Bills touching on presidential politics didn't fare well last week in the Legislature.

Rep. Shantel Krebs, R-Sioux Falls, won a committee vote for her bill to bring back the early presidential primary, but she lost the bill on the House floor.

Before lawmakers left Pierre for the weekend, the House State Affairs Committee also killed a bill to have the state participate in the National Popular Vote movement. That's an effort to give the national vote count deciding weight in presidential races, rather than Electoral College results.

Larry Sokol of the National Popular Vote told legislators his group has introduced or is introducing a similar move in 47 states. He said the system now allows two-thirds of states to be ignored by presidential candidates in the general election.

States with early primaries attract attention of presidential hopefuls, he says, but in the general election, only "battleground states" - those where the outcome is in doubt - are courted by candidates.

South Dakota almost always votes Republican for president, so neither major party candidate has a reason to campaign or advertise here, he said.

Sokol doesn't want to eliminate the Electoral College. Instead, if all states agreed to throw their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote nationally, each state might have some reason to be courted, he argues.

Krebs though said that the state's three electoral votes amount to six-tenths of 1 percent of the total electoral vote, while the state's popular vote is about three-tenths of 1 percent of the total popular vote.

In other words, South Dakota has more clout, albeit a modest amount, with the current system.

The measure died 10-2.