Bill Janklow

Bill Janklow
27th Governor of South Dakota
In office January 1, 1979 – January 6, 1987
Lieutenant	Lowell C. Hansen II
Preceded by	Harvey L. Wollman
Succeeded by	George S. Mickelson
30th Governor of South Dakota
In office January 7, 1995 – January 7, 2003
Lieutenant	Carole Hillard
Preceded by	Walter D. Miller
Succeeded by	Mike Rounds
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Dakota's At-large district
In office January 3, 2003 – January 20, 2004
Preceded by	John Thune
Succeeded by	Stephanie Herseth Sandlin
South Dakota Attorney General
In office January 3, 1975 – January 1, 1979
Born	September 13, 1939 (1939-09-13) (age 69) Chicago, Illinois
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Mary Dean Thom Janklow
Occupation	Politician, Lawyer

William John "Bill" Janklow (born September 13, 1939) is a former American politician with the Republican Party. He was a four-term Governor of South Dakota, and served in the United States House of Representatives for nearly a year before he resigned after being convicted of manslaughter following an automobile accident. He is currently a lawyer and lobbyist.

Early life

Bill Janklow was born in Chicago, Illinois. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1956 to 1959. He graduated from the University of South Dakota in 1964 and received a law degree in 1966. After graduation from law school, he was a Legal Services lawyer for six years on the Rosebud Indian Reservation.

Attorney General and Four-Term Governor

Janklow served as South Dakota's attorney general from 1975 to 1979. He was first elected governor in 1978, and he was easily reelected in 1982 with 70.9% of the vote, the highest percentage ever won by a gubernatorial candidate in the state's history. The legislature had repealed the personal property tax the year before he took office, but did not provide a replacement revenue source. Since the personal property tax funded local governments, the legislature mandated that the state government replace the revenue.

His first duty as governor was to suggest tax increases to meet that obligation. One of his first acts as Governor was signing into law a bill reinstating capital punishment (in 1979). Another major action in his administration was seeing South Dakota's cap on interest rates dropped. This allowed Citibank to open a credit card center in Sioux Falls from which it could charge high rates.^[1] Several states had similar usury laws but, under the federal banking rules, a state had to formally invite a bank into their state, and South Dakota was able to invite them before other states could invite Citibank. When the Milwaukee Railroad went into bankruptcy, Janklow called a special session of the legislature. The state purchased the main line of the defunct railroad. The state then leased its property to the Burlington Northern thereby preserving railway shipping of commodities for much of the state. Janklow also made serious attempts to increase accessibility for the disabled to public and private facilities in state.

Barred by state law from running again in 1986, Janklow challenged incumbent U.S. Senator James Abdnor in the Republican primary. Janklow lost, but the bruising primary battle weakened Abdnor, contributing to the latter's loss in the general election to Democrat Thomas Daschle, then South Dakota's lone member of the U. S. House of Representatives.

Janklow returned to politics in 1994, when he defeated incumbent Walter Dale Miller in the Republican gubernatorial primary. He was handily elected that year and was reelected in 1998. In his second two terms, Janklow cut property taxes for homeowners and farmers by 30% and made up the revenue loss caused by the voters repealing the inheritance tax.^[2]. Janklow is the longest serving governor in South Dakota history; he is the only person in the state's history to serve eight full years as governor, which he did twice.

Janklow pardoned his son-in-law, William Gordon Haugen II, for marijuana possession and driving while intoxicated. The pardon was sealed until after Janklow left office.

Record of Accomplishments while Governor

From early on in his political career, Janklow was someone people either loved or hated--often passionately so. Dubbed by some as the "pirate saint," Janklow amassed a fairly impressive list of achievements on behalf of the people of South Dakota during his 16 years as their chief executive.

•Through his "Bright Start" early childhood initiative, he:

• Mailed over 26,000 Bright Start Boxes to families of newborn babies.

• Created a statewide childhood immunization database that helped increase age-appropriate immunizations from 62 percent in 1994 to 80 percent when he left office in 2003.

