Why is the steemdollars price now higher than steem itself?

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Steem is a free-floating currency with the price set by the interaction of supply and demand of traders in the market. The recent bear market has reduced the price of all cryptocurrencies with Steem falling back below $1. There is nothing magical about $1 for Steem and passing through $1 has no particular influence on the Steem price.

SBD (Steem Blockchain Dollars) have some control mechanisms with the aim of keeping the price pegged to $1, although in practice they only apply to stop SBD falling too far below $1. The main control mechanism is that you can exchange 1 SBD for $1 value of Steem (so for 2 Steem if the Steem price is 50c) irrespective of the price of SBD. 

So when SBD falls below $1 you can exchange your 1 SBD for $1 value of Steem and then repurchase SBD (at a price below $1) with this Steem, giving you more SBD than when you started. This arbitrage mechanism increases demand for SBD and serves to keep SBD close to $1. Note that this practice is not perfect, since the exchange from SBD to Steem is delayed for 3.5 days during which time SBD could rise back above $1, losing you money. [Note also that a haircut is applied once the price of Steem falls too far and the level of SBD "debt" is high compared to the overall value of Steem]

A second mechanism is the interest rate on SBD which can be raised by witnesses when SBD falls below $1, attracting more buyers for SBD and pushing the price back up towards $1.

While imperfect, these pegging mechanisms serve to prevent SBD falling too far below $1. So when the crypto markets fall Steem can descend below $1 but SBD tends to hover around the $1 level, meaning that the SBD price exceeds the Steem price.