South Dacola‘s Scott Ehrisman describes Thursday’s Sioux Falls debate on Initiated Measure 22, the Anti-Corruption Act, this way:
…we have Darrell Solberg, a Sioux Falls small business owner squaring off against Ben Lee, a representative of the one of the richest groups in America.
…[The Koch brothers] fight because they have the money to run us over and we the people fight because we must to survive [Scott Ehrisman, “Anti-Corruption Act Measure 22 at IPC 2016-09-15,” South Dacola, 2016.09.18].
Listening to a Koch brothers flunky sneer about rainbows and corruption upsets the stomach, but here’s the full video from Cameraman Bruce:
Note that Lee can cite instances of corruption in states with public campaign financing because the system worked: those states caught and convicted the corrupt pols. Of course, for Lee’s bosses, a statewide ethics commission that would catch such campaign finance chicanery is just more “bureaucracy” and government growth. The last thing the Koch brothers want is a government that’s big enough to check their Big Money corruption of our political process.
One thing that concerns me about the IM 22 debate is that neither side appears to be attracting in-state contributions. See my NPQ article:
Prairie Playground for Special Interests to Test Campaign Finance Initiative
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2016/08/18/prairie-playground-for-special-interests-to-test-campaign-finance-initiative/