industrial Hemp Association is working to bring a hemp block plant to the state. This plant would build hempcrete blocks to be used in construction of buildings. This is what I envisioned this industry to be when I first started bringing the original bill eight years ago.

With the workload increasing, we are also seeing more people coming to the Capitol to talk with legislators. This is and has always been the best way to communicate.

I sit on the House State Affairs Committee again this year and we have been working on bills concerning elections of party members, PUC issues, infrastructure on tribal lands, housing funds and even a bill to allow permanent daylight saving time.

We are seeing a draft load in the Legislative Research Council of over 600 bills this year. Sounds like South Dakota needs a lot more laws and regulations.

Some things of interest are always pipeline and property rights bills. We saw the first one of these in a House committee that would have restructured the way you can survey prior to permits being issued by the PUC. This bill failed to pass out of committee.

I am not, and never will be, against pipelines to move products. But, I am against using broad, sweeping eminent domain for private gain. I have always, and will continue, to stand with landowners on private property rights issues.

It's an honor and pleasure working for the people of District 28A and the state of South Dakota.

State Rep. Rep. Oren Lesmeister of Parade is the House of Representatives minority leader