Subject: SOUTH DAKOTA APPROVES SHELTER FUNDING ON LEGISLATIVE LAST DAY
From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 13:52:50 -0500

For Immediate Release from
FACES of South Dakota
Barry Wick, Executive Director

SOUTH DAKOTA APPROVES SHELTER FUNDING ON LEGISLATIVE LAST DAY
     The South Dakota House late yesterday approved continued funding
battered women's and child abuse shelters for another year.   Only  $250,000
dollars was at stake out of a $1.8 billion dollar budget.
     Even the legislators, Rep. Hal Wick, R-Sioux Falls, and Rep. Helena
Hassard, R-Hot Springs,  who proposed a no vote on the bill voted yes.   They
had tried to stop the shelters from remaining members of the South Dakota
Advocacy Network for Women because the SDANW had pro-choice and gay rights
positions out of the many issues they support.
     Rep. Wick had concerns that money supporting the shelters was being used
for lobbying.  He had to admit on the floor that 117 entities receiving state
funds also had lobbyists.     
     There were only eight of the seventy House members who wanted to
discontinue funding for the battered women's and child abuse shelters.
 Voting no were Rep. Eric Bogue, R-Dupree, Rep. Carol Fitzgerald, R-Rapid
City, Rep. Roger Hunt, R-Brandon, Rep. John Koskan, R-Wood, Rep. Bill Napoli,
R-Rapid City, Rep. J. E. Putnam, R-Armour, Rep. Lola Schreiber, R-Gettysburg,
Rep. Della Wishard, R-Prairie City.
     Verlaine Gullickson of the South Dakota Coalition Against Domestic
Violence and Sexual Assault said that now funding had been approved they'd
 work with the state for the next year. 
      RoAnn Redlin of the South Dakota Advocacy Network for Women spent the
entire last day in Pierre and could not be reached for comment.  It was
Redlin with whom the Legislators had taken exception because of her support
for the gay community in South Dakota against the marriage ban and her active
lobbying for both organizations.
     Rep. Roger Hunt had led the successful fight earlier this year to ban
marriage for same-sex partners. 
     Free Americans Creating Equal Status of South Dakota, a South Dakota
advocacy group for bisexual, gays, lesbians and transgendered persons,
assisted  SDCADVSA and SDANW in getting out the message to advocacy groups
across the nation.  FACES Executive Director Barry Wick said, " Up until this
vote they were making the religious political extremist decision.  The
legislators made the correct choice in the end probably because so many
called or emailed Governor Janklow's office.  Or it was the democrats who
told them they'd vote no on every single issue during the last day.  Believe
it or not we do have a few democrats in South Dakota and they're probably
more endangered than the black-footed ferret, Larry Pressler's favorite
delicacy."