In a minor exercise of unusual veto power, Senator Reynold Nesiba (D-15/Sioux Falls) nuked House Commemoration 8001, a bit of useless right-wing clapping for the National Rifle Association and its indoctrination of the youth into America’s deadly gun culture.

Representative Ben Krohmer (R-20/Mitchell) introduced HC 8001 to praise Friends of NRA and specifically his Mitchell chapter of FoNRA for raising lots of money to “support gun safety classes, hunter education courses, and youth shooting sports” and “increase awareness and support of the [obsolete, at best useless, and at worst deadly and destructive] Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

Commemorations receive no debate. Usually the presiding officer just puts them on the calendar, and if no one mentions it, the presiding officer simply deems them approved.

But Joint Rules 6H-4 and 6H-6 (I’m linking to the 2023 Joint Rules, since LRC appears not to have posted the 2024 Joint Rules yet) allow for any member of either chamber to object to a commemoration and stop it cold. The rules allow no debate over such an objection; one member says no, and the presiding officer deems the commemoration disapproved.

HC 8001 escaped the House without objection Wednesday morning, but Senator Reynold Nesiba objected yesterday, and President Rhoden had to deem the commemoration disapproved.

This disapproval will surely not deter the Mitchel Friends of NRA from continuing to raise more dark money for the NRA’s dark and self-serving ends.