• Responded to the fact that only 13 percent of children between the ages of 19 months and 36 months in South Dakota were immunized for chickenpox, by securing a new law that adds chickenpox to the list of immunizations required for school entry, and obtaining state and private funding for a campaign that immunized over 30,000 children during his final two years in office.

• Provided early intervention screenings to all South Dakota children up to age 3.

• Secured specialized equipment so that 95 percent of all babies born in South Dakota get hearing screenings before they leave the hospital.

• Established the Home Visitation Program, resulting in over 6,000 home visits by nurses to at-risk pregnant women and new mothers.

• Started the Responsive Parenting Classes for parents with children up to age 3. (By the time he left the governor's office, over 650 parents had taken the class.)

•While most public officeholders in America fly over natural disasters from 20,000 feet, he responded with immediate and massive organizational support -— and frontline personal involvement -— to tornadoes, floods, forest fires, wind storms, and blizzards. At many disaster scenes, he worked shoulder with shoulder with volunteer workers from every corner of the state.

•He promoted the nation's first-ever statewide Diabetes Screening Project, at which over 1,000 people at 590 sites in 222 communities administered free blood glucose tests to 31,536 adult South Dakotans. A majority of the locations also performed blood pressure tests.

•He responded to a statewide shortage of affordable housing by using prison inmates to build 1,000 "Governor's Houses" for senior citizens, for the handicapped, and for low-income people. The program, which allows prisoners to learn valuable job skills and good work habits, has also produced 45 day care facilities.

•He developed scores of programs that put prison inmates to work, learning good habits and preparing them for lives outside the prison walls. He put prisoners to work on projects like wiring the state's schools, roofing and tuckpointing buildings, renovating state buildings, refurbishing the State Fairgrounds, rebuilding bicycles and wheelchairs, assembling emergency lighting units, and constructing lifts and ramps for the handicapped -— over 15.6 million hours of productive work during his third and fourth terms.

•He increased the number of organ donors by over 55,000 by getting legislation passed, honoring families of organ donors, and energetically promoting an organ donation program.

•He started the State Children's Health Insurance Program, that since 1998 has been responsible for providing an additional 22,000 children of income-eligible parents with no-cost health care coverage.

•He encouraged the state Legislature to create, fund, and later expand the Advanced Reading Enhancement Approach (AREA) training for first, second, and third graders. He talked the Legislature into investing $6.6 million in the program.

•He extended the Common Sense Parenting Classes (for parents with children over 3) to include free classes for TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) recipients, and free classes for all parents receiving services from the state's Office of Child Protection Services.

•He funded 84 Out-of-School-Time projects serving over 6,000 students at 158 sites, with grant awards totaling over $4.8 million between 1998 and 2003. Twenty-two of those projects were funded by a $1 million special appropriation, approved by the 2001 Legislature at his request.

•He initiated a Child Safety Seat Distribution Project in 1996 that, by the time he left the governor's office in 2003, resulted in over 34,000 infant, convertible, and booster seats being distributed through over 80 local organizations.

•He started a statewide breast and cervical cancer screening program in which over 800 health care providers and over 230 health care facilities provided free mammograms and pap tests to over 5,000 women who met age and income guidelines, and who were underinsured. He also expanded the program to include Medicaid-funded treatment to those diagnosed with breast or cervical cancer.

•He expanded, three times, the Social Workers in the Schools program that works with children, parents, and siblings to build bridges between the home and the school.

•He encouraged the 1998 Legislature to pass two bills that help prevent fetal alcohol damage to children, and also help mothers straighten out their lives.

•He started a statewide crackdown against drinking drivers, using both enforcement and education to substantially lower the state's alcohol-related traffic accidents and fatalities.

•He began a coordinated statewide initiative against Family Violence, targeting the perpetrators of spouse abuse, child abuse, and sexual abuse.

•He contained a 1997 measles outbreak in central South Dakota to eight cases with a massive vaccination campaign that immunized 7,500 people in just four days. He then secured more than $950,000 in MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine from the Centers for Disease Control to provide recommended second doses to over 61,000 school children in grades five through 12 that autumn.

