GOP lawmakers steered probe into intoxicated state senators

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota Senate Republicans in a private 2020 meeting planned how to achieve an already-negotiated outcome to a committee investigating a pair of lawmakers for being intoxicated during legislative proceedings even before the committee had a chance to meet, according to a television report.

A transcript of the April 2020 Republican caucus meeting was obtained by KELO-TV and reported Sunday. It showed how Republicans held a private caucus meeting to discuss how to quickly and quietly resolve a legislative investigation into the two most powerful senators at the time, Sens. Kris Langer and Brock Greenfield. The pair were accused of showing up intoxicated at a legislative session that had stretched into the early morning hours as lawmakers discussed the state's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

For critics of Republican rule in South Dakota's Statehouse, the revelation of the meeting's details provided an egregious example of how the fate of bills and the workings of state government are often decided in closed-door GOP meetings.

“It's very closed, very secretive,” said Peggy Gibson, a former Democratic House member who spent years advocating, mostly without success, for ethics reforms in the Legislature. “Everything is decided ahead of time.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/gop-lawmakers-steered-probe-intoxicated-204114420.html