An Act to define style and form and authorize the code commission to make certain style and form edits to legislative acts.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of South Dakota:

Section 1. That a NEW SECTION be added:

2-16-20. Style and Form.

For the purpose of the code and legislative acts, style and form means:

(1) The customary manner by which a legal language is drafted, formatted, organized, or enrolled;

(2) The nomenclature or established manner of expressing or conveying legal language; and

(3) Edits or corrections that are clerical, organizational, or grammatical in nature or that relate to spelling or punctuation.

Style and form does not include any alteration of legislative intent or substantive policy.

Nothing in this section may be construed to define the powers of the Governor as set forth in S.D. Const., Art. IV, § 4.

Section 2. That § 2-16-9 be AMENDED:

2-16-9. Arrangement, correlation, and text changes in code.

The South Dakota Code Commission is hereby authorized to make such changes as may be necessary to correct that:

(1) Correct apparent errors, to correlate and;

(2) Correlate, integrate, and harmonize all the laws to harmonize, to assign;

(3) Assign new title and other designations, to eliminate;

(4) Eliminate or clarify obviously obsolete or ambiguous sections that exist, and to substitute terms or phraseology, and names of boards, commissions, and agencies, wherever the Legislature has expressly or by implication indicated an intention to do so, so as to provide consistency in the law; and

(5) Make changes necessary to allow the code to conform to current standards of style and form.