•He personally promoted the state's program for the Adoption of Children with Special Needs, resulting in scores of young people with physical and emotional disabilities being taken from the care of the state and placed into loving homes.

•He formed the Internet Crimes Against Children enforcement unit, to help families protect their young children against sexual predators who use the Internet to prey upon them.

•He worked with the Legislature to set up and fund the new Physician Tuition Reimbursement Program, which helps provide family doctors for rural communities.

•He helped make South Dakota a recognized national leader in the employment of citizens with disabilities.

•He instituted the national award-winning Alcohol and Drug Diversion Program for first-time juvenile alcohol and drug offenders.

Although controversial^[3], Janklow is among the more electorally successful politicians in South Dakota's history. He was elected to statewide office six times.

Election to Congress, Car Crash and Aftermath

In 2002, Janklow ran for the Republican nomination for South Dakota's only House seat. He defeated Democrat Stephanie Herseth, an attorney and granddaughter of former governor Ralph Herseth and his wife, former state Secretary of State, Lorna Herseth, by a vote of 180,023 to 153,656^[4]. Many experts believed that Herseth would have won had the Republicans fielded anyone other than Janklow.

On August 16, 2003, Janklow caused a fatal traffic collision when the white Cadillac Seville he was driving hit motorcyclist Randolph E. Scott at a rural intersection near Trent, South Dakota. Scott, a 55-year-old Minnesotan, was thrown from his motorcycle and killed instantly. Janklow suffered a broken hand and bleeding on the brain. In the ensuing investigation of the accident, it was determined Janklow was likely driving at least 70 miles per hour in a 55 mph zone and that he ran a stop sign at the intersection where the crash occurred.

Janklow was arraigned on August 29. In response, Janklow said he "couldn't be sorrier" for the accident. His trial began on December 1. In his defense, his lawyer argued that Janklow suffered a bout of hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, and was thus "confused" and "mixed up." Janklow testified that he had taken an insulin shot the morning of the accident and had subsequently not eaten anything throughout day, resulting in low blood sugar. Jurors were not informed of Janklow's record of three previous accidents and twelve speeding violations, though his driving history had been widely reported in the local media. He once got a ticket for speeding his motorcycle four blocks from his home to the Capitol, and another for not having the proper license endorsement to drive it. (Janklow has long been an unapologetic speeder; in a 1999 speech to the state legislature, he said, "Bill Janklow speeds when he drives – shouldn't, but he does. When he gets the ticket he pays it.")^[5][6]

On December 8, 2003, Janklow was convicted by a Moody County jury of second-degree manslaughter. A few days later, he resigned his seat in Congress effective January 20, 2004. This was because the conviction substantially limited his role in Congress; House rules do not allow congressmen who are convicted of felonies to vote or participate in committee work until the House Ethics Committee conducts an investigation. A special election was held and Herseth won against Republican candidate Larry Diedrich.

On January 22, he was sentenced to spend 100 days in jail. After 30 days, he was able to leave the jail for several hours each day in order to perform community service. He was released on May 17, 2004.

Scott's family sued Janklow for damages, but the court ruled that because Janklow was on official business at the time, he was protected from any monetary claims by the Federal Tort Claims Act, which ascribes liability to the government as opposed to the individual who is acting in a governmental capacity. In July 2006, Scott's family filed a $25 million wrongful death suit against the U.S. government. On January 5, 2006, the South Dakota Supreme Court granted Janklow's petition for early reinstatement of his license to practice law, effective February, 2006, though Scott's family opposed that. The lawsuit was settled on May 14, 2008 for $1 million.

Post-Political Career

Janklow currently works as a lawyer. In 2006, the Mayo Clinic retained Janklow to lobby against the DM&E Railroad expansion. He also represents landowners who are seeking more money from the railroad for the taking of their property. Approximately fifty-percent of his legal practice involves pro bono (without a fee) cases.

References

This article incorporates material obtained from the public domain Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

External links

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post Retrieved on 2008-04-02

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