NCSL President Deb Peters.

• Author: Frazzini, Kevin
• Position: NEW OFFICERS

South Dakota Senator Deb Peters is the nation's leading legislative voice on internet tax fairness, an issue with tremendous budgetary consequences for states across the nation. She's testified before Congress on the issue and is fed up with congressional inertia, which is causing a loss to states of some $23 billion a year. She has sponsored a bill she hopes ultimately will provoke a U.S. Supreme Court decision in the states' favor.

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Peters, a fourth-term Republican senator, is NCSL's new president. Her determination in pursuing the federal legislation comes as no surprise to her supporters and colleagues. A certified public accountant and chair of her state's Government Operations and Audit Committee, Peters always has her eye on the bottom line--and in this case, the bottom line of the 45 states with the sales tax.

Leading the Effort

For more than a decade, Peters has led this national tax fairness effort. But after watching the Remote Transactions Parity Act in the House and the Marketplace Fairness Act in the Senate languish in congressional committees, she decided she'd had enough.

"I've played nice with Congress, I've been respectful of the system, I've been respectful of the process. I am done."

In 2016, she introduced state legislation allowing South Dakota to collect internet sales taxes. She worked with her governor and state businesses to write the measure so that it would fast-track the expected lawsuit through the courts. She says it was her "nuclear option"--and it had the desired effect: South Dakota sued four online retailers, who then countersued the state, and the case is now in the South Dakota Supreme Court, with a hearing date of Aug. 29. If it makes it to the U.S. Supreme Court--the end of 2017 or early next year is a great possibility--Peters is hoping it will reverse the 1992 Quill Corp. v. North Dakota case that restricts states' ability to collect sales taxes from retailers with no physical presence within their borders.

Her hard work on the national stage led Governing magazine to name her one of its 2016 Public Officials of the Year.

But her drive as a legislator comes from her love for her home state and a desire to see others succeed in business, as she has. Most major issues lawmakers face on a daily basis, she says, "are trying to keep the efficient programs running well and fix the glitches or find more efficiencies" in the ones that don't. "Rarely will you see South Dakota take